Get Organized
By Ron Fry
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About this ebook
In this essential guide, education expert Ron Fry helps students of all ages develop organizational techniques, streamline study time, and avoid the stress of disorderly spaces and rushed schedules. Get Organized also provides strategies for prioritizing tasks, avoiding time-trap activities and procrastination, and anticipating opportunities. You’ll learn how to make your study time efficient and effective by using simple time-management tips that are practical, flexible, and adaptable for your personal goals.
Get Organized features:
- Updated information on electronic and online planning tools
- Tips for creating ideal study environments
- Proven techniques for establishing effective lifelong organizational habits
- Advice on making monthly and daily calendars work for you
- Ideas for creating optimal project boards and to-do lists
Ron Fry
Ron Fry has written more than forty books, including the bestselling 101 Great Answers to the Toughest Interview Questions and 101 Smart Questions to Ask on Your Interview. He is a frequent speaker and seminar leader on a variety of job-search and hiring topics and the founder and president of Career Press. Fry lives in New Jersey with his family.
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Get Organized - Ron Fry
GET ORGANIZED
FOURTH EDITION
Ron Fry
CONTENTS
Foreword Starting at the Beginning
Chapter 1: The Need for Organization
Chapter 2: Organize Your Life
Chapter 3: Organize Your Studies
Chapter 4: Organize Your Calendar
Chapter 5: Dealing with Life’s Daily Traumas
Chapter 6: Get Organized for Class
Chapter 7: Organize Your Reading and Writing
Index
FOREWORD
STARTING AT THE BEGINNING
This marks another major milestone in the 20-year-long evolution of my How to Study Program—the reissuance of new editions of the key volumes: How to Study itself, now in a seventh edition; sixth editions of Improve Your Memory, Improve Your Reading, Improve Your Writing, and Ace
Any Test; and a fourth edition of the book you’re currently reading, Get Organized.
I am truly proud, though somewhat amazed, that these books are now moving into their third decade. While all authors want to believe their books will last forever, most wind up in the remainder bin far sooner than we would ever like (or admit).
Why You’re Reading This Book
A number of you are students, not just the high school students I always thought were my readers, but also college students and, much to my delight, even middle school students (which says something quite positive about your ambition and what I anticipate will be your eventual success).
Many of you reading this are adults. Some of you are returning to school. And some of you are long out of school but have figured out that if you can learn now the study skills your teachers never taught you (or you never took the time to learn), you will do better in your careers—especially if you know how to meet pressing deadlines or organize the key points of a presentation.
All too many of you are parents with the same lament: How do I get Johnny to do better in school? If his life is as organized as his room, I fear for all of us!
If You’re a High School Student
You should be particularly comfortable with both the language and format of this book—its relatively short sentences and paragraphs, occasionally humorous (hopefully) headings and subheadings, a reasonable but certainly not outrageous vocabulary. I wrote it with you in mind!
If You’re a Middle School Student
Learning now how to organize your studying and your life is absolutely key to your future success. You are trying to learn how to study at precisely the right time. Sixth, seventh, and eighth grades—before that sometimes cosmic leap to high school—are without a doubt the period in which these study skills should be mastered. If you’re serious enough about studying to be reading this book, I doubt you’ll have trouble with the concepts or the language.
If You’re a Traditional
College Student
Having pretty much gone right from high school to college, learning how to organize your life and studies is not just a nice idea—it’s the only thing that will enable you to survive. Trust me. You haven’t even contemplated how busy life can be until you show up at old Klutzburg U. and get your first class schedule…and volunteer schedule… and athletics schedule…and work schedule.
If You’re the Parent of a Student of Any Age
Your child’s school is probably doing little, if anything, to teach him or her how to study. Which means he or she is not learning how to learn. And that means he or she is not learning how to succeed.
Should the schools be accomplishing that? Absolutely. After all, we spend more than $300 billion on elementary and secondary education in this country. We ought to be getting more for that money than a diploma, some football cheers, and a discouraging entry-level job market.
What Can Parents Do?
There are probably even more dedicated parents out there than dedicated students, since the first phone call at any of my radio or TV appearances comes from a sincere and worried parent asking, What can I do to help my kid do better in school?
Okay, here they are, the rules for parents of students of any age:
1. Set up a homework area. Free of distraction, well lit, with all necessary supplies handy.
2. Set up a homework routine. When and where it gets done. Studies have clearly shown that students who establish a regular routine are better organized and, as a result, more successful.
3. Set homework priorities. Actually, just make the point that homework is the priority—before a date, before TV, before going out to play, whatever.
4. Make reading a habit—for them, certainly, but also for yourself. Kids will inevitably do what you do, not what you say (even if you say not to do what you do).
5. Turn off the TV. Or at the very least, severely limit when and how much TV-watching is appropriate. This may be the toughest suggestion to enforce. I know. I was once the parent of a teenager too.
6. Talk to the teachers. Find out what your kids are supposed to be learning. If you don’t know the books they’re supposed to be reading, what’s expected of them in class, and how much homework they should be scheduling, you can’t really give them the help they need.
7. Encourage and motivate, but don’t nag them to do their homework. It doesn’t work. The more you insist, the quicker they will tune you out.
8. Supervise their work, but don’t fall into the trap of doing their homework. Proofreading a paper, for example, is a positive way to help your child in school. But if you simply put in corrections without your child learning from her mistakes, you’re not helping her at all…except in the belief that she is not responsible for her own work.
9. Praise them when they succeed, but don’t overpraise them for mediocre work. Kids know when you’re being insincere and, again, will quickly tune you out.
10. Convince them of reality. (This is for older students.) Okay, I’ll admit it’s almost as much of a stretch as turning off the TV, but learning and believing that the real world will not care about their grades, but will measure them by what they know and what they can do, is a lesson that will save many tears (probably yours). It’s probably never too early to (carefully) let your boy or girl genius get the message that life is not fair.
11. If you can afford it, get your kid(s) a computer and all the software they can handle. There really is no avoiding it: Your kids, what ever their ages, absolutely must be computer-savvy in order to survive in and after school.
12. Turn off the TV already!
13. Get wired. The Internet is the greatest invention of our age and an unbelievable tool for students of any age. It is impossible for a college student to succeed without the ability to surf the Internet, and nearly impossible for younger students as well. They’ve got to be connected.
14. But turn off IM (Instant Messaging) while doing homework. They will attempt to convince you that they can write their paper and do geometry and IM their friends at the same time. Parents who believe this have also been persuaded it’s a fine idea to do homework in front of the TV.
The Importance of Your Involvement
The results of every study done in the last two decades about what affects a child’s success in school clearly demonstrate that only one factor overwhelmingly affects it, every time: parental involvement—not the size of the school, the money spent per pupil, the number of language labs, how many of the students go on to college, how many great (or lousy) teachers there are. None is as significant as the effect you can have.
So please, take the time to read this book and find out what your kids should be learning. You can help them, even if you were not a great student yourself, even if you never learned great study skills. Learn with your child: Not only will it help him in school, it will help you on the job, whatever your field.
If You’re a Nontraditional Student
If you’re going back to high school, college, or graduate school at age 25, 45, 65, or 85, you probably need the help my books