Being a VCE student means deadlines, assignments, emails, and a lot of expectations from a lot of different people. It’s no surprise that relying on your memory to remember everything is just not enough. From day one, teachers are drilling it into our brains that we need to study, exercise, have a social life, do extracurricular activities, stay happy, maintain a healthy amount of stress, possibly have a part time job, hand in homework on time, apply for prefect positions, and try to get the best ATAR you can. It’s no wonder that so many students find it overwhelming and almost unachievable. There are striking similarities between VCE and my work at illumin8.
There’s always a million and one things to do before you go home, a thousand more once you get home and the only way to stay on top of things is to be organised. Luckily, illumin8 has taught me how to do this, whilst I stay on top of all my everyday commitments. The absolute best way to stay organised is to keep a diary. Nothing beats this. Planning your day, week, month, and year, either electronically or in a physical diary, shows where your priorities should be at any given moment.
Keeping a schedule ensures that areas of importance are always in check. It keeps me from being late, helps me have tasks completed in advance instead of leaving them until last minute, and it gives me an overall understanding of how my days and weeks are structured. After looking at my schedule, I can easily identify that I have a Global Politics assessment in the morning and a new client meeting with Andrew in the afternoon. This means that I probably don’t have time to watch an episode of the Bachelor and should probably save it for another night.
Some key tips I have in how to best structure your time:
Action tasks that are a higher priority, not the easier option;
It can be easy to get all the smaller and more easy tasks completed and put off the larger, more important jobs. Be sure that your priorities lie with the tasks that need to be actioned first.
Diarise key tasks and events;
Keeping a detailed diary of all your engagements, both social and task related, alleviates room for error, missed deadlines or meetings.
Write lists;
There is nothing more satisfying than ticking things off a good old fashioned list. Not only is it a great way to detail things that need to take priority, you’ll feel rewarded by a fulfilling day of completing the very list you created.
There is no doubt that since I have started working at illumin8 my organisation has vastly improved. I began by setting email reminders to check on unsigned documents that needed to be signed. I then decided to implement that idea and set email reminders for any homework due that day. I have a daily to do list on my work computer that reminds me of all my tasks for the day, and now I have one at home that reminds me of all my tasks for there too.
Being at Illumin8 has taught me that being structured and organised doesn’t just keep you on top of your jobs but it keeps you calm. It stops me from worrying about work or school. I know that I’ve planned for everything and there shouldn’t be any nasty surprises when I turn up. If you want to make it through the day, whether at work or in VCE, the best way to do so is to stay organised.
