The last few weeks of the semester can get a little stressful. And not because you just can’t seem to find the perfect present for everyone on your list (or in my case because you keep getting distracted by Macy’s shoe department and never get around to buying those other presents), but because of finals. Remember those? Probably not.

If you’re a freshman you have absolutely no idea what horrors await you, and if you’re an upperclassmen you’ve more than likely blocked out this horrific experience. But yet, here you are. Professors are bombarding with you deadlines and dates, final papers and exam study guides and more information than you could possibly handle while you’re still recovering from your Thanksgiving-induced food coma.

Ten-page papers?
Cumulative finals?

You can’t even pronounce half the stuff on you history study guide and those calculus questions might as well be written in morse code for all you can deicer. It’s okay. Take a deep breath. You can get through this.

And I can help.

As a senior taking on her (second to) final finals week, I like to think I have this studying thing down. For a while there I kept getting it confused with napping, but I’ve since cleared things up, and I’m willing to share my infinite wisdom with you. So before you do anything else you need to… Read More »

I’ve decided that to keep my budget under $100, I’m going to use internet resources and not buy all the books I really want to buy. Like this one. and this one.

But I digress. The first website I checked our was Flylady, which I’d heard a lot of good things about and at first glance seems frightening comprehensive. Seriously, there is so much on this site that I’m not really sure where to start. I find a ‘Beginner’s Babysteps” section and note that they mention something about sending you 15-20 emails a day. Yeah, I don’t think so.

I get the impression this website is more for people who need their hand held–That’s not me, but maybe it would work for you. Flylady does give me the idea of sectioning my house into “zones” and concentrating there. She does have some good tips, though. I would start in her site index and skip around.

Next I try organized home and it seems a lot more user friendly. It puts many of its tips into list form, which is good for me because I read “list” fluently. I also like it because it gives you tips not only to help you get organized in the first place, but to maintain your level of organization.

I was hesitant to look at Martha Stewart’s website; I’ve always kind of thought that her ideas were interesting, but not always especially practical or doable on a budget or my kindergartner’s level of organization skills. I can admit it, I was wrong. Read More »

Finals were rough this year. Not that they are ever especially fun, but for some reason I had an inordinately difficult time sitting down at my desk and forcing myself to write. And once I did, I would realize that I didn’t have the right book in the right place and I couldn’t find these notes or those notes and I could hardly type with the mountain of work piling up, threatening to topple over onto my keyboard at any moment.

I found myself in that predicament because I tend to get unorganized when I have a lot of stuff to do. Dangerously so. Which is bad, because I have a hard time concentrating when things need to be straightened, or cleaned, or filed away. I can’t work unless my workspace is clean and everything I need is at hand.

And so, I thought that I would take the first weeks of the summer before I start classes in July and totally reorganize and idiot-proof my office, and, as massive an undertaking as it will be, my entire home. Read More »