41. 100 Organization Tips for School and Work: Part 1 (1-50)
Episode 41
Grab your pen or open your notes app — this is an episode you'll want to take notes on!
In Part 1 of this 2-part series, I'm sharing 50 quick-fire organization tips to help you streamline every aspect of your school and work life: study spaces, offices, dorms, time management, tasks, files, and more. Be sure to catch Part 2 (Episode 42) for tips 51 through 100!
🎙️Other Episodes + Resources Mentioned
Episode 02 → Everything You Want to Know About Learning and Working Styles
Episode 05 → 3 Most Important Areas to Organize
Episode 09 → Secrets of a Good Task Management System
Episode 28 → 6 Tips for Organizing Papers
✏️ FREE DOWNLOADS:
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The following transcript was autogenerated and may contain some interesting and silly errors. But in the name of efficiency and productivity, I am choosing not to spend my time fixing them. :)
41 100 Organization Tips for School and Work Part 1 (1-50)===
[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the learn and work smarter podcast. This is episode 41. And we are in part one of a two part series all about organization for school and work. This episode and part two, which will be episode 42 are going to be jam packed with 100 organization tips that you can use in your office or your dorm or your study space, your digital space, your tasks, and all of the things that are related to work and school.
We are going to cover 50 tips in this episode and 50 tips in episode 42.
Now, before we jump into the meat and potatoes here, I want to remind you that there is a transcript of this episode, which means that all of the tips are spelled out in text for you to come back to in the future.
And that is at learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/41. That's learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/41. And that will take you to the show notes where [00:01:00] you can access everything that I mentioned today.
All right. Grab your pens and your paper or your notes app. And let's dive in.
Okay. So some of the tips that we are about to cover today are applicable just to students and some are for working professionals and some will be helpful for both.
Choose what you like and leave the rest; you know the drill.
Also, I want to direct you to another episode of the learn and work smarter podcast that might be helpful to listen to after this one. Two episodes, actually. That's episode nine, the three most important areas to organize and then episode 28, which are sips [00:02:00] six tips for organizing papers.
Okay, let's go 50 organization tips.
Number one, keep your home and workspace clutter-free. That means tidy your desk every night before bed, wipe down the surface daily and keep only the basics on your surface.
Number two: label your cords and chargers. Identify what all cords and charges go to and label them with a Sharpie or write them on a piece of tape.
Throw away anything useless or old.
Number three: hang a whiteboard or a visual calendar either, or, or both, next to your desk. Magnetic whiteboards and calendars are great visualization tools, especially a calendar calendar whiteboard combo. You'd write the new dates each month and you would add important information and dates as they arise.
Number four: hang file racks on the walls near your work space. You can use sticky command strips to hang multi-tiered file racks on your wall to free up [00:03:00] desk space. These are great for, you know, schedules, syllabi, contact lists, computer paper, or anything that you access on weekly basis.
Number five: hang a key hook on your wall next to the door. Hanging a simple key hook, like a command strip hook, right on the wall next to the inside of your dorm room door, or maybe the entry to your home encourages you to immediately hang up your keys instead of just throwing them on your desk.
Number six: use sticky notes for out the door reminders.
If you don't want to forget something in the morning, slap a sticky note memo to your door or your door knob. Okay.
Number seven: Set up your desk space according to your learning preferences. Even if your college desk or your home desk or your workspace is small and minimal, I suggest setting it up according to your learning preferences. I have resources with tips for each of the primary learning preferences, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic linked in the show notes.
Number eight: avoid storing important [00:04:00] items more than two touch points away. Should be able to access important items in two or few touches. So avoid, you know, closed folders within drawers and covered boxes behind doors.
Number nine: empty your trash regularly. Make it a habit of emptying your office, your dorm room trash at least once a week. More if you're throwing away food items. If you are leaving for an extended period of time, even the weekend spray the can with Lysol.
Number 10 means a large digital clock on your desk or your wall. I know that we all have clocks on our phones and on our computers, but the key to organizing your time is seeing the time large digital clocks keep us cognizant of the time and are helpful for Pomodoro sessions.
Number 11: hang glasses, hats and headbands on hooks. I kind of wish command hooks would sponsor me. You can keep your space organized by hanging simple hooks on the inside of your closet doors or your cabinet doors for a [00:05:00] desk, even on the side of your actual desk furniture.
Number 12: store pens and pencils in a pen holder on your desk and not in a drawer. Now I know not all desks come with drawers, but even if they do, storing writing utensils in a pen holder is kind of a hack to help you contain how many pens and pencils and writing utensils that you have.
If you have more than can fit in a simple pen holder, get rid of some pens.
Number 13: keep basic school and office supplies handy in one location. Store all of your basic supplies like stapler, elastics, paperclips, binder clips, rulers, scissors, extra staples, tape, whatever, all in one spot, like a clear bin or a shoe box.
All backups should be in one spot.
Number 14: Keep your writing utensils minimal. You do not need 27 pen colors. You do not need a chisel tip highlighter. And a wide tip pen highlighter. [00:06:00] Okay. Unless, of course you're me. In which case you do need them all and you need them all in every color guys. So this tip is for everybody else.
Number 15: Use adhesive cord clips.
It's kind of hard to describe an audio, but if you keep a charger at your desk and it keeps sliding, you know, like down the wall, Behind the desk you can use a little adhesive cord clip. There are these little round things to keep your cords organized, accessible, and off the ground. If you Google it or Amazon, it, it, the right thing will come up.
Number 16: store basic cleaning supplies like wipes, within easy access. If your cleaning supplies are hard to access your college dorm or your office won't be clean. It's as simple as that. Use an all purpose or multi-surface cleaning splurge, spray, or simple like Lysol wipes to keep supplies to a minimum.
Number 17: store books vertically instead of horizontally. Books are easier to access and they look neater when you [00:07:00] store them upright with the spines facing out. You can use simple bookends to keep books from tipping over, or just use your lamp like which I do.
Number 18: utilize under the bed storage for extras, but don't have a lot of extras.
This is obviously if you're living in a dorm room or maybe a small apartment. So you can store extra paper towels, shampoos, shoes, all those like little things under the bed. But the real strategy here is actually to avoid having a lot of extras in the first place.
Number 19: do a daily floor sweep. Take two minutes before bed to pick up your floor. Okay. Put the laundry in the hamper. Line up your shoes, put a gym bag away. Same if you work at an office: before you leave for the day, pick things up off the floor.
Number 20: use a laptop stand that gives you space underneath it. It is ergonomically and anatomically better to raise your screen to eye level, to eye height, right?
We know that also raising your laptop gives you a little bit of extra [00:08:00] storage space on your desk for pens and sticky notes and other Desky items. If you're working with a small space to begin with, right?
Number 21: Label every box clearly and avoid stacking more than two boxes high. So every box with a cover should have a label on the outside. If you change the contents of the box, change the label. And as I just said, a like max out at two boxes stacked on top of one another. If you have that much stuff considering, considering decluttering decluttering it or moving it to a different location away from your work or your study space.
Number 22: keep utility items in a small labeled box.
That's like batteries and bulbs and flashlights, a screwdriver, all the command hooks I keep mentioning. Store all these items in one location. Don't forget your keyboard and your mouse batteries.
Number 23: label, all your USBs and external hard drives. Use a Sharpie to write directly on the drive, or you can [00:09:00] always write on a piece of tape or label. If you don't know what's on a particular drive, pop it into the computer and assess if it's worth keeping in the first place.
Number 24: store extra trash bag liners underneath your current trash bags. Storing extra trash bag liners under the bag that's currently lining your trash bin encourages us to take the trash out more because we remove the friction of having to go find another bag.
Right. 25: We are halfway through! Before finding a place to store or organize something, consider if you really need it. In other words, do not organize trash. We only organize what we intend to keep, actually probably should have started with this one, right. Because it's pointless to organize things that we don't even need in the first place. So get in the habit of asking yourself, do I need this? What could someone else get more use from it than me?
Number 26: organize and reduce materials at the end of each school year. [00:10:00] I have a, um, alternative for, uh, uh, professionals to hold on.
When you pack up your dorm room at the end of the school year, you want to declutter old course papers, unwanted clothes, and unneeded textbooks. You be intentional and you thought and thoughtful about organizing the items that you plan to bring back to college in the fall, if you're returning in the fall. So then you don't need to refined and repack them when you returned to campus. Same thing any time you switch jobs, the things that you bring with you and that you, um, choose to keep or not be super intentional about it.
Number 27: add corner shelves near your bed. You could also add corner shelves near your work space if your workspace is in a corner. Using a corner shelving unit- they're not that expensive.
You can find some cheaper ones- as a nightstand to free up space or to keep sleep items like ear plugs, you know, books, chapsticks, et cetera, whatever nearby can be a really good idea. Just be considerate of weight restrictions, read the product specs to make sure that nothing falls on your face [00:11:00] in the middle of the night.
Number 27: use an analog task management system.
If you're a student using an assignment notebook, I suggest having a monthly calendar and a daily calendar. The daily section is where you write your assignments. It's also called like a weekly, a weekly spread. Same if you're a professional and you're setting up a task management system. We talk all about creating task management systems in episode five.
Now a task management system, just to pause real fast here, is different than a project management system. Okay. If you are a professional managing large scale projects regularly, you may need more than an analog task system. You may need more than, you know, a planner of sorts. In that case, you might benefit from a digital system. I've said this a thousand times, but I use Asana to track my projects and manage my projects.
There's also monday.com and notion and things like that. There's plenty of free versions out there.
Number 29: don't rely on your learning management [00:12:00] systems- so that's like a canvas and Google classroom- for homework tracking. Please hear me. Your learning management system, or your LMS is for submitting assignments and accessing course materials and links. It is not for keeping track of tasks and homework assignments. So you use your LMS to fill in your assignment notebook, right, at the end of each day. But you don't use it as your assignment notebook.
Number 30: separate your course materials. This one is for students. Use separate notebooks and folders for each subject. In most cases, avoid five subject notebook because you will not take the same amount of notes for all of your classes. The one exception is if you have ADHD, because you will likely actually benefit from a five subject notebook because managing that requires fewer executive functions.
Number 31: consider a color matching folders and notebooks for each subject. Okay.
This is like visual organization, a purple folder and a purple notebook for English. Right? All green for biology. [00:13:00] Bonus tip clearly label your notebooks and your folders in large writing on the front cover.
Number 32: keep an organized system for hybrid notes. Okay. This is for school and the office. To stay organized I suggest truthfully sticking to one note taking system, either digital or analog. Okay. But if you have to use both, you want to keep your notes organized by using the same naming convention and note taking format across all your digital and paper files.
Number 33: use reading schedules. Reading consumes time.
Somehow we always forget this mathematical fact. To organize your time around reading, figure out your reading speed. So how many minutes take it minutes it takes you to read a single page and then determine how many pages that you're going to need to read per day to meet your deadline.
Number 34: throwaway duplicates. You do not need two copies of the syllabus or two copies of the same handout.You don't need to have the same flashlight [00:14:00] or two staplers. One, and done is the name of the game if you want to get organized.
35: Only use a three ring binder if you plan to hole, punch all your papers or if you plan to use folders inside the three ring binder. Three ring binders used to be the organizational holy grail, but they are only useful if you player at plan to carry around a whole bunch. And nobody does that. Okay.
36: Bring your task management system with you everywhere you go. Never leave your dorm room or your house to go to the office without your planner or your assignment notebook.If that is cumbersome and annoying to you, then get a smaller half size planner. They're called like half size or junior size.
Number 37: organize all your papers and files after each semester. If you're a student or quarterly if you're a working professional. Whenever a class or a semester ends sort through your papers and throw away what you don't need. [00:15:00] Store, what you do need. Do the same for your digital files.
If you're in the professional space, you would do this quarterly.
Number 38: Use Google calendar or outlook calendar, of course, a digital calendar for due dates and test dates and project deadlines,. Not for tasks.
Google calendar or your digital calendar it's not for homework or tasks or projects. It is for time sensitive and deadline based events. This include due dates and test dates, deadlines meetings. Right? We get this information from our syllabus or email or wherever it comes from. And we can add due dates as calendar events and set it to all day, okay, if we want to add it to the top of the calendar, like a digital reminder.
Number 39: get notebooks with the right type of paper. You're going to take meter and more organized notes if you like the writing experience. Get good quality notebooks, not like the ones you use, you know, in high school that are for like 50 cents each. Consider the differences [00:16:00] between wide ruled college ruled, narrow ruled papers also consider the weight and the smoothness only you can choose the right paper for you.Number 40: 10 left, always date in title year notes, always put the date and the title on the top page of your analog notes.
And this goes for meetings too.
Number 41: Plan enough time to study and to read and to prepare. Studying and reading consume tons of time. Especially in college, but because these aren't sort of like Submittable activities, like a worksheet is right. We don't often plan enough time to do them. So when you're creating your daily schedule block off time for reading and studying, as well as for your traditional homework. If you're a working professional, the same for you, right, in terms of preparing for meetings and presentations or doing any readings that's required of you.
Number 42: plan out your study sessions and or large chunks of open time. Do not wing your [00:17:00] study sessions, map it all out before you sit down to study. Professionals, if you know that you have an upcoming chunk of time in the next few days, right to just put your head down and crank out some work plan, every detail of that time so you do not waste a minute.
Number 43, use a limbo folder for papers that you don't know whether to keep or to toss. A limbo folder- that's what I've named it is a single folder that you designate as a temporary holding place to keep things that you don't know if you're going to need again temporarily, right?
Notes, worksheets, papers, related to projects, things like that. Ideally, you would know whether to keep them or toss them, but sometimes we don't and if you're struggling with that decision, Add them to your limbo folder for a few weeks, and then go back into the limbo folder and make your choice, your decision then.Number 44: use status notes, digital or sticky notes, okay. Whatever, whenever you stop in the middle of a project, status notes are simple but amazing. Every time you stop working on [00:18:00] a project before it's done, you write a quick status note, including what your last step was and what your next step is.
And yes, I have a free status note template available for you in the show notes.
45: don't keep more than three sizes of sticky notes and you might be thinking, why would I ever have three sizes? Trust me, I've seen it. Keep three sizes of sticky notes handy. Keep them organized in a small container. These are the three sizes.
If you're going to go for three, that I'd recommend: a three by three, which are for reminders and status notes. One and a half by half an inch tags, which are great for marking book pages, and one and a half by two for book annotations.
46: consider using disc bound notebooks. I organize my entire life in disk bound notebooks. The advantages of a disk bound notebook system is that you can move pages around.
You can insert new pages. You can remove pages when you're all done, all while keeping your notebook neat and organized. I personally use a combination of Levenger and staples arc brands.Number 47: [00:19:00] Remove junk pages from your notebooks. Whether you're using a disc bound notebook or not tear out messy and unnecessary pages from your notebook, you only want to keep the best.
48: leave enough white space in your notes. Your digital and your analog notes should have sufficient white space between ideas. For paper notes, leave at least two blank lines between concepts.
49: Oh my gosh. We're almost there. Rewrite your notes for challenging subjects. If you're in college, you know, that college is hard, right. And hard things require good habits. Rewriting or, you know, filling in the gaps in your notes after class, ideally the same day is a good habit that once you'll do it, you wish you'd started earlier. This can also work great for meeting notes if you're a working professional.
Number 50: the last one, keep track of your syllabus for every class. Print it out and put it on the inside of a folder. Highlight important dates, highlight [00:20:00] assignments, write all over it. Look at it a lot. All right.That was a lot of tips. Remember, you can find a transcript of this episode at learnandworksmarter.com/podcast/41.
If you listened to this episode while driving and you weren't able to take notes, that transcript will probably be really helpful.
Now remember, this is part one of a part two series. Part two is episode 42.And remember. Nobody is expecting you to implement all of these strategies at once. In fact, some of them might not even apply to you at all. But we went over 50 tips today and if there was even just one that could help you simplify and organize your work or study life, then do it.
Tips 51 through 100 are in the following episode: episode 42. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for your support.And remember: never stop learning.
