One major issue with student life is time. Having enough time to do, well, everything! You have studying, classes, social lives, perhaps volunteering commitments, jobs, or both. You may have family responsibilities like me, doctors appointments, extra, extra. Basically we have a lot to do and very little time (it feels like) to do it in. So once again I’m going to give you some of my top tips for staying organised and limiting your stress, all while getting everything you need done, done.

First tip, and the most important one –

Give yourself one, whole day, yes one entire day, completely off. No study, no class, no job, just you time or friend time or family time. Everyone, no matter their circumstances needs time off. Taking one day really does make you motivated the rest of the week. Taking a day off lets your mind refresh and relax. Its important.

Second tip – Calendars!!!

While this may seem obvious, it is not; not the way I use them. I have 3 calendars in my room, the one on my phone and a separate planner app (Planner Pro via the App Store); so 5 in total. No you may be sitting there thinking, what on earth, she is crazy, why does she have 5 calendars. Well, I will tell you…

Calendar 1 – I have one calendar on my door so it’s the first thing I see when I come into my room. This contains my day to day goings on, such as class times, any appointments or social stuff. This calendar also acts as a poster as it is Marvel Comics themed so I have some decoration as well.

Calendar 2 – I have a small desk calendar that does the same thing the one on my door does but its on my desk so I can always see it when I’m working.

Calendar 3 – The most important one. This calendar is amazing (yes I know that’s geeky lol). It has five columns on each month, one column is for my classes, one for what I’m studying that day, one for my volunteering plans, one for appointments and one for my (small lol) social life. This calendar is amazing. I recommend this one highly even if you don’t want to do the other two (I know thats a bit OTT but I’m odd haha). This calendar is by Busy B. It can be bought directly from their website (www.busyb.co.uk) or from Amazon. It’s advertised as a family calendar, but its so useful for students (the cover picture of this blog is of this calendar).

Calendar 4 – Planner Pro. This is the app I use on my phone. This imports your IOS calendar to the app and allows you to add tasks that only appear on this app. I use the tasks for what I’m studying that day. I highly recommend this app it’s really amazing. You can get the Lite version for free and then the full version for £3.99 a year! And it syncs across your phone and tablet!

Calendar 5 – The IOS calendar on my iphone. I use this calendar for everything apart from my study tasks. This I always keep up to date because I can’t carry my others around with me (lol), and because I set reminders for everything in my calendar (which is very useful)!

My third and final tip –

Every Sunday sit and plan out your week. I like to try and plan out each month, but often life happens and my plans change. So I recommend for people out there who aren’t as excited as I am about organising to plan each week. This includes any studying you need to do. Don’t give yourself a time frame as I find this stresses me out if I don’t get it all done in that time frame. I just write down I need to have this done by the end of the day today, that way I can go about everything else and not feel stuck in a time frame. I can do a few hours here, go out, come back and do a few more hours. I find this makes everything less stressful and makes me more motivated to study, because it feels more relaxed, less like a chore.

So there are some tips from a very enthusiastic organiser. Oh and also buy a lot of tip-ex tape if you like writing in pen like me; trust me you will need it, and I think the tape is far less messy compared to the liquid.

I hope this helps! If you have any questions feel free to comment and I will try and answer.