Get Organized for College - Week 1: Intro & Communication

Today's video is the first in a 7-part series to help you Get Organized for College. Even though this targets college students, it could be helpful for anyone who is struggling to organize life! This first video will give an overview of the series and then start with organizing your communication -- meaning email, texts, voicemails, papers, etc.

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Overview of Series
Welcome to this 7-week series that will help you Get Organized for College. During the next seven weeks, you will listen to videos on 7 areas of organization, choose your own tools to address each issue, implement your own system, and then maintain it throughout the 7 weeks and beyond. By the time you are finished, you will have ways to deal with your communication (which I'll cover in this video), your appointments and events, your tasks and to-do list, the information you need to file both digital and paper, you will learn some tips for getting things done, and will work on better habits and self care. At the end, there will be a bonus video on Planning for Classes and Big Projects. If you are a parent wanting your student to watch this series, I have a separate introductory video for you!

Let's get started.

Communication (Email, Texts, and Voicemails, Paper)
Let's start with how information comes into your life -- otherwise known as communication. You have to have a way to manage the constant stream of information or else you'll get buried by it. Or you'll miss something important. With most pieces of information, there are three options - Trash, File, or Act on. When I go through my snail mail, I actually make these three piles to sort my mail into. The Trash goes into the recycling bin, the File pile goes into my basket to file (more on this later), and each thing in the "Act on" pile either goes on my task list or gets taken care of right then and there. This process is true for email as well.

Email
You will need to go through your email regularly -- I get to inbox zero at least once per day, but you may prefer a different frequency. And when you do this, you'll start at the top of your inbox and make a choice for each message until it is empty:
- Trash - this one is easy. If you don't need to act on it or save it for later, then simply hit the Delete button and it's gone!
- File - if you think you may need this information later -- you can file it. Let me give you a couple of options for setting up your email file folders.
- 1 - the simplest option is just to have a single folder called Saved Emails. Every email that you want to save gets filed here. Because this is just a giant repository for everything you want to save, you are relying on the search capability of your email service to be able to find specific emails later on.
- 2 - a slightly more complex option is to think about what areas of your life you have. Maybe you have three areas: school, personal, and activities. You can make folders for each of these and file your emails accordingly. That way, all emails regarding that area of your life will be grouped together.
- 3 - an even more complex option is dividing each of these areas into more granular topics. For example, within School, you could have a folder for each class. Within personal, you could have folders for financial, job, and travel. You get the idea. Just remember that although a complex folder structure may seem like a great idea now, it means that you'll have to make more decisions as you go through your inbox. The more complex the organizational structure, the harder it is to maintain, so choose which one you'll be most likely to keep up with.
- Act on - This is the third option and means I need to do something as a result of receiving this communication. At the simplest, it could be just that I need to respond to the email. At it's most complex, this email could be kicking off an 8-week project that I need to plan and execute. Either way, I need to either act on the email now, which I will do if it takes 3 minutes or less, or put it on my task list (more about this later in week 3).

+Outstanding Questions
I highly recommend adding a folder for emails that contain questions you are waiting to hear back on. I named this folder +Outstanding Questions. The plus sign is so it pops up higher on my folders list and the emoji is so I can recognize it quickly. Every time I write an email that contains a question that I need a response on, I blind copy myself on the email. Then I get a copy back in my inbox, which I file in this folder . . .

[michaelsanders]

Thanks for creating this video series. I going to have my son and daughter view the videos. I use Google for my email and contacts. However, I am forced to use Outlook for work email.

[dianebarlow]

I would love to know what Contacts App you use with your Apple iphone. I am not happy with Apple’s Contact App’s searching ability. Also, how you organize your Contacts App. would be useful to me. Thank you.