Strategies to help with organisation

Many children and teenagers find organising themselves, their thoughts, and their equipment a challenge.

If this is you, you may find some of the ideas in this list helpful. If a strategy is working keep practising until it becomes part of your daily routine.

Strategies for home

When you get home, take 2 minutes to put your stuff away first. You will thank yourself in the morning. Have a place for everything important, like a hook for your keys, a dish for your glasses and a place for your shoes.

Keep items like stationery and toiletries in see-through or coloured boxes. Put a label or picture on the outside to help you find things.

Use a key chain or carabiner to attach important items like your keys to a belt loop or to a loop inside your bag.

Try to get in the habit of regularly tidying and putting your things away. Listen to your favourite music or challenge yourself. How much can you tidy in 5 minutes?

Have a dirty laundry basket in your room and use it. If your clothes tend to end up on the floor, try having a ‘clean-ish’ basket for clothes you can wear again.

Create a mnemonic to help check that you have the important things you need, each time you leave the house such as ‘Pink Kind Monster’ for ‘phone, keys, money’.

If you like using pen and paper, write lists and tick things off as you do them. Or you can do this in a notes app on your phone. Have a whiteboard and write notes or reminders and wipe them off as you complete them.

Use an alarm or reminder on your phone to remember important dates or events.

Try ‘lost and found’ labels or trackers on important items like keys or phone, such as Tile.

Routines

Getting enough sleep is important to how you feel and function. Work out what time you need to go to bed to get your optimum hours sleep.  Also, our bodies respond well to routine, try setting your alarm for the same time each day and get up as soon as it goes off rather than hitting snooze.

Remember your morning routine starts the night before. If you have put your things away in the right place and packed your bag your morning will go more smoothly.

Plan your morning and what works for you for example should you get dressed or eat breakfast first? It is up to you, everyone is different, but try to keep it the same each day so you are not having to think about it too much.

Make a visual plan of your week, including time for homework, clubs and free-time marked on it.

Give yourself some downtime, have a snack and a drink to refuel your body and mind and make time to do what you enjoy, like spending time with friends or pets or hobbies.

Homework can feel like a chore, but you will feel better once it is done. Plan when you will do your work and how long it will take to complete. Try not to leave it too late, as you might find it harder to switch off afterwards.

Remember everyone feels better when they have had some fresh-air and exercise so try to grab some time outside.

Strategies for school and college

Backpack style bags that go over both shoulders are better for your posture than those that go over one shoulder or across your body.

Using clear plastic wallets and pencil cases will help keep your bag organised and items easy to find. You can colour code these too if that helps.

Practise packing your PE kit and changing into your PE kit at home.

If you need to remember to take something special to school, attach a brightly coloured sticky-note to the front door the night before.

On days where you need to take extra kit to school such as for food tech, ask if there is somewhere you can store it so you do not have to take it to every lesson. Your school may have lockers that you can use.

There might be certain lessons or activities you find it more difficult to be organised in. You and your parent or carer can talk to school, they may have ideas to help you with this.

Timetables

Colour-code each subject on your timetable to make it easier to read or match the colours on your timetable to the colour of the exercise books used for that lesson.

If you have a 2-week timetable, try separating the weeks.

Take a picture of your timetable and use it as your screen saver. Alternatively, laminate a small timetable and keep it in your bag so you can check it often.

For more information read: Higher level strategies to support planning and organisation skills

Helpful apps

There are various apps that you could try to see if these help with organisation.

Check which app your school uses. This will help you know when homework is due and when other things are happening.

Other apps that can help organisation include:

• Trello a daily tasks planner with movable tasks
• Habitica can help with motivation turns your tasks into a game
• Joon helps with motivation by making jobs ‘quests’ for you to complete with your parent or carer
• Pomodoro technique helps with time management, apps include Pomofocus and Forest