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I am tremendously frustrated with trying to understand school. Whenver I get ahead in one part of school I fall behind in another. I have tried organise myself and I lose my organiser. I might leave myself a note and I forget where the note is and what was on it. All that compounds on sports and clubs. I would like to know how other people organise their life. Can anyone help me?

If you lose your organizer get another one, or write things down in several places so you don't forget.

Don't worry too much about it; everyone gets disorganized sometimes and high school is hard. Everyone is expected to do everything in some ways and having a balanced life is the hardest thing of all. Even if it looks like people are fine, very few people have it figured out at this point.

If you're having trouble with losing things, it might be helpful to clean your room. I know. Probably the most horribly mom-ish, boringest piece of advice I could give anyone but it's true. Try to have one place for your planner in your room (a certain corner of your desk, perhaps?) and a place in your bag where it will stay except for that one moment where you take it out to write down a sort of to do list on it during the time you get homework in class. Make sure to always slip it right back in afterward, so you don't ever forget it in a classroom, and always write your name on it. For each subject, either carry a different binder for each to school, or at least have a different binder for each at home. You could either stay with each subject has a different binder at all times (this could be heavy but I've had it work for me) or you could keep two separate binders for two separate days (I'm assuming your school has the same courses all year). For most schools, on one day you have four subjects and on other days you have another four. In this case, each binder would have four sections for each subject. Once you get home, you can put notes for each subject into the eight binders you would have at home. Each of the eight binders you use for most of your notes, no matter which system you go by, should be divided into different sections for notes, daily homework (stuff that isn't marked), assignments (for the courses that require extensive research whenever you get a major assignment, you can put all the research into this section and it's a LOT easier), and tests.

As for the actual getting ahead, this is different for everyone. I've read that fifteen minutes per subject to review notes helps, but this has never worked for me. I've also heard another individual who benefited by taking an hour a week to intensely study something. My best advice would probably be to figure out what's most important and focus on that first. It's not always necessary to be completely with the class on all subjects (unless the teacher does homework checks) so you may be able to use the whole getting ahead one subject at a time approach to your advantage to do one subject for an hour or so after school, and do homework from previous days in that one hour. The best thing to remember - whatever study style is best for you, is to find one spot that you feel really comfortable in with no distractions (not your bed, then your brain starts to fall asleep) and make that your study space. Then, find one or two periods of time that you can turn into your study times. For one hour, say, you can do all of the homework stuff to keep on top with your notes. After a break, you could take another hour to work on a project that's due in a month. Sports and clubs are great because they are always right after or right before school, and very few people feel like doing homework during those times anyway. If there is some sort of after school thing that requires just as much work as one of your subjects or projects (ei, school journalist), you can organize that into your life just like you would with an assignment.

Another thing to think about is what's more important to you. Think about situations where you may have to chose between school, work, clubs, and that sort of thing. Then, when you are in those situations, you will know, say, that to you maybe it's more important to do well in school than in sports, or maybe its vice versa. Remember that there are always "priorities", for example, it's more important that you do a project than if you've reviewed your class notes. Very few people are on top of everything all of the time. The trick is to always be on top on the things that count the most, and drop the things that are stopping you from doing this. Once you figure out how to do that, you will truly figure out how to be organized.

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(Rating: 5) You're great, probably the smartest person I know, thank you so much. I will definitely keep my room cleaner because now that I hear it(from someone other than my mom), it does make since. Thankyou for everything, with all this help, I might actually start to become a better person
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