I’d like to think that organization is one of my stronger skills—at least that’s what I said during all of my job interviews last year. My room can sometimes be questionable, but when it comes to school or work related things, I’m on top of my game. Since I manage multiple projects at work, here’s how I stay organized!

Computer files + folders

This carried over from my other job when I had multiple clients to keep track of. I have folders on my computer desktop for:

• Display slides (we have screens in the dining commons and I make some of the slides that go up there)
• Centennial (the University is celebrating its 100 year anniversary, so I have a folder dedicated to the work I’m doing for that, either slides, social media, or website)
• Social media (within this folder, it’s organized by platform and/or campaign)
• Website (within this folder, it’s organized by department or area on campus)
• Photos (a collection of photos from our photo database, ones I’ve taken, etc.)

These are the only things living on my main desktop. I hate having loose files or images hanging around. I make sure everything has its place. I’d like to go through the individual folders and organize those more, because sometimes I’ll just throw photos in there when I know they could have a better home.

Weekly planner

I bought a weekly planner at Marshall’s that I use to plan out my week. I used to just use a simple to do list but I found that being able to see my week laid out helped me prioritize projects and other to dos. I’ll include any meetings I have on the planner, too.

Second desktop + stickies

Using a Mac desktop was definitely a learning curve for me, but I really like working on it now. Earlier this year, I discovered that you can have multiple desktops, so I created a second one to hold all of my stickies. They include upcoming social media, upcoming website projects, any important priorities, and one holds extra information, like sizes images need to be for the web or little tips I need to remember about our website’s CMS. I’m able to easily swipe right to access this desktop, and then swipe left to get back to my main one.

Outlook calendar

My work email is through Outlook, and I use the Outlook app on my desktop. I’m a big user of the calendar because 1. I can keep track of things coming up, and 2. I get notifications on my desktop and my phone—since I have that calendar synced up to my phone through the Calendar app. I color coded each category: meeting, social media, to do, and campus event. I’ll also throw in my doctor’s appointments if they’re after work and I have to either leave early or go straight there after work.

Google calendar

Our social calendar lives within a shared Google calendar, and it’s my actual child. There are two calendars I use: one for social media—listing out which platforms we’ll post on and what the post will be able—and the other is information about any campus events. It’s not as packed during the summer, but during the academic year, there’s a lot going on, and the calendar helps me stay organized; half of the time I’ll schedule posts out beforehand.