Hey guys! Today's video is about how
to organize your papers for school. In the
first portion of the video I will go over a couple
of different methods you can use to organize your
papers and give some pros and cons for each one to
help you decide which one would work best for you,
and then in the second half of the video, I'll give some
more general tips about organizing your
papers for school.
So let's start out with the different organisational methods
I don't think there's one perfect method that will work for
every single person, to make you perfectly organized
but these are a couple of different options
with pros and cons so that you can weigh them and see
which one you think would work best for your
personality and organizing style.
And if that doesn't work, try something else, try as much
as you want and figure out what works best for you.
Method number 1 is having a binder for every single
subject. Within the binder, you can use binder dividers,
to further divide the binder, either by the unit or chapter
or by the type of paper like notes, handouts, reference
sheets, worksheets, et cetera.
The positives of this is that it's super organised since
everything is divided a lot and then you can further
divide as much as you want.
However, having one binder for every subject can get
pretty bulky, especially if you carry everything with you
in your backpack. And it's hard to maintain a binder,
since you need a 3-hole punch and you have to punch
holes in all of your papers and it can be pretty tempting
to just stick things in the pockets; I know that's a
problem that I have, instead of actually putting them
where they need to go within the divider system.
Second option is to have one giant binder for all
of your subjects, and use dividers in that binder to
further divide by the subject, and potentially by the
divisions that I mentioned earlier.
The good thing about this is that everything is pretty
easy to find, it's all in one binder, and you can divide it
into a lot of different subcategories just like a smaller binder.
The problem with this is similar to the single-subject
binders - you have to go through that effort barrier of
maintaining a 3-ring binder and this binder is going
to be HUGE. I have one of these, it's a 2-inch binder
and it's overflowing.
Option number three is having folders for each subject.
These can be 2 pocket folders that stand alone or you
can use a manila folder, potentially within a hanging file
system. The positive side of this is it's really simple
and compact since it's just a folder and it's really easy
to maintain since all you have to do is put things inside
the folder. One negative side of using folders is that
since they're all pretty small and they're all separate, you
can lose track of one folder and just lose all of your
papers. The other downside is that it's kinda hard to find
things since you can't really make further divisions
within a folder - it's just one big chunk of papers.
If you have a folder with 2 pockets, or an even fancier
folder with multiple pockets, then make sure
to use those strategically to separate your papers into
whatever method works best for you.
The last method I want to mention which is what I
personally used to carry my papers to school with me
each day is an expanding file folder.
The pros of this system are similar to those of having
single folders: it's very compact and it's easy to
maintain since you just put things in. Also, you don't
have that possibility of losing one folder, since all of the
sections are combined together into one larger unit.
However, it can be difficult to find certain papers within
the subjects since you can't further divide it like you can
in the binder and everything is put in horizontally so you
have to shuffle through them.
So those are 4 different organizational methods you can
use and now I will give you 6 different organizational
tips that might help you out in keeping organized.
Tip number 1 is to separate your papers by things I need
to take to school with me each day and things that I can
leave at home.
The way to decide what to keep at home and what to
take with you really depends on your class and
circumstances. The way that I do it is each time we
move on to a new unit, I'll take everything from the past
unit and put it into the section of things that I keep
at home and anything that's with the current unit will go
to school with me each day. This will help keep your
backpack lighter and you won't have a binder or folder
that is absolutely bursting at the seams.
You can also use different methods for these 2
categories; for example, as I mentioned, I use an
expanding file folder for the items that I take to school
with me and then I use a giant binder for all of the
papers that I keep at home.
Tip number 2 is to put all of your papers in some sort of
chronological order, whether that means putting all of
the newest papers in the front or putting all of the
newest papers in the back.
This way even if you don't have subdivisions like I
mentioned in the small separate binders section of the
video, you can still have a general idea of where
something might be based on the time frame when you
used it or made it.
As a sub-tip to help you keep things in chronological
order, make sure you put the date on everything.
Chronological order does work best for things that
follow some sort of sequence, like notes or review
sheets or study guides.
Tip number 3 can be for things that are more reference
based. Instead of doing chronological order, you can
use this method that is similar to how random access
memory (RAM) for computers works.
Whenever you take something out to refer to it, when
you put it back, put it back on the top.
This ensures that the papers that you use the most
frequently will be close to the top and therefore easier
to access.
Tip number 4 - this is kind of obvious and should go
without saying - but it is kind of hard to actually do this
and that is to put things in the right spot immediately
after you get them or use them.
If not immediately, at least as soon as possible
A tip from the book 'The Life Changing Magic of Tidying
Up' that can help with this is to store things in a way that
makes it as easy as possible to put them away.
Because really, the hardest part about staying organized
is not necessarily taking things out, but putting them
away again in the right spot.
Tip number 5 is to colour code.
Like all of these tips, this is not necessarily for everyone
I personally don't follow a strict colour code
but it is helpful to have a certain colour assigned to
each subject.
Having all of your supplies for a certain subject like your
binder tab or your notebook or your folder all in the
same colour will help you visually keep them together
and therefore likely, physically keep them together.
Lastly, tip number 6 - use binder clips, paper clips and
other clippy type objects as often as possible.
You can use them to create smaller subdivisions within
a larger section for example, in my giant binder, I use
paper clips for each unit within the tab section for each subject.
You can also use them to group together papers that
are generally used together, such as all of the papers
that are used for research for a certain project.
I hope you found this video helpful and if you'd like more
organizational tips, I will have some linked onscreen right now.
I upload new videos every Monday and my tumblr and
instagram are both @studyquill if you want to check those out.
See ya next time!