Spring Cleaning

Another school year is winding down (but, once again, it is not over so you still need to apply yourself fully - read post from last week about the importance of finishing school strong...) and the spring weather and upcoming exams are two likely reasons that you may decide to do some "spring cleaning" of your school materials. Hint: If your book bag looks anything like this photo (which, sadly, is one of my student's) then you definitely need to work on cleaning things out and getting organized!

As you go through your book bags and homework/ study areas there are a few things to keep in mind. Does your system work for you? Are you able to find everything you want and need without having to search? Do you spend more time organizing and looking for the piece of paper that you know has the answer than you do actually completing the project or assignment? Do you know what you want or need to save for the future? And yes, seniors, I am talking about more than just digging out of your room in case your parents decide to convert your room into a guest bedroom after you go to college... :-)

Keeping your notes organized and any study guides, equation summary sheets, as well as old tests and quizzes in a way that will allow you to pull upon that information in the future is very important. I can tell you that from my experience in college, if I had not saved my notes from calculus in high school then there is no way that I would have passed that class in college! Your notes can often be the most useful resource (assuming you take good notes each day) because you are re-writing the main topics in your own words and organizing the information in a manner that makes sense to you. Old study guides, tests and quizzes are all very useful when trying to study for an upcoming exam.

So, take a little time now to prepare for your upcoming final exams by getting organized today. If you need help with talking about some better strategies for organizing your materials, feel free to stop in and we can talk about some different ideas to see if one of them sounds like it could work for you.