You're now in­to a bright, new school term. Now is the per­fect time for you to start off on the right foot, and get or­gan­ised. Here are a few tips to help you man­age your time, avoid clut­ter, set goals, and stay on an or­gan­ised path to suc­cess.

GOALS

Set re­al­is­tic goals at the be­gin­ning of the school term, and break those large goals in­to mi­ni-goals. Write these goals down on in­dex cards and keep them in a high­ly vis­i­ble place where you can see them every day. Writ­ing down your goals make them more con­crete, and mo­ti­vate you to keep work­ing to­wards them.

DON'T RUSH

Wake up ear­ly enough for school to ar­rive well ahead of time. If you need 30 min­utes to get up, show­er and dress, pad that time by wak­ing up at least 45 min­utes pri­or to your de­par­ture. To en­sure you don't turn off your alarm clock and go back to sleep, place your clock at the far end of your room. This way, you ac­tu­al­ly have to get out of bed to turn it off, and you're most like­ly to stay up.

PRE­PARE YOUR WARDROBE

Be­fore you go to bed each night, iron and lay out your clothes for the next day. This way, you'll be all set to dress and go in the morn­ing.

AVOID CLUT­TER

At the be­gin­ning of the school term, you have no clut­ter. Be care­ful not to build clut­ter as the term pro­gress­es. Cre­ate sep­a­rate fold­ers for school an­nounce­ments, tests that have been grad­ed, pa­pers you must give to your par­ents and so on. As pa­pers be­come out­dat­ed, such as an event that has passed, toss them im­me­di­ate­ly.

MAKE TO DO LISTS

Al­ways spend a min­i­mum of 15 min­utes per day, prepar­ing your 'To Do' list for to­mor­row. In do­ing so, you will know ex­act­ly what tasks you have to ac­com­plish the next day.

EF­FEC­TIVE STUDY AREA

Des­ig­nate a qui­et, well-lit area for study­ing. Don't study in front of the tele­vi­sion, or in an area of your home where you're bound to be dis­tract­ed. Hang a 'Do Not Dis­turb' sign on your door. If you can't find a qui­et spot at home, go to the li­brary. In ad­di­tion, you should study while sit­ting at a ta­ble or desk. Avoid study­ing in a very com­fort­able chair or a bed, which may cause you to feel drowsy.

GET YOUR BEAU­TY SLEEP

Get a good night's rest. This will en­sure you are alert and ready to learn the fol­low­ing day.

AN AP­PLE A DAY

Eat three healthy meals each day, along with fruit for snacks. Don't over­load on sweets these cause you to feel tired.

AVOID OVER­LOAD

While you may sign up for ex­tra school ac­tiv­i­ties, don't take on too much. First de­ter­mine how much study time you need. Then, choose one or two recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ties that you en­joy.

USE A STU­DENT PLAN­NER

Use a good stu­dent plan­ner or or­gan­is­er. The ones that have pock­et fold­ers, di­viders and plan­ning cal­en­dars are ide­al.

USE ONE CAL­EN­DAR

Use one cal­en­dar to plan all of your school and per­son­al ac­tiv­i­ties, rather than two or more. When you use more than one, you run the risk of sched­ul­ing con­flicts and miss­ing ap­point­ments. This is very im­por­tant. Heed the old proverb, 'A man who wears two watch­es, nev­er knows the cor­rect time.'

COLOUR-CODE

You may con­sid­er colour-cod­ing sim­i­lar ac­tiv­i­ties on your cal­en­dar. For ex­am­ple, high­light all up­com­ing tests in yel­low, study time in green and recre­ation­al ac­tiv­i­ties in pink.

WRITE IT DOWN

When you learn of an up­com­ing test, event, or any­thing you must pre­pare for or at­tend, im­me­di­ate­ly jot it in your plan­ner. Don't wait for lat­er, or you may for­get about it.

BREAK UP YOUR STUDY TIME

De­ter­mine how many study hours you need, and sched­ule study time in your plan­ner. For ex­am­ple, if you need six hours of time to study for a test, you may break that time up in­to six ses­sions, of one hour each. Choose the six days, and make a study time no­ta­tion in your cal­en­dar.

SCHED­ULE CON­SIS­TENT STUDY TIMES

Set aside time every day for study, and make it con­sis­tent. For ex­am­ple, set your study time for each af­ter­noon from 4:00pm to 6:00pm. What­ev­er you do, avoid last minute study­ing and cram­ming.

BREAK IT UP

Break up big tasks, in­to small­er, bite-sized jobs. For in­stance, if you have to study three chap­ters in your his­to­ry book, study one chap­ter at a time each day. If you have to work on a project, break it down in­to three or four stages.

EAT YOUR BROC­COLI FIRST

Imag­ine eat­ing your dessert be­fore your broc­coli. What would be left for you to look for­ward to? Just the same, do your home­work for your most dif­fi­cult sub­jects first. Then, every­thing else will be a breeze, and there­fore, more en­joy­able.

http://www.getor­ga­nized­now.com

Maria Gra­cia