Lately, I’m noticing a lot of people either don’t know or don’t care about getting organized. People are just stuffing their papers in their backpacks! 

But the reality is, you should care, because how do you expect to study or do your homework when you can’t find your papers? And you wonder why you’re getting bad grades…

Of course, some people can do just fine with this. If you don’t need your paper notes to study, or you don’t study in the first place (like me), that’s one thing. 

But if you need to study with your paper notes, you need to get organized. And even if you don’t need your paper notes, you should still be organized. After all, how do you expect to do your homework when you can’t even find the homework? 

But never fear, Stina’s here! Today, I’m here to share some tips with you about how to organize your school stuff.

Firstly, sort your papers by class. Then, figure out how many binders you need. Folders work too, but binders work better for keeping your stuff organized. Binders with pockets are preferable so you can also store any papers that don’t have holes.

Some classes have so many papers that you’ll need more than one binder, but others you can combine through the use of binder dividers. In fact, if properly organized, you can take the same approach to this as I do – the “one binder method”. 

Because I use dividers, I’m able to only have one binder in my backpack and haven’t needed to touch my locker all year. But the other reason this works is that I clean out my binder very frequently. 

That’s right, people, you need to clean out your binders! If you don’t, then your backpack just gets heavy for no reason, plus it makes it harder to find what you’re actually looking for.

But don’t throw your papers out – keep all your notes and papers at home in extra binders, sorted by class. This way, you can still use your notes to study. Only get rid of your notes at the end of the year, after taking the final for that class. And please don’t throw them out – seriously, haven’t you people ever heard of paper recycling?

Also, make sure if you need extra tools for a class, you actually have them. So many people in my Geometry class don’t have calculators and/or compasses. If you need something, make sure you have it and that you know which pocket it’s in. 

Also, if your backpack has side pockets, I recommend keeping a writing utensil in one so you don’t have to pull out your pencil case every time you have to write something. Well, hopefully this helps. Have a nice day, everyone!