Organize Your Life

Organize — “To form into a coherent unity or functioning whole.”

-Merriam Webster’s Dictionary

For my second installment in my New Year’s Resolution series, I thought I’d talk about how I stay organized in law school and in life.  Having everything in my life be organized helps me to stay focused on my school work and makes me feel at peace (but seriously being disorganized stresses me out).  I need everything to be in its place and out of the way for me to feel like I have my life together.  So without further ado, here are some ways I keep things organized and in its place.

Law School

Since law school is my life currently, it is one of the biggest things I focus on keeping organized.  I feel like this is very similar to most people in law school, but my planner is my number one thing that keeps me organized throughout the week.  Honestly, I’m extremely anal about keeping it up and even take note of if I miss a class for a particular reason (sickness, interview, snow day) and my schedule from Banana Republic.  I’ve talked a little about this next portion of my organization in this post about my favorite planners by May Designs.  For each class I have, I pick a certain color pen that usually has the same color scheme as its Examples and Explanations book.  That way, I can easily pick out each class’ assignment when glancing at my planner.  I also have a calendar on the wall next to my desk that lays out my major assignments and any extracurricular events, such as professional development events and pro bono activities.

One of the things I rely on heavily is to do lists.  I make them for literally every aspect of my life.  I currently have two lists I rely on:  one for school and one for everything else.  On my school to do list, I write out the assigned reading/assignment for each class in order of when I have the class during the week.  It’s nice to get a whole week view of how much I have to read before starting my assignments.  On my “life to-do list”, I list anything I need to do, including cleaning my apartment, writing blog posts, sending emails to professors or any professionals I’ve talked to, etc.  I really rely on this list because sometimes I get so engrossed in what I have to do for school that I forget to do things for me and my life outside of law school.

Apartment

As I previously mentioned, sometimes my apartment gets pushed to the back burner when I’m engrossed in schoolwork.  For that reason, I rely appreciate storage options that allow me to hide my messes/stuff when I don’t really have time to clean up.  One of the best storage pieces I can recommend to you is this cube organizer from Target.  I have mine set up as my television stand, which is awesome since it has a dual function in my apartment.  I bought wicker baskets (also from Target) that fit in the cubes to maximize my storage.  In one basket, I have my textbooks and notebooks, another stores all of my workout equipment, and another has my DVDs and Wii games.  It’s great to have my different baskets because I know where everything is and can find it easily if I want to find a movie to watch or a particular textbook.  I really like using these for storage because they fit a lot but look cute and hide things that I don’t have another space for.  My apartment came with a similar organizer in one of my closets that I utilize as storage for all of my cleaning supplies and other household essentials.

If you’ve read a lot of my previous posts, then you probably know about my obsession with clothes.  Since I have a lot of clothes, storage of them can be a big struggle, especially since I don’t have any dressers in my bedroom.  For all of those clothes that shouldn’t be hung up, I utilize hanging sweater organizers.  These are great to fit jeans, athletic gear, and sweaters.  These ones from Bed, Bath, and Beyond also have stretchy pockets on the side, which are great to store belts, bathing suits, and other smaller accessories.  Another great storage tip to organize your clothes that you aren’t currently using is to use space bags that you can vacuum out the air and store a lot of clothes in a small space.  I also use these to store extra pillows or blankets for when I have visitors.

So that’s how I organize basically everything!  What do you do to make your life a little more organized?