Organizing Your Space and Yourself

An organized workspace and an organized life both help college students succeed.

Each day, college students must adroitly balance academics, employment, extracurricular activities, social lives and other obligations. Accomplishing this requires organization and orderliness. Organization comes naturally to some college students while others struggle.

College students often complain about a lack of time. To address this issue, college students should work to become organized in both their physical workspace and life overall. This means that, in order to succeed, college students should keep their living and working area neat and orderly. It also means that students should establish order in their lives through time management, goal-setting, prioritization, and other strategies. Organization increases efficiency, which in turn increases productivity.

One important initial step in organization would be to sort through and reduce clutter. One type of clutter plaguing college students is the obvious physical type affecting their personal space, such as piles of paper, unused items and trash stacked on a disorganized dorm room desk. Another type of clutter requiring reduction is non-physical, consuming time and energy. Examples of this type of clutter may be an unnecessary activity, pastime or habit a college student engages in that would advantage the student if eliminated. Both types of clutter decrease efficiency and productivity.

To be successful, college students should acquire and utilize strong time management skills. Many students find it helpful to keep an agenda or to create a to-do list each day to consider, plan and visualize what must be accomplished. Students should also remember to prioritize and focus on what is most important.

Organized students will find that their lives run more smoothly and are less stressful, they have more time to accomplish their daily responsibilities and assignments, and they can ultimately achieve success.