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7 organization tips for the overwhelmed and over worked college student

College changes up your sleep schedule and your study habits, whether you plan for it to or not. You will be busy with classes, clubs, relationships, a job, and seemingly about a million other commitments, and it’s very easy to get frazzled with all of this on your plate! The mistake that most college students make, though, is not organizing their lives in a helpful way. Soon they miss assignments, forget about commitments, and feel the overwhelming pressure of having too much to do and not enough time to do it. Don’t let this happen to you.

1.       Get a planner

Yes, I know you have apps on your phone, but I have found my paper planner to be invaluable. Sometimes your college will provide you with a planner, but you can find them at Target, Walmart, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble depending on what you’re looking for. Pick on in a size that will be helpful to you. If you plan on carrying it in your backpack and you like to write big, there are larger 8”x11” planners. If you’re like me and often switch your planner from your backpack to your purse to your other purse, a smaller one might make more sense. Mine is 6”x8” and goes everywhere.

When picking a planner, you want to decide how you will use it. Do you want a monthly view, a weekly view, a daily view, or all three? Do you want to have to flip through to find the day of the week or do you want to just clip it so you can turn right to the current week? These are important questions, people! Another thing to keep in mind is how much you will be writing in it. The last thing you want is to have too many line items and not enough lines! Now your serene, organized planner is messy and you’ve written in the margins. This is my worst nightmare!

2.        Write it out colorfully!!!

To go along with your planner, you will need utensils to write in it. This year has been the year of white-out for me, but if you hate crossing things out or making corrections, you may want to stick to pencil. I also love multicolored pens. At the beginning of the semester, you can pick which color pen belongs to which activity. My freshman year, I wrote in one color pen and every time I would open my planner I’d have a mini freak out because it looked like I was booked all day, every day. Now, with each activity being a different color, I can quickly see how my day will be broken up.

3.       Track the bigger picture with a calendar

Along with your portable planner, you may want to get a monthly wall calendar too. They’re great for organizing and keeping track of your big-time items, like exams and project due dates, as well as any recurring meetings and important events such as your birthday, obviously. This way, you can easily see into the upcoming weeks and what you should accomplish.

       4. Use your phone or tablet
If you are not a paper and pen kind of person, there are also plenty of apps to help you organize your time. Most smartphones have a calendar app built in, and they also probably have a reminder app, so you can set alarms. I use my reminder app for paying bills, because I get a notification about five days before the money will be taken out of my account, so I can either transfer the funds or just know that I have enough money for everything that will be deducted! However, you can also use reminders for tests, work, or anything else you can think of.

Here are some other organization apps I have found helpful and they’re all free!

• Planner Plus, which automatically connects to your calendar and any Facebook events. It then gives you the option to input tasks or projects, assign them a priority and be alerted when things are due.
• myHomework is another free app where you can input homework assignments. It will ask you for a brief description, which class it is for and the due date. Then you can manually add classes them. This app also gives the option to choose a priority level for each assignment and set up reminders.
• The last app I like is called Pocket Schedule. This app prompts you to add a semester and the duration of the semester. Then, you add your courses. You can input the days and times of each course, and even the location and the professor! Next, you can add exams and assignments with descriptions, pick a due date, set its priority, and schedule a reminder.

5.      Stick(y) to it

If you still feel overwhelmed, you might find sticky notes helpful. Specifically, you can put a sticky note for each day of the week on your desk, so you can see right in front of you that Monday you have a speech due, a meeting during lunchtime, and an event at night. When you’re feeling overwhelmed, the last thing you want to do is mess up your priorities and work on something that isn’t due for a week while the assignment due tomorrow is forgotten! Plus, at the end of each day when everything is completed, you can throw away the sticky note and watch yourself get through the whole week! Plus, it’s super satisfying to cross things off and then throw the whole day away.

6.    Create a filing system

To keep your college class materials organized, I suggest having a folder with enough pockets for all your classes, or individual folders or binders for each class. In addition, having a separate notebook for each class will help you stay organized, plus you won’t get confused when your Statistic materials mix in your social media notes. Organize these materials on your bookshelf or dresser in the order of the classes during the week. When you’re finished, put them at the back of the stack, so at the end of your week, they will all be in order for the next week!

7.        Get ready the night before

Something else that I have found helpful is to prepare for your classes the night before. This not only saves you precious sleep time in the morning, but then you won’t be rushing around trying to find everything while you’re still half in dream land. This includes packing your backpack for the day. Stick whatever book, notebook, calculator, and folder you’ll need for your first class.

Some of you might be exhausted just from reading this and probably think I’m nuts. But I will say this: if you are feeling a little overwhelmed or like you’re drowning in all your responsibilities, you might want to try a couple of these tips! You might be surprised by how much they help. Everyone learns what best works for them over their semesters in college, as a senior these are my best tips.

Pinterest

So - what is Pinterest and how does it work? Pinterest is a social network that allows users to visually share, and discover new interests by posting (known as pinning on Pinterest) images or videos to their own or others' boards and browsing what other users have pinned. Using a visual orientation, the social network is very much focused on the concept of a person's lifestyle, allowing you to share your tastes and interests with others and discovering those of likeminded people. The social network's goal is to "connect everyone in the world through the things they find interesting." Users can either upload images from their computer or pin things they find on the web using the Pinterest bookmarklet.

Three Wishes

Growing up it I can remember getting asked “if you had three wishes what would they be” well, being a kid there was no thought behind what I wanted. Most of the time I wished for more wishes, money and no bed time. As I’ve gotten older I have changed my answers to more well thought out answers.

1.       Wish one

I wish there were visiting hours in Heaven. I have had to withstand two painful and unexpected losses in my life and I think about them each and every day. My best friend was killed in a car accident just two years ago. Death is inevitable but laying a twenty-three-year-old to rest who was full of life, ambition and had some many years left was tragic. In each loss, I’ve learned something. Losing Neal, I learned to not hold back, and ask for forgiveness rather than permission.  However, losing my aunt just a month ago hit me hard. Some people always wondered why I was so close to her. Well, growing up I had lost my maternal grandparents before I was born and my paternal grandparents never came around. My mother was one of ten kids, her being the youngest and my Aunt Nina being the oldest. They were 24 years apart. therefore, she could have been my grandma and she played that role. I will never find another that loved me more than she.

2.       Wish two

I wish I could go back and tell my young self-everything I knew now. In junior high and even high school we are so wrapped up in being liked, wearing name brand clothing, having the ideal body figure. We let people bully us and tear us down. None of this stuff matters after high school. Being the prom queen means nothing to your employer, husband or kids. It shouldn’t mean anything to us. We let material things and popularity define us at a young age. It was the kids who didn’t have those things that had it all.  

3.       Wish three

I wish I could get my teenage years back. I was so obsessed with being an adult that I chose a job over girl’s nights. I chose a retirement plan over that spring break trip. All that stuff can wait. Live it up! Be young, wild and free. You have plenty years to worry about bills, a job and retirement. I may be doing things in reverse but after graduation I plan on living my twenties to the fullest.

Facts Show Facebook makes us Unhappy

No one joins Facebook to be sad and lonely. However, a new study from the University of Michigan psychologist Ethan Kross argues that that’s exactly how it makes us feel. Over two weeks, Kross and his colleagues sent text messages to 82 Ann Arbor residents five times per day. The researchers wanted to know a few things: how their subjects felt overall, how worried and lonely they were, how much they had used Facebook, and how often they had had direct interaction with others since the previous text message. Kross found that the more people used Facebook in the time between the two texts, the less happy they felt. The data, he argues, shows that Facebook was making them unhappy.
            It is my personal opinion that this specific social platform is very depressing. Any time I get on I find people sharing stories for people being shot, family members overdosing, fatal car crashes, and even unexpected death of toddlers. This is what our world has come to it is a sad and gloomy world. Facebook is the only social media site I see these heartbreaking events on. The other social platforms such as Snapchat and Twitter normally have funny and happy things that are happening in my friends lives. I honestly hate getting on Facebook anymore because it is either drama or someone posting depressing things. I would much rather be on a site that is showing happy life events rather than sad things.

Life Hacks

1.       Make more room in your small closet by using pop tabs

2.      Shower cap your shoes

Have you ever been traveling with several pairs of shoes and don’t want to lay them on your clothes? Problem solved! Place a shower cap over the bottom of your shoes to keep your clothes nice and clean!

3.      Shave your sweaters

Do you have a sweater that you love, but hate that lint balls it continues to gain? Take a woman’s razor and gently shave the sweater it will remove the unwanted lint balls.

4.      Bobby pins….EVERYWHERE??

Easy fix! Place a magnet strip in a bathroom drawer to easy hold all your bobby pins in one place.

5.      Ink stains on your favorite shirt

We’ve all been there, in fact I washed a pen in with all my dress clothes talk about a bummer! However, I was lucky enough to know place hand sanitizer on the stain to let it dissolve the ink.

6.     Keep your pizza warm on the ride home

When picking up a pizza turn on the heated seat and place the pizza box on the seat to keep your pizza warm on the ride home!

7.     7.  Rubber band and a paint can

This might be my favorite hack right now as I am painting my entire house.  Place a rubber band around an open paint can to wipe the extra paint of the paint brush instead of dripping paint down the side of the can.

8.      Use a stapler remover to organizing your key rings

Trying to add keys to your keychain, but sick of pinching your fingers and breaking your nails to do it? Me too! Next time use a stapler remover to hold the key ring open while placing keys on the ring.

9.      Love your costume jewlery but hate the green stain it leaves behind.

I have some fake rings that I love, but I hate the green ring it leaves on my finger. Well I have found if you paint the inside on the ring with clear finger nail polish it will not leave this annoying green mark on your hand.

10.  What to do with all those extra wine corks

We are all probably guilty of consuming a large amount of wine. Therefore, we have plenty of extra wine corks laying around. Put those wine corks to use by creating a homemade cork board!

Chapter 4 Twitter

In Chapter 4 of “Social Media Marketing Workbook” we learn how to use Twitter for a company account. Twitter is known for its short post of 140 characters or less. This can be very good or very bad. I have learned in my Public Relations class that most of us when reading only read about the first two sentences or 25 words. Twitter is perfect for that; you must use your words wisely to get your audience’s attention. However, in my opinion when you cannot get all your thoughts out in a single tweet the audience must leave the rest to their imagination. This could potentially be a bad thing because people could interpret the companies tweet in a negative way. Wording it a key factor on twitter.

Furthermore, twitter is a platform that uses hashtags frequently. These hashtags are keywords or theme and can be accessed by a simple click. This then displays all the other tweets, post, videos and photos with this hashtag. For example, for our restaurant I use #235Grill. This hashtag is simple it is the name of our establishment, easy to remember.  Simple enough to hope people will use it more frequently. Since Twitter is the hardest social platform to track comments using a hashtag in all post for a business makes it a little bit easier to track these comments.

Four Facebook Business Page Tips

1.        Get Targeted Likes

Facebook Likes aren't as valuable as they used to be -- nor are all Likes created equal. Now Facebook users can follow a page to receive updates without ever officially clicking Like. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to get new fans. The key is getting targeted Likes from people who will Like, share and comment on your posts. Don't start asking your cousins, classmates or mom to Like your page, unless they plan to engage with your content. These days, lack of engagement can actually hurt your page! Use page Like ads to target people by interest & location. Those are the folks who could become your customers. Most people don’t travel very far to eat dinner unless they are traveling through the area. Therefore, I target my page Like ads at people who live in that area. I'm not likely to do business with those living elsewhere. Those folks might engage with my posts, but what good is that if they don't ever visit my restaurant? Unless your page is for entertainment only, these Likes aren't worth the effort. Make sure to target the right people with your Facebook ads.

2.       Use Awesome Profile & Cover Images

Your profile and cover images are important, but don't spend a bunch of money on design. Use your company logo as your profile photo. That's the most important image on your page. Furthermore, don't put text, a phone number or website on your profile photo. Keep it simple, but make sure to brand your business so people will recognize the image in the news feed. It is recommended to only change your profile photo once or twice a year. Changing the image can cause brand confusion, which could result in lower engagement and reach. Your profile picture needs to be recognizable and easy to read on Facebook mobile because most of Facebook interactions now are viewed on a mobile device not a desktop or laptop computer.

3.       Experiment with How Often You Post

Some Facebook experts say you should post just once a day, others say 10 posts a day aren't enough. They all might be right. It depends on your specific business and audience. To boost engagement, I say post as often as you can. If that means 20 posts a day, go for it! You might find you don't need to post that often to get engagement on your page, and that fans are more responsive when you post fewer times. The key is to test to see what works best for your page.

4.       Buy Facebook Ads

The point of running a Facebook page is to get more exposure and customers for your business. But many people hate the idea of spending money on Facebook ads. It's a fact, unless you buy ads, your page will go nowhere. The good thing about Facebook ads compared to other advertising is that you can target people in all sorts of categories. Businesses on Facebook should budget money for Page Like Ads, Boosted posts and News Feed Ads. Treat your Facebook ad budget as you would a utility bill it’s a necessary cost of doing business! This is my newest tip that I recently have started using myself and I am so glad I pay for Facebook ads and to promote my business!

My Reverse Bucket List

A bucket list is a number of experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime. Therefore, a reverse bucket list is a list of cool things I have already gotten to do in my lifetime.  I have been lucky enough to travel Europe twice. This includes visiting Big Ben, riding on the London Eye. My first experience ice skating was under the Windsor Tower. I have spent a New Year’s Eve under the Eiffel tower eating the most delicious crepes and sipping champagne. I “selfied” with the original Mona Lisa before selfies were cool.  I have walked the streets of Rome and tossed my reenacted lizzie McGuire throwing pennies into the Trevi Fountain. I’ve wondered lost in the pouring rain with the best group of friends in Siena, Italy. During this time, we consumed an unhealthy amount of gelato. Word of advice when in Italy never say no to Gelato. As for my trips in the United states I have caught a swordfish weighing over 200 pounds while deep sea fishing. Note; that was exhausting and the best whole body workout I have ever done!  I have traveled the entire state of Alaska managing to almost be trampled by a moose and her baby while in a car. Let me tell you they are HUGE! As the list goes on these are the experiences I am most proud of and I look forward to see how my list grows after graduation! What bucket list experiences have you experienced?

How LinkedIn Ticks

LinkedIn is all about business networking, it is comparable to a 24/7 online industry conference. This social platform begins with individual profiles which function like online resumes by listing skills, education, and interests. These individuals then connect with other individuals. LinkedIn then acts like Facebook in a sense, once connected you and the other person can check out each other’s professional profiles, communicate, and see each other’s post. Continuing, it is very important to join groups on LinkedIn. These groups bring people of the same mindset together on a professional level. Furthermore, the news feed layout is comparable to Facebook as well, those whom post updates show up on the newsfeed of those who they are connected with. On this platform individuals and businesses continually compete for attention on their page. In a brief overview LinkedIn is very comparable to Facebook structurally, but not professionally.  

                There are serval important things to understand about LinkedIn. First, this in not the social platform to have your private settings on. LinkedIn is all about being connected with as many professional people as possible. Following, this is the site to show off all your skills and business accomplishments.

NEW! Pinterest Lens

Last month, Pinterest unveiled their latest discovery tool called Pinterest Lens, which enables users to take photos of real world objects and find matches for them on Pinterest based on image recognition technology. To access Pinterest Lens, you first need to update your Pinterest app to the latest version. Once you’ve done that, you can access Lens by tapping on the search bar, then tapping the red camera icon in the top right of screen. This will open the lens camera – point it at whatever object you want to search for, wait a moment for the system to match the image, and you’ll be presented with related Pin options. Pinterest notes that, as they had anticipated, initial tests have shown that most users are using Lens to identify objects relating to fashion, home décor, arts and food.

Along this line, Pinterest is also giving users a way to contribute to the development of Lens, with an option to manually tag objects they identify. This will help Pinterest evolve Lens faster, by essentially crowd-sourcing object identification, giving them a larger pool of tagged sample images to work from. Adding to the search functionality of Lens, Pinterest is also giving users another way to search for related objects, with a new section within Lens which presents ideas to try out and see what matches show up. This will highlight new objects as Pinterest adds them in, which will also give the Pinterest engineering team another way to boost their understanding of what people are using Lens for by analyzing what matches people most commonly click on from these examples.

Lens is an interesting addition for Pinterest, and one which should get them more attention. If users get good results, maybe links to relevant Pins that can help them save money on products by identifying similar items, the innovation could help Pinterest add to their active user count and continue their expansion. Image recognition tools are set to become a much bigger consideration in digital marketing, with Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and Google all working to improve their image recognition tools and options. Soon, the ability to search images will be commonplace.

Is it Summer YET!?

Am I the only one wishing it was summer? Summer is probably my favorite season. Why? Well that’s what I’m here to tell you. Let’s begin with the simple fact there is no school in summer. If you haven’t already learned there is nothing I loathe more than college. No, it defiantly has not been the best four years of my life, more like the worst! Furthermore, I love that it gets darker later. This means more time to be outside doing stuff. In the summer, I spend my summers at the lake riding on the boat, tubing, jet skiing and fishing. What more can you ask for? Absolutely nothing! I love being able to go to the lake with my friends spend the weekend and have nothing to care about. Moreover, there is so much extra stuff to do rather than in the winter I feel as if there is nothing to do. Also, I am a little more excited for summer because I will officially be moved in to my new house!! I look forward to hosting summer barbeques and gatherings.  I am always looking for fun activities and ideas for our summer weekends, what do you guys do in the summer that you enjoy?

Understand that Social Media Marketing is like Throwing a Party.

In the book, the author compares logging in on a social media platform, reading and sharing post with friends and family you’re connected with to a party. At a party, you show up meet various people, talk, and share your time with each other. However, throwing a party and attending a party are two completely different things.

                Lets’ explore the importance of marketing a party on social media. Starting with the invitations or promotions. As stated in the book a great party needs great guest. Therefore, we must decide who should be on the guest list. The next step is how to send invitation now a day’s invitations can be a text, a phone call, email, Facebook invite, or even by postal mail. However, to get them to show up you must advertise your event make them interested, then they will want to come.

                Moving forward a good party has great entertainment or in this case content. You need to give your guest a reason to “hang out” on your Facebook page, YouTube channel, etc. Will you provide them with something educational, something funny or anything else. The final step is hosting the party. This step requires on going management. As the host, you probably will not get to enjoy everything your guest are but it is important to make sure they are enjoying themselves. Therefore, making sure everything is running smoothly is a must.

Facebook Marketplace dominating the market

For more than a decade, Craigslist, eBay and Etsy have dominated the peer-to-peer marketplace in which items are bought and sold. This has become the digital version of garage sales, except the products and services sold on these marketplaces are far more diverse. However, Facebook shook up the marketplace industry in October 2016 by announcing that it was going to relaunch Facebook Marketplace, but lost in all the excitement is the fact that Facebook Marketplace may not just be a platform where someone can get rid of a little-used product, but that it can, in fact, offer new opportunities for users who sell products as a full-time occupation. Facebook has 1.86 billion monthly active users, and 1.23 billion daily active users, as of December 31, 2016. More than 85% of those users live outside the U.S. and Canada, which means that Facebook’s worldwide reach far exceeds that of Etsy or eBay.

Facebook Marketplace offers browsing, selling and searching features. The browsing feature lets users look around the app without making a specific request, and displays product listings based on geography. However, because this is Facebook, browsing is optimized to display products that users would like based on past activity on the platform. In addition to products, Facebook Marketplace enables users to solicit job offers based on their skills, and to sell services targeted to a specific group of users or to all users on the platform. However, there is one major restriction in terms of sellers - brands are not allowed to sell on the platform, nor are they allowed to place paid ads for Marketplace users to view. That could change in the future, but for now, Facebook Marketplace is modeling itself after Craigslist, Etsy and eBay, and simply offering a place for buyers and sellers to interact without handling any payment processing or shipping. The other drawbacks so far is that there's no review system on Facebook Marketplace, so it's difficult for prospective buyers to gain a sense of a seller’s trustworthiness and credibility. Furthermore, because Facebook doesn’t handle payment transactions, there is no built-in guarantee of delivery, or a system that ensures that if a product is defective or sent in a condition other than advertised, a buyer would receive a refund. However, we look for them to make this more advanced and secure in the future.

My Top TV shows

Blue Bloods: Blue Bloods is a CBS police drama by Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess, known for their work on the long running HBO drama 'The Sopranos'. The show follows the lives of the multi-generational Reagan family (Tom Selleck as Frank Reagan, Bridget Moynahan as Erin Reagan, Donnie Wahlberg as Danny Reagan) and their dedication to the New York City Police Department. Although a tight-knit family, you find that the Reagan's have very different ideas of how to gain justice. But they have one thing in common, they'll stop at nothing to see justice served, because their occupation is more than just a job, it's the family business.t

White Collar: This is a show about a convicted white collar criminal who winds up working for the FBI man who caught him. To stay out of prison, convicted bond forger Neal Caffrey offers to help the FBI capture other white collar criminals using his expertise as an art and securities thief, counterfeiter and racketeer.

Lethal weapon: Lethal Weapon follows a Texas cop and former Navy SEAL Martin Riggs who suffers the loss of his wife, Miranda Riggs, and his unborn baby, and moves to Los Angeles to start anew. There, he gets partnered with LAPD Detective Roger Murtaugh who, having recently suffered a “minor” heart attack, must avoid any stress in his life, while maintaining a low level of stress. They can't stand each other at first, but along the way, they get used to each other as partners after a while.

NCIS New Orleans:  A spin-off of NCIS about the local field office of NCIS that investigates criminal cases involving military personnel in The Big Easy, a city known for its music, entertainment and decadence. This colorful city that harbors a dark side is a magnet for service personnel on leave, and when overindulgence is followed by trouble, Special Agent Dwayne Pride's team is at its best.

What are your favorite shows to watch?