I SUCK at keeping New Year's resolutions: How to keep organised in school 1/3

If you know anything about me, you know that I seriously cannot keep a New Year's resolution, whether it be keeping a diary or working out. It has been almost 5 weeks since the new year started and I have done very little about my resolutions.

My first resolution was to blog more. Haha, that worked out well, didn't it? 5 weeks in and I'm making my first post of the new year. My second was to be healthier. To be completely honest, I could be doing a lot more about that resolution, but I got lazy. My third was to be more on top of things when in comes to school, and surprisingly I have actually managed to keep this resolution for the most part. And my fourth resolution was to be more self-confident, optimistic, and happy in general. This has been kind of hard for me because I've grown up with a generally negative outlook, but I do have some tips that have been working for me. Of course it is a work in progress and it's not going to happen over night, but I've found that these things have been slowly been helping me.

I've decided that this year I'm not going to to let these resolutions slide and I am going to make a conscious effort to keep my resolution. This is going to be a three part blog post because there is a lot to cover. If you haven't guessed by the title, part one is going to be about tips on staying organised in school. This past semester I have managed to stay organised throughout the year and I have been rewarded with better marks. Here are some ways I've managed to do it.

1. Use notebooks instead of loose leaf

I switched to using notebooks this year and it has really helped me organize my notes. By keeping notebooks instead of loose leaf, there is literally no chance of my misplacing my notes. They are all in one place and it is so much more convenient when it comes to studying for tests.

2. Date everything

Seriously, go out with all of your notes. Haha naw I'm kidding, but writing the date on all of your notes helps a ton, whether or not you use a notebook. By putting the date on everything, instead of digging through your notes to find that one sheet that you did that one day, you can just look that the top corner of all your sheets. Also, it helps if you put your notes in chronological order, which is why I prefer notebooks over loose leaf; your notes are automatically in chronological order with notebooks.

3. Plastic sleeves

If you don't know what I am talking about, you can find these plastic sleeves at any school supply store (i.e, staples, walmart, etc.) and you can put sheets inside of them. I have 3 sleeves in my binder at all times. One is for homework, one is for forms and things that need to be handed in, and one is for and sketches or doodles I do throughout the day that I feel like keeping. I find these sleeves help me to prevent loosing important forms and keep me on track with handing in my homework.

4. Make a strict homework schedule

As soon as I get home and finish eating, I always lay out all of my homework in front of my and make myself a little schedule. I look at all of my homework and I organize it in order of priority. For example, if I have 3 assignments to do, one is due tomorrow and is easy, one is due the day after and is moderate, and one is due the day after and is huge, I would do the huge one first, then the easy one, and then the moderate one. I make sure that I finish all of the things that I need to do before I relax. Of course you have to use your own judgment to decide what you think has higher priority over what

5. Keep motivation

Of course it is going to be damn near impossible to do anything if you don't have the motivation for it. I keep myself motivated by rewarding myself after I've achieved a goal. For example, I'll let myself go on tumblr for 20 minutes after finish and assignment, or watch 2 YouTube videos after I'm done collecting a certain amount of research. Once you get in the habit of doing this, if you try to cheat, you will feel disappointed in yourself, it really works.


This is just what I do to keep organised in school, hopefully it will help some of you our who have been slacking on your resolutions just like me.

Part 2, staying healthy, will be up soon :)

University Stress

Is anyone else feeling the heat of applying to university? I was stressed out beyond belief. I still don't know where I want to go and I'm not sure if my marks are high enough to get into my program. Last night I was in tears while I was starting to apply, but then I had a nice, calming talk with my mom and she helped me see all my options. I hope that her advice can help some of you if you are stressed as well. This is the essence of what she said to me:

1. Stress won't help anything

She pretty much made me see that stressing isn't going to solve anything. My parents used to put a lot of stress on me to get high marks and to get tons of awards and what not (they are brown after all) but then my mom came to the realization that all of this stress was just breaking me, not making me. Of course, some people work better under stress. I for one get a lot done when I am stressed, but the stress that I was feeling was the wrong kind of stress. The stress that helps be get stuff done comes from realizing that I have to meet a deadline. The stress from university application came from pessimism and thinking that I won't be able to get into my program. So she told me to stop stressing so much about getting into my program and concentrate that energy in trying to raise my marks, and if I can't get my marks high enough there are other options.

2. My options

My mom sat down with me and explained the worst case scenario to me. The worst case scenario would be that my marks aren't high enough for my program. In this case there are two things I could do. I could go back to high school and do a victory lap and retake the courses that I need to get a higher mark in. This wouldn't be a huge deal for me because I am a year ahead in school, but I know a lot of people may be unwilling to do this for whatever reason, whether it be pride or lack of time. In that case there is another option that my parents opened me up to. The second option is that I take either arts and science or undecided major for first year at university and take the courses I need for my program to raise my marks. I know money is tight for a lot of people and if you are in that situation, I would suggest taking the first option. My mom didn't give me this option, but there is a secret third option. You could take a year off. This option is generally for people who are unsure of what they want to do, but since I have everything planned out I won't be taking this option. You could get a job, take some evening or online courses to bring your marks up, and this way you will have some money towards your tuition as well as a better chance of getting into your program. And if you need to, you could use this time to figure out what you want to do with you life, who knows, university may not be for you after all.

3. Talk to your teachers or your school's guidance department

My main source of stress is my marks. I just moved across the country and I am now part of a separate school board and education system and I am so anxious as to how the final exams look like here. What my mom told me to do is to talk to my teachers one on one and express my concerns to them. If you have good teachers, they will try to help you out and help get you prepared for the final exams. If you are unfortunate and have been burdened with bad teachers, you can talk to you school's guidance department, they are there to help students out with their school related or personal problems.

I really hope this has helped take the stress off of some people, I know it definitely helped me out a lot. Good luck with applying to university/college everyone! May the odds be ever in your favour ;)