Develop Organizational Skills

There are few skills more important than being organized. Once you’ve learned to become organized, you can carry those skills with you in your school, home, or work life. Stay productive and avoid stress by developing good organizational skills.

Steps

Gaining Organizational Skills at School

1. Get a spacious backpack. A good backpack with multiple compartments can assist your organizational development. Keep books in one pocket, assignments and class folders in another, and school materials like pencils and calculators in another.
2. Take notes in class. You can use multiple notebooks (one for each class) or just one big notebook separated into sections with dividers for each class. Listen carefully to your teachers or professors and write relevant material in the corresponding notebooks.
3. Organize schoolwork events and assignments. Put all your assigned homework, tests, and projects in a list. Order them by due date. For instance, if your math homework is due tomorrow, your history test is in four days, and your physics homework is due in two days, complete your math homework, then your physics homework, then study for your history test.
   • If you have two assignments due on the same day, do the easier one first. This way you will be able to get it out of the way and have an accomplishment under your belt to keep your momentum and motivation high.
   • When you get new assignments, projects, and tests, write them down in a daily notebook. At the end of the day, consult the notebook and revise your larger list of existing assignments and tests by incorporating the new assignments.
   • Get a planner. A planner is a special notebook specifically designed to help you schedule your time and keep due dates for tests, homework, and projects organized.
4. Use folders to manage your assignments. You can have one folder for each class. Use folders of different colors, and try to match them to the covers of the corresponding textbook for that class.
   • Within each folder, it is helpful to have (at least) two pockets. You can use one pocket for completed assignments that you wish to turn in, and one pocket for assignments which you have not completed and need to finish. If you have a third pocket in your folder, place returned and graded assignments in there.
5. Place sticky notes on important documents. If you have colored sticky notes, then you don’t even need to write on them. For instance, you could place a pink sticky note in a text book with half of it sticking out over the top edge of a page you want to study later. You could apply a green sticky note to assignments that are due next week. Use a system which makes sense to you in order to indicate due dates or levels of importance.
   • If you’re using non-colored sticky notes, write the relevant information on the sticky note. For instance, you might write “Due Tuesday, 2 November” to help you remember when something is due.
6. Use colored pencils or highlighters on important passages. When trying to identify the main idea of a text, or important information within a given paragraph, trace beneath it with a colored pencil, or go over it with a highlighter. This way, your eye will automatically be drawn to it when you flip through the text later.
   • Do not write in textbooks that you do not own.

Fostering Organizational Skills at Work

1. Identify what you want to achieve through organization. Do you want to work faster? Do you want to spend less time looking for documents or files? Organizational skills can enhance many aspects of your workflow. To help you stay focused on the best steps to remedy your disorganized work habits, think about what the end result of a more organized office or workspace might look like.
2. Start developing organizational skills with small, practical steps. The task of developing organizational skills can take time. Break it into smaller, more manageable chunks to ease the burden. Try to integrate at least one new organizational technique into your workflow each day.
   • For instance, you might start by organizing your desk drawer. The next day, maybe you’ll start by organizing your storage folders and files. The third day, you could try re-ordering your project queue so the work projects due soonest are on top.
   • Think about your work space and find small ways to become more organized each day.
3. Work on the most pressing assignments first. Give each assignments or project a separate folder and order them by due date or importance. After finishing a project, empty the folder and bin documents that you won’t need again.
   • If you are unsure which assignments are most pressing, or need more time to work on something, ask your boss which tasks are absolutely crucial and which can be deferred.
4. Discard clutter. You probably have a lot of stuff in your cubicle or workspace that has nothing to do with your work. Recycle it, throw it away, or take it home. For instance, your takeout menu from the local Chinese joint should be recycled. Even some work-related documents or items should be removed. You don’t need two pairs of scissors or two staplers, for example. Find an appropriate place for the extra stuff in your workspace.
5. Use the one-touch rule. The one-touch rule demands that you either discard, file, or act on a given memo or document (by, for instance, replying to it) immediately. By dealing with incoming documents immediately, you avoid a build-up of unread documents.
6. Put old documents you’ll need to consult again in folders. Label each folder clearly according to its contents. For instance, you might label one folder “Budget - 2012” and place everything related to the 2012 budget in that folder.
   • Do not keep or store documents you won’t need again.
7. Find an appropriate storage space for necessary documents. Once you have filed your old documents, find a way to store them. You could store them in small plastic boxes, or in vertical filing cabinets. Whatever method you choose, ensure they are ordered in a way that makes sense to you.
   • Your company or employer may have a protocol for storing necessary documents. Ask if you are unsure.
8. Make checklists. Each day, draft a list of everything you need to do that day. Rank the items from most to least important. The most important things are those which you need to do, or things that have a deadline or time limit. The least important things are those that can wait until another day if necessary.
   • For instance, if you have to pick up the dog from the vet, buy groceries, and read a book, then decide which is the most important (picking up the dog) and then decide which of the remaining two chores you’d rather do.
   • Planners are good tools for managing your time. A good planner will have both a calendar and a daily view, allowing you to add more detail for things you need to do.

Learning Organizational Skills at Home

1. Clean up regularly. You could divide household duties up on a permanent basis, or choose to rotate cleanup tasks. Keeping the house clean with or without a full family takes a lot of energy and can help develop planning and organizational skills.
   • If your family chooses to permanently assign cleanup chores, you might do the dishes each night, someone else might do the laundry, and someone else may do the vacuuming.
   • If you choose to assign cleanup tasks on a rotating basis, you could use a calendar to track who is responsible for what and when. You might write “Bobby, dishes / Sandra, laundry / Mike, vacuuming” on Sunday of one week. The next Sunday, you might write “Sandra, dishes / Mike, laundry / Bobby, vacuuming.”
2. Put things away when you’re done with them. Everything should have a proper place assigned to it. After you’ve used something, place it back where it belongs. For instance, put the salt and pepper on the table where they belong, and put dirty dishes in the sink when finished eating. Encourage the rest of your household to do likewise.
3. Choose a designated study or work space. Study or work in a space which is quiet, clean, and well-lit. It might be helpful to have a desk or table on which to work. Stock the drawers with small containers containing useful materials like pencils, erasers, and paperclips.
   • Try to keep your study space free of distractions like TV and video games. This might make it easier to stay organized and focused on your work.
4. Select a specific time to study time. Set aside time to study for tests and do your homework. Ideally, you should study at the same time each day. Think about your schedule and choose a time when you will feel fresh and motivated to get some work done. The best time to study is usually not immediately after school. Try to wait until shortly after dinner so you have some time to relax, shower, or talk to your friends.
   • For instance, if you get home at 3:00 each day and like to have a snack and chat with your parents, set aside time from 6:00 to 8:00 or so to work. Extend the study period if you need to.
5. Establish a regular bedtime. Getting enough sleep is always a challenge. Having a regular bedtime and wake-up time makes it easier. Set an alarm clock so that you wake at the same time each morning. If necessary, set an alarm clock to indicate when to go to bed as well.
   • With a regular bedtime, it may be easier to wake up fully rested and avoid scrambling for your breakfast, books, assignments, backpack, or suitcase.
   • Adults need to get at least seven hours of sleep each night. Aim to get at least that many hours of sleep. For instance, if you want to be up by 8:00 each morning, be in bed by midnight to allow yourself time to fall asleep.

Developing Organizational Skills With Technology

1. Take advantage of technology. Phones, computers, and tablets have many useful organizational tools. For instance, you could use your phone’s calendar to create automatic reminders that a certain assignment is due soon, or that a meeting is coming up. While these tools might have a slight learning curve, making use of them will help you develop your organizational skills.
   • You could also download useful organization apps to help you develop organizational skills. Things is an app that helps you create checklists and break complex tasks down into simple steps. RescueTime is another useful app to help you keep track of your time when you’re online by monitoring and reporting back to you what you’re looking at the most.
   • Besides the calendar, you can organize names, phone numbers, email addresses, and home or business addresses with your phone.
2. Organize your electronic files. Create a folder named for each assignment or class you have to add work on. For instance, you might create three folders labeled “History,” “English,” and “Sociology.” Within each folder, you could add new folders with dates for each week of assignments you have.
   • For example, you might create a folder titled “6/6 - 6/10/2016” to manage all your assignments written between the dates named in the folder.
   • Alternately, you could just keep all your files on a given project or topic in one folder, and use the operating system’s built-in organizational options to sort the files by date of creation.
3. Use the one-touch rule for email. When you receive an email, reply to it immediately if necessary, or archive it if you think you’ll need it in the future. Delete old messages you won’t need again. Check your email at least once a day to ensure they don’t pile up. The more emails you have, the less likely you’ll want (or be able) to sit and check them all.
4. Use a digital watch. A watch helps you manage your time. Without a watch, you will be constantly looking around for a clock, or forget about the time altogether.
   • Set the timer on your watch to ring when you need to transition to another task. Factor in the time it takes to get ready and travel to your next destination as necessary. For example, if you have to be at school at 8:00, you might set your watch to, for instance, 7:30 so you have time to prepare and travel there.

Tips

• Once you form good organizational habits, they will last a lifetime.

Related Articles

• Be Organized
• Get Your Personal Finances Organized
• Organize Your Home Office
• Organize Your Desk

Sources and Citations

See also

• Use Your Summer Vacation Time Wisely
• Be Organized
• Be Organized in Middle School
• Organize Your Time Wisely
• Manage Time and Prioritise Work
• Develop Your Sense of Time
• Get Things Done Fast
• Organize Your Life
• Get Into the Habit of Using a Day Planner
• Get a Day off Work by Pretending You've Experienced a Death

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