Adulting 101: Get it Together- Time and Organization Tips to Help You Thrive

March 5, 2025

Are you ready to leave for college or be out on your own? Are you prepared to do adult tasks and have skills to be successful? Michigan State University Extension's Adulting 101 programs help teenagers and young adults demystify the obscure reality of being an “adult” through engaging educational sessions. Each FREE session is packed full of important life skills and tools necessary to live independently!

Adulting 101- Get It Together: Time and Organization Tips to Help You Thrive

Join us for a fun 4-H Adulting 101 session about mastering organization and time management! Learn practical tips to tackle schedules, beat procrastination, and organize everything from schoolwork to living spaces. From bullet journals to digital tools, we'll explore methods to help you balance life's demands with confidence and efficiency. Make adulting easier (and even fun!)-let's get organized together!

Video Transcript

ll right. Welcome everyone to Adulting 101. This is Get It Together - Time and organization tips to help you thrive. So we've got three of us that are joining you here today from MSU Extension and our 4-H Development Program. So I am Laurie Rivetto. I am a MSU Extension educator. I'm based in Wayne County, and I get to do some amazing work with young people around preparing for the future career exploration, Workforce Readiness that includes things like time management and organization so that you're ready beyond ready for the future. I'm based in Wayne County, and my pronouns are she her and hers, and I will turn it over to Jael to introduce herself. Hi, everyone. My name is Jael Tombaugh. My pronouns are She her hers. I'm an Extension 4-H program assistant that works with Laurieon a ton of different really fun projects throughout the 4-H program. I'm also a junior at Michigan State University in the Honors College studying Animal Science. Janelle. And welcome, everyone. My name is Janelle Stewart. My pronouns are she her and hers, she her hers. Sorry about that. And I am located in Lenawee County. I'm an Extension Educator with responsibilities of our local 4-H program, as well as leadership, civic cultural engagement programming across the state. And we are very excited to hang out with you this evening and share with you. You'll be hearing mostly from myself and Jael. Janelle is going to be managing that Q&A. So if you have questions, feel free to type those into the Q&A, and she will be addressing that. For everybody, whether you're watching this live or watching the recording, we encourage you to grab a notebook at this time, maybe a scrap piece of paper. That way you can take a couple notes that will help you in the future, and we're going to have a couple times to reflect. So a large part about our 4-H programs is the opportunity to reflect on what we're learning and apply it to our lives. So even though this is a webinar format and there is not the same types of interactions that might be in a live in-person type of event, there's still great opportunities to reflect and engage with the content. We encourage you to write down ideas, questions you have, put them in Q&A, and then when we reach those question checkpoints, reflect on how you can apply the knowledge to your own life. So as we get started, we just want to remind you that MSU Extension believes fully in the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion. We know that human differences enrich our lives, our work, and our community, and we embrace our responsibility to be a resource for all, and we're committed to providing programs to all segments of our community. It is also important to understand the longstanding history and legacy of colonialism that led us to reside on this land and to seek to understand our place within that history, and the land acknowledgment on the screen is one step in that process. Thanks for bringing all your uniqueness and your wonderful energy to our webinar today. We're glad to have you. The big thing I want to start off with sharing for time management and organization is that there's no one way that works for everyone. There is no "should" with time management or organization. You have to find a system that works for you. So I like to look at this in the way of art where some people like a lot of colors and pictures. Some people want it more muted. Some people like to create with just a pencil or charcoal. Same thing. So people need sounds or alarms or alerts. Some people want those colors and those different blocks of colors. Some people need sticky things. Some people want a minimalist approach. Some people want everything filed and others want creative energy piles. So you have to organize and plan in a way that really works for you. The key is that it has to actually work. Sometimes people get into a system where they might be trying this and trying that and doing this thing. Find the system that works for you and then stick with it once you find something that works, and the other thing I like to think about it is especially with organization, it's really important not to feel that there's a shame or that you're a bad person in terms of if you're not able to be organized or keep things looking a certain way because we all process and respond to things differently. So we're going to share some principles and strategies today and help you explore ideas that might help set up a process that works best for you. But it's also really important to ask others and learn from others. So think about people in your world who you admire for their organizational skills or for their time management techniques. Then find out what they do and try out those methods and see if it works for you because there can be a lot of wisdom out there in the people who surround you. So let's get into getting organized. So what does it mean to be organized? Typically, it's going to mean being able to find things easily, knowing where everything is at any given time, knowing where you're supposed to be at any given time, knowing what needs to be done in the future, which can relate to goal setting and planning. And then getting organized does take time, but it will save you time in the long run, reduce stress and help you focus on what's important. There's been a lot of research about being organized, and there can be benefits for stress and for um concerns about being able to handle things because you're able to find what you need when you need it. So you have a little bit of that sense of control over of what's going to happen. So again, being organized doesn't need to be something that stresses you out to get organized, but it can be an issue if it ends up becoming a barrier for you getting where you need to be in life. That's when you need to find some structure and some processes to get organized so that you don't have it become a problem for you knowing where you need to be or finding what you need so that you can be successful. So some of the benefits to being organized relate to some of what I just shared, right? Some of the research shows that you can get more done because you can be more efficient with your time. You can do more quality work. You're not spending time trying to find things or not having the materials you need to be successful, that feeling of being in control and knowing where things are so that you're not feeling like things are happening outside of you, that you have a sense of being able to find what you need to be successful, which can lead to lower stress levels in your life, and that can also lead to better sleep. We know how important sleep is. There can be a lot of reasons, though, for how and why we might end up being disorganized in our life. And again, none of these are things that are pointing fingers or shaming because they are things that happen naturally, and we all have moments of disorganization. We all have moments of feeling scattered. It could be because we're overloaded. We have so much going on, and we're overwhelmed. And so it can be hard to get ourselves focused and structured. It could be because of procrastination, which could be because of a variety of reasons. It could be habit that it's very easy for us to stick with what we know, even if it's not the most helpful of choices for us, it could be that we don't have a system in place, maybe we don't have a lot of space. So I know I've been in many situations where I just don't have the closet or storage space. I don't have a very big desk in my office. And so it can look a lot like that picture. Because I don't have a space necessarily for everything. There can be some challenges with mental health that could be affecting us. Maybe we're struggling with depression or anxiety or have some challenges with ADHD. So handling those is very crucial for us to be able to feel like we have more control over our space as well. And then life changes, whether good or challenging can also affect our ability to be organized, right? So maybe you're moving. Maybe there's a new family member. Maybe, you know, there's been a loss in your family. These things end up causing or you've been sick, right? I was sick recently. That makes it very hard to keep up on organization. So, again, it's just something that we're constantly kind of looking at of how we can best set up our world so that we can be successful. So the best thing I want to do is a little framing of what organization could look like, just to give you a framework. So think of organization like a puzzle. Ideally, you have all the pieces laid out in front of you and you can assemble it in a way that makes sense. But sometimes the pieces are scattered in different rooms, and that's going to make it a lot harder to solve the puzzle and figure out what you have left to do. When you can't see all the pieces, you might forget something, you might miss something important. So the analogy of pieces being scattered in different rooms is when your thoughts are scattered. Some are on your brain, some are on paper, some are on your phone, some are in a computer. It's really easier when everything is centralized and you can find everything. So this is very helpful, a very helpful framework to think about the importance and how it can benefit you, to be able to see everything kind of all at once and know where things are, as opposed to having things scattered around. We have wonderfully powerful and amazing brains, but sometimes we need to use other tools in order to keep ourselves organized so that we can be successful and not have to burden our brains that we can get better sleep when we're not burdening our brains with all of that overload and having things in a more central location, as well. Some things to think about with organization, where to start, first, determine some of your goals. You want to think about what are you trying to organize? What are your short term goals for organization and what are some of your long term goals? What are you trying to actually get organized? And for me, I feel like sometimes we have to keep it simple up there, but I also like to talk about keeping it small and attainable to start off with. Because if you think about, I'm going to organize my whole entire house or I'm going to organize my whole apartment. Or even I'm going to organize my whole room. That can feel very, very overwhelming. But if you start with one space, it can give you some success to build off of. So I like to look at that as some of the goals. I'll write myself goals that say something like organize my drawer, organize the top of my dresser, something along those lines or even a section of my desk so that I've had this goal that's attainable that I can achieve. And then plan ahead, so know what you need to get. You have to gather supplies. You might need folders, you might need bins, you might need clips. Whatever you need that you're going to have to use to collect items, organize items, have it be accessible, develop a system where you're dealing with paper and other materials. There's a lot of ideas out there about only touching paper once. So only touching it and then figuring out where it goes and either getting rid of it or handling it, or filing it or whatever it needs to be done. Don't keep touching it, finding it, looking at it multiple times because, again, that just leads to more needing to keep it in mind, right? Avoiding clutter. Ben Franklin says a place for everything, everything in its place. But for me, I also the biggest thing for organization that was helpful for me was being willing to throw things out. That was a huge permission that I felt like I needed to give myself. And if anyone needs to hear me give permission to you right now, I'm going to give you permission to throw out the things that do not serve you. If there are things that you are concerned about that they're useful and somebody else can you find ways to donate it to others. There's a lot of free pages on social media where you can donate or give them to neighbors, find ways to find new homes, but don't feel you need to hold onto it, if that's something that's holding you back from doing what you need to do. So those are a couple steps for where to start, and we're going to dive into some tools with Jael. Thanks, Laurie. Okay. So as Laurie said, there's many benefits to organization, including being able to find things easily, knowing where one is supposed to be at any given time, keeping track of your future tasks and assignments, all of those great things. There's three main tools for staying organized, a to do list, a calendar, and a notebook. A to-do list helps keep track of tasks. By making a list of all your tasks ranked by priority and urgency, you can figure out what you need to do and when without worrying about forgetting something. The first step in making a to do list is usually a brain dump, and we'll talk about this in the next few slides. A calendar helps you keep track of your appointments, so you should write down when your appointment is, who it is with, and where it is. For this purpose, you can use a calendar app on your phone or your computer, a wall calendar, or a daily organizer. Make sure to check your calendar before scheduling new appointments so that you don't double book yourself. You should also make sure to schedule time for work, meals, and recreation, especially if you know a day is going to be really busy. A notebook helps you organize your notes. You can either use a physical notebook or a virtual system, but it's just essentially a really easily accessible place to store all your notes and thoughts. One method would be to organize your notebooks by different topics or subjects, and then having a separate notebook for each, or others might prefer to have one notebook divided by labeled sections or color coding. It should be organized in a way you understand and can remember so that you can quickly find notes when you need them. The kind of put all these things together. In addition to having the physical copies of these tools, there's also many online resources available such as Google Calendar, Notion, your Outlook calendar, any of those things. And as Laurie mentioned earlier, the most important part is to find one and use what works for you. So maybe it's one of these, maybe it's none of these, or maybe it's all of these combined. Next, we're going to talk a little bit about that brain dump that I mentioned with the to do list. So if you want to follow me with your notebooks, you're more than welcome to do that, or take these things and put them in your head for making your own later. But the first step of making a to do list is this brain dump. This means taking some time to think about everything you need to do and writing it down on one page so you can see everything all at once. It can be anything big or small, so it could be homework, TV shows you want to watch, even if you do the wordle every day, it can be things just as small as so feel free after you, you know, step off this webinar or if you have any time at one of our checkpoints to start writing down some of those things and get them out of your head. And then the next step is once you've done that brain dump, you come up with a due date. Notice how I use Do date and not DUE date. If you are only looking at the things due that day, you may run out of time to finish a task. For example, if you have a paper due on Friday, you don't want to start it on Friday but maybe on Monday and then work with it over the next couple of days. So you can put the date that you're going to start as Monday because that's when you're going to do it. So when you have some time, you can take a minute and put a date next to all the items on your brain dump. And then the next step would be to categorize. There's a lot of different ways to do this, but you can just start by putting them into very broad categories. So things like life, school, work, fun, you can either categorize it based on what project it falls into if it's for school. And this will help you remember that what you have to do and how you need to prioritize it if needed. So once you have everything put down for their due dates, you can take a minute and put a category or descriptor next to each item that works best for your brain. And then once you have the due date and the category for each task, you can transfer it onto your to do list. Jael, I'm curious. Do you tend to put the to do list in the categories? Like different categories have different to do list sometimes. Usually, sometimes for me, I'm very much a color code person. So mostly everything has its own color, and then it goes all into one to do list with different colors that I know means school or work or fun or appointments. That's usually how I work best. Awesome. Janelle, do you have a certain way? No, I really don't. But I was going to throw another question at Jael. Yeah, that one. They had a question on what do you do if your brain dump becomes more than one page. That's okay. Sometimes you need to just get it out, I think. Obviously, if you have, like, a really busy day coming up where you have your commitments are all over the place. So you have school, you have work, you have all these fun things to do. That's okay. I'd say get it out, and then what we're going to talk about a little bit later is saying no to things. So maybe we can look at it, and like I was mentioning, prioritize it and then see maybe what isn't serving our goals right at this moment, and maybe we can put off to the side and come back to later. And I would just add to that that. I agree, Jael. I get it all out, but I also don't put it on the back side of the paper. When I go more than one page, I go to the next page, so it just stays very fresh and I don't have to flip over. I know that sounds funny, again, but it works for me. So that's a great idea. I love that. I also categories. For me, I have two lists that's specifically for work, and then I have one that's more personal, my things in my personal life or things with maybe friends, family, fun, leisure are a separate thing because to merge the two of them to me just blurs what's going on when and when I'm focusing on it. I think that can be really helpful as well. Yeah. I'm going to why we're answering some questions brainstorming here together. Got another I got another stumper on here on questions, so I'm just appreciating everyone in your questions. What if you have projects within the projects? So example, YouTube making can also be filming, editing, branding, et cetera. So they want us to get really layered in here deep with these organizations. So I'll throw out to both of you to see who wants to answer that one. I can start and then maybe Laurie can jump in. I'm sure we'll get something. I guess for me, there's a lot of school projects that I've had to do where it's kind of like that. Like, there's a lot of intricate details that maybe go into the final project. And I think it comes back to kind of being able to categorize it and prioritize it. So maybe starting with just making a few broad steps. So like Janelle mentioned, maybe your first step is filming that video and you can write down when you're going to get that done and then make sure you're factoring in breaks in there and you can put number two. I'm going to edit this video. Breaking it down into small, easily doable and less overwhelming chunks. Is a better way to be able to get to the final product, at least for me personally. I 100% agree. That's the similar approach I have. I was just pulling out my notebook. I have a little notebook. That is actually not my to do list specifically. But when I have a bigger project that has many, many steps to it, it really helps me to do the brain dump and dump everything out on it. So I was trying to look at one of my ones recently, but I even have things like upload fly or update description, you know, send items to a colleague to tag. Create a calendar event. Like, I have every little step kind of listed, and then I can kind of prioritize based on what is going to need to happen first. So maybe uploading the flyer that I said isn't something that needs to happen right away, but maybe sending the information to the colleague needs to happen sooner. So then I can take that and put them on my immediate to do list and note that. But the other ones are still here so that I can kind of space it out and I actually map out my weeks and so I put to do items on the different week. So I can kind map it out based on the week. So that's kind of how I break down a bigger project, but it does start with brain dumping all of the steps and the tasks. So, for sure, that's a great spin. And I'm going to just add a little bit to that, too, sometimes if you've got a creative mind, sometimes you can do, like, diagrams where you got the main project, and then you, like, even go in and create different types of you computerized stuff, even if you want, and bring your arrow down, and box A is what you have to do first, box B and really, truly break it down that way. But I do have one other one. How often do you guys brain dump? And I will say, I will answer I'll just answer first for you guys. I brain dump anytime that I no longer can hold it upstairs. I don't have an exact time. It's just when I feel that life is overwhelming me and I've got to drop it all on paper. That's when I do it. But that's me personal, so I would actually dump similar. Yeah, I was gonna say I would definitely say what Janelle said. I also to try and help myself avoid that because I feel like when I get to that point, I'm feeling overwhelmed. Good choice. A great way to make it not overwhelming anymore, but to try to avoid me personally feeling that way, I try to do it at least weekly on, like, a Sunday or a Monday when I know my week's about to start, and I have a lot of things that are building up in my head that I'm starting to get really anxious about. And that tends to be a really good strategy for me. Awesome. Alright, I'll turn it back to you, Jael. Yeah, well, jump back in. So we're talking a lot about to do lists, but kind of what do those look like and how would they work best for you? There's many different kinds you can use. So whether it's the ones we were just talking about, that's on a quick notebook, that's one centralized place to write everything down, and you can make it really pretty with different colored pens or post its. There's also virtual ones you can use that you can find just an app that works best for you. Or there's also the post-its that I mentioned. So if you need to make a really quick to do lists like one of those brain dumps, you could write down some things that you're really thinking of, put it on your computer or right on your mirror and your bathroom so you see it right away and just make sure you get rid of the old ones and don't lose the important ones. And then to do this are also one of the most easy ways to prioritize things like we were talking about. So whether you need to make it for yourself daily, weekly, or monthly, it really just depends on your lifestyle, or you could do it all of those ways. I know that's what works best for me. Just be careful not to allow the list making to get out of control or do not keep multiple lists at the same time. You can obviously, like Laurie said, that's what works best for her, but just make sure you're not having like 1,000 out there, and they're all over the place and not in one place that works best for your brain. And then you can also rank those items on your to do list. So in order priority, both important and urgent. And then just keep in mind that your goal is not to mark off the most items, rather, it's you want to mark off the highest priority items. So if you have a prioritized to do list, it allows you to say no to those activities that we were talking about that may still be interesting or provide a sense of achievement for you, but don't fit your basic priorities or fit into that time that you have for that week. But we'll talk more about saying no later. And then another great organizational tool that I'm gonna go into a little bit of detail with is calendars. There's multiple different ones, but it's similar to how there are different ways to make a to do list. There's multiple ways to keep a calendar. And once again, you're going to find a way that works best for you. Time management experts recommend using a personal planning tool to improve your productivity. So this would be such as electronic planners, pocket diaries, calendars, computer programs, anything like that. And then you can take your to do list and kind of prioritize those tasks to the days that you either need to do them or you have a certain appointment at a certain time. So just some reminders are to make sure you're always recording your information on the tool itself or, like, don't jot down a ton of notes elswhere and then forget to transfer them to the tool that you're using then things can get lost that way. Make sure you can either review it daily or at least every couple of days, whatever works best for you and keep it with you so that you can write down those really important dates. And then there's multiple different calendars once again with to-do lists. So whether that's an app or you use your email like Google calendar or a wall calendar or written one, I know I use a combination of those just because it's what works best for me, and sometimes I can't easily access my written one, so I'll make sure it goes in my um Google calendar, and then I can reference that and make sure everything's together so that I'm not forgetting things because sometimes life can get very crazy and that's what calendars are there to do is help you with that. Yeah, and I tend to also be a paper calendar person. I need to see the whole month out in front of me because visually, I need to see what's coming up ahead. I think when some people are able to just kind of do it day by day, but for me, that gives me not the sense of forward thinking of what to anticipate, which goes with that due versus do date concept is I'm not seeing what's coming up ahead of me. Yes. So question for the two of you. How do you keep yourself or keep yourself motivated in organization? I mean, when everything seems like overwhelming, how do you find that motivation to say, Alright, I got to do this. So you want to start us off, Laurie. So I was going to say, sometimes it's setting those goals, first of all, and deciding to do it. And that's where that starting small has been very helpful for me because I am a person who space wise, I don't necessarily keep space super organized. Again, I just want to reiterate that that doesn't mean that anyone's a bad person for not keeping a space organized because sometimes I think there's a lot of personal judgment about that. But if it's not, for me, it's not a problem. I think creative piles if I know where I can find things. It's a problem when I can't find things or I'm feeling constricted by the clutter or the items. That's when I'm like, Wow, I need to handle this. The best way I've approached it is to say I'm going to tackle this drawer or I'm going to, we've got a drunk drawer in the house and everything gets tossed in it, and then at some point in time, you have to be like, you know what? We need to clean this drawer. And so then I just say I'm going to clean this drawer. Typically, we'll go through some time management strategies to avoid procrastination in a little bit, but those kind of tips help me, whether it be playing music or setting a timer and saying do this for 15 minutes. And just doing that can get you started, and then you have momentum. Jael, what are your thoughts? I definitely second that. I will say for me personally, and this probably doesn't apply to many, but I'm very motivated by, like, aesthetics, if that makes sense. So I really like having my environment be comfortable for me and something that I enjoy. So I love using colors, like I mentioned, so on my little whiteboard planner that I have in front of my desk, there's all these color coded, and I love making it fun with different designs every month. I look forward to doing and then also, I just like I feel like getting me motivated means setting my space, like I mentioned. So I'll get a fun drink. I'll put on some of my favorite music. I'll get a fun candle going. Just try to make it enjoyable for yourself because sometimes these things aren't enjoyable. So if you can make it as fun as possible, that's what really helps me. Great tips. And then kind of going on to the aesthetics type things, talking a little bit about bullet journals. So there one system that kind of combines all the tools I just talked about into one central space. Sometimes that might not work best for you, sometimes it might. It's completely customizable and it can be made to fit your needs. So if you have a little bit more of that creative brain that Janelle was talking about, this might be a really good space for you. Some companies sell, like, pre made bullet journals, or you can also just grab a journal that you have on hand and start making one yourself. You can make pages for to do lists, calendars, notes. You can also use it to journal, make trackers for things like exercise, reading, or anything else you can really think of. It's also a really great place to set some goals for yourself, write down those brain dumps or maybe even funny quotes or good quotes you hear that you just want to keep track of. It's a really central and reusable space for many different things. And then, like I said, you can also get artistic. So you can do something like the right image if you want to do more elaborate, depending on how creative you can get, or you can do something that's more simple like the one on the left. But once again, what's important is navigating what works best for you and what makes you excited to look at it and use it. So, Jael, how do you have the pages Bulletin journal. Yeah, so you can use many different ways to do it. I know I keep one personally and I use the little book tabs or sticky note tabs that you can get at the store. Or if you want to get a piece of ribbon, you could use one of those classical type bookmarks that you might see in an old book or something like that. Make it fun. You can also make your own out a little piece of paper like you do for bookmarks, if you want to add to that creative side of things. Whatever really works best for you. I think another one I'm going to answer here live, a question that came in, and I think that it's something I think many of us struggle with sometimes, even if you have or have not have official diagnosis of ADD or ADHD. But it's just the question is along the line of how do you determine when there is a high when everything seems to be a high priority? And then you struggle also then with ADD, ADHD, or that. That's why I say with or without the diagnosis of something of that manner, I think that just in general, things can get seemed really overwhelmed. And as I'm watching the screen go with all the files going across the computer on our image right here, that's what my brain sometimes feels like as well. I think for me, I have to really say it's taking that time for a little bit of mindfulness for myself. That is to take those deep breaths. And I mean repeatedly take those deep breaths, realize that everything can be a priority in life. So what is the most important thing coming with the closest deadline for me? I take a deep breath and I just start tackling one small thing at a time. And we're also going to go Organization and time management is so intertwined, and we're going to go in a little bit of prioritizing with time management, as well. So we'll hopefully give a couple more tips that will help with that question. Perfect. And then just lastly, I wanted to mention a little bit about digital files, as you know, pulled our attention to. So it's a really great way on whatever electronic device you're using, store everything in one place and make it easier to find things. Sometimes this little image shows us things can get spread all over the place. You start saving all these things. You don't know where they go to, what they're doing on your computer. So it's a way to save all your files in one place and make it faster for you. Um, so imagine if you had this big binder that's filled with all these important assignments and notes, but there's no tabs to help you organize it, or there's no folders that tell you where things are going to help you locate exactly what you're looking for. And then you can kind of think about the types of digital files you generally use and what system you use to organize them. So for example, you might create a folder for each of your courses, which you can kind of further organize by quarter in academic school year. Just make sure you're organizing right away if you can, because the really fast way that like this image is showing happens as you start saving things, you don't realize that you're not putting them somewhere, and then it gets that way without you even noticing. And also, as Janelle mentioned, I think it's a really good point to check in, reflect, and adjust not only with your files, but with yourself and your organizational tips to be able to see, is this working for me? And if it's not, you can find a different way that might work better, and you can keep trying. It's okay if it's not right the first time. I still think I do things sometimes that probably aren't the most beneficial to my time management. So just finding ways, and I think like Laurie said, as well, in different, you know, life changes and areas of your life, there's gonna be some things that work great for you at that point, and then down the road, they're going to stop working for you. And that's okay. You just got to ever be evolving and make sure you're checking in with yourself. That is a great, great point, Jael And I was actually reflecting on the fact that there are many times then that I have reached out to people, like I said that earlier I said that I viewed as being successful in this or just said like, help, I am really struggling. I have all these emails and I don't know what to do with them or how do you manage keeping track of the files when you're trying to when you're creating things, where do you put them? And I might go to someone like Janelle and be like, Where do you keep them and see what her strategy is and see if that works and I might think about it and be like, I don't know if that'll work for me. And I might ask somebody else who I think might handle, you know, and get some ideas. And so sometimes it's also a matter of asking other people. So, I'm at this juncture in my life, and I'm not sure how to handle it. So what do you do? I'd love to hear your ideas. Okay. Perfect. And then just jumping into a quick question checkpoint. I know we only have the Q&A here and that is okay, but if you want to use the notebook paper that you have and just kind of check in with yourself after organization tips, and then we'll jump into some time management. So here's just a couple of questions to guide your thinking. How do you stay organized for school and life? For you personally, what might work best? What can you add to your to do list? Maybe do a mini brain dump right now when you have some time, things that are really kind of fore thinking in your mind. And then what tools might you want to try or what do you think might work best for you? So if you just want to take a few minutes and you can think about those things. (no sound) Okay, I'm going to keep us moving along so hopefully you can jot down your thoughts and reflect and apply. We're going to start looking at time management, which again is super connected to organization as a whole. There's so much interconnection with these. We first wanted to share a resource, which we will also send out via email for those of you who have attended this about the wheel of life. This is just a great way to look at how you are managing your time and how you are using your time. So one of the first things that's really important when you're looking at your time and trying to organize and manage it is to keep a log. So keeping a log of your time is really a way to determine how you are currently using your time. So you start by recording what you are doing for typically 15 minute time intervals for a week or two. Now, I know that can be tedious, but if you really want to get a concept of your time, this is a way to see how you're using it. Then you look at the results. So ask if you did everything that was needed, determine which tasks require the most time, determine the time of day when you are the most productive and analyze where most of your time is devoted, whether it was job or family or school or personal or recreation. And this is really important because sometimes you can find those things that are time wasters or things that are just you're using them to procrastinate as opposed to reaching your goals. But you also can identify your most time consuming tasks in determining whether you're investing your time in the most important activities so that you can determine the best course of action. So it also helps you get a sense of the amount of time required for routine tasks sometimes we underestimate or overestimate how long things are going to take. So this will help you be more realistic and how long it takes you to get ready in the morning, for instance, or how long does it typically take you to get your math homework done? So that way, you have a better concept of how long that typically is. And then make sure you're devoting time to important tasks every day. We're going to spend more time really soon about important tasks and prioritizing but it's really important that you're thinking about the things that you want to do in your life and reliably scheduling regular intervals of time that you can use to get into a routine and get those things done. And that helps at the procrastination as well. So this wheel of life resource that I put in the chat is a great opportunity to block out how much time you're using and they ask questions that can help you assess how much time you're devoting to different sectors of your life and your world. Let's talk a little bit more about prioritizing because that came up a lot in the Q&A, which I think they're great questions. But there are so many times, that we feel that everything has to be done immediately. Everything feels urgent, everything feels important. But when we prioritize, we can really focus on what we need to do and what we need to get done. It is really important to know the difference between what is urgent and what is important. And there's a lot of research around prioritizing because important isn't always urgent and we need to end up focusing on some of those urgent tasks. But they might not be actually important to do. That's where we have to understand the difference. COV suggests that we spend less time on activities that are not important regardless of their urgency in order to gain time to focus on activities that are not urgent, but they're very important. Focusing on these important activities allows us to gain greater control over our time and possibly that's our hope is reduce the times that important tasks then become urgent because we're handling it in a more timely basis, so it doesn't become a panic situation. So you want to work on the tasks that you alone need to do and delegate those that you do not need to. So people use this four quadrant concept that Kev has shared on here, which is when it's due first, it's urgent and important. These are going to be those things that are happening right away and you need to address. So it's a pressing problem or emergency. It's a big project that is due tomorrow and you need to finish up some tasks. It's the test that's tomorrow that you need to do some last minute studying pieces on it. Ideally, you would have planned ahead, right, with the Do DUE versus DO. You would be looking at that do when I'm doing it. So you were not studying right before it, you're studying leading up to it. But there are some things you might need to look at right beforehand or you want to review your essay or you need to do some final touches. So, yes, that's going to be urgent and important because it's right away that's happening. The other area is the important, but it's not urgent. And those are things that we can schedule and plan. Again, using that planning ahead of when and putting them on our calendar of when we can do those. Those are things like exercise, sleep, time with friends and family, reading, learning, cleaning, or organizing a space that we just talked about, paying bills. They are very, very important to do, but if we plan ahead, they don't become overwhelming or urgent situations. So we plan those on our schedule, we put it in there so that we can get it done, and then we have it done on a timely basis. So now let's look at the things that are not important and we'll look at the ones that are not important but urgent, those are usually someone else's demands. So they are not necessarily things that we are choosing. They could be some phone calls or emails or some meetings or events or some errands, might be buying supplies or booking a trip or planning a family get together. It's not really important. It feels urgent, but you might be able to delegate or delay those activities. There might be something that you could ask someone else to help with. It might be something to say, like, Yes, I'd love to do this, but I need to do this later on. This is where some of those no responses might be able to come in is like, it's a great opportunity, but at this time, I'm not really able to take part in that. So you can kind of schedule, delegate it and put it down the road, possibly. And then the last one is not important or not urgent. So these are often those things that we might find us doing to procrastinate or waste time. They can be things like social media, responding to every post or message, doing busy work, or gossiping or anything that you're going to do to procrastinate and that might not be value based for you. Now I will put a caveat on there. Some of those things that we do might be good brain breaks, might be a moment to connect with others. So it's not 100% of the time that they are time wasters and they're not important at all. It's just again, when it reaches that point where it's preventing you from doing something else and you're using it to not achieve another goal or do something else that would be important in your life, that's when it becomes a problem and it's not important and it's not urgent and it's not moving you forward. The other concept of prioritizing is just the Pareto rule with 80 where 80% of the reward comes from 20% of the effort. So really isolate what that valuable 20% is. Like, what am I going to get the most bang for my buck, I guess you could say. Like, what's going to get the most impact? And that's what you should prioritize your time around. Okay, so let's do a quick poll. I'm going to launch that. And the pole is up there. Do you procrastinate or put off doing tasks and try to be honest because we're not going to go back and check. Be honest with yourself. Always a lot, sometimes infrequently, rarely or never. If you're watching the recording, you can answer too. Always a lot, sometimes infrequently, rarely or never. Do you procrastinate or put off task. I'm going to give a few more seconds. See where our group has landed. Okay, so sharing the results we have a lot and sometimes our highest, about 50% in both, actually, for a lot and sometimes. So I really appreciate everyone's honesty with that. Procrastination we know is something that happens, and you might be putting off tasks for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it just feels overwhelming, sometimes it's unpleasant. So that's where that concept we talked about earlier really helps of breaking a task into smaller segments so that you can feel that success. You have specific realistic deadlines for those smaller sections. They require less of a time commitment. So it can feel less overwhelming to get it started. You might also help yourself out by just doing a preparation step, get all the materials or organize your notes. Then sometimes people do even small rewards or set up the space. So it's very comfortable and helps you feel like you are doing something wonderful for yourself to start this project or task, so you have a little reward part of it. The other two techniques actually involve food allergies, so I love them. One technique is the Swiss cheese method, that's described by Alan Laken. So the idea of that is when you're avoiding something, you're going to break it into those smaller tasks. You just do one of the smaller task and set a timer and work on that task for 15 minutes. Then you do a little at a time and eventually you'll reach that point where you want to finish because you do those 15 minute work sessions at a time. The pomadoro technique, which actually means tomato in Italian is another one that's pretty popular. There's a lot of research on pomadoro techniques, you could look that up online if you like. But that involves choosing a task that you would like to get done. This one involves setting a timer to 25 minutes, making an oath to spend the 25 minutes on that task. Not interrupt yourself. You really immerse yourself in the task, and if you think of something else that you have to do or something else popped into mind, you write it down on a separate sheet, so you're dumping it out and letting it go, and then you get back to work. Then after that 25 minutes, you check off that you did one Pamdoro and you take a short break that's not related to that project. After every four Pomodoro, after every 420 5 minutes, you're going to take a longer 20 to 30 minute break. The idea is to really focus and then give your brain a break. So again, look up more information on the pomadoro technique if you're interested in following more of that. But I love both techniques specifically because they help you focus for a short time and get started and avoid some of that procrastination. I like the food analogies. I think it's a helpful way to think about it as well. Take those small bites. Another really important component with time management is flexibility. So how do you incorporate flexibility into your schedule? The best tip that time management experts say is don't schedule every single hour of your day. You need some empty time slots. You know that things are going to happen that will not be planned, so you need some space in there and you need to schedule in recreation time. Sometimes people like Jaelwas saying, we'll have a Sunday or a Monday, have some planning time. Some people will use Friday as a catchup time or a makeup time for things. You have to know that there's going to be things where you have to diverge from your established schedule, and so you need to have those spaces where you can either catch up or make up for lost time. Things happen, you get sick, you're you know, hurt your ankle, whatever it is that happens. And so you have to figure out how to adjust to that and switch up your time so your schedule reflects your new commitments and your new situation. You have to allow time that there are going to be interruptions and distractions. So time management experts actually say you should plan for about 50% or less of one's time, and then you have the flexibility to handle interruptions and unplanned emergencies. The other component here is that you should really respond versus reacting. So when you're in the moment of decision making, when faced with a decision or impulse to diverge from your schedule, don't just react. You should respond. That means you pause and take a moment to think. So remember what's most important to you and what you need to do to help you get to that important thing. So for instance, if exercise is a priority for you and is important and you had that in your schedule, don't let a sudden fear about a grade or whatever prevent you from exercising. Maybe you need to take less time exercising. Maybe you need to adjust the amount of time, but don't compromise on your health when that's something that's important. So sometimes we get those mind games or we let justifications get in there, and that can lead you astray. But think about what you're really trying to achieve and stick with that. Laken has a really important question when you're interrupted that I think is super helpful is what is the most important thing I can be doing with my time right now? So if you ask yourself that, it can help you get back on track fast. So what is the most important thing I can be doing with my time right now? Ja, are you going to add something? No, I was just going to say just adding on to having that flexibility time is I guess you said it in a great way, but I was just going to say, like, I always make sure that with my flexibility, I'm kind of making sure not scheduling it, but giving time for people and family and friends, I think is a really good way to kind of use that open time and making sure you're saving that open time for things that are outside of school and work. Perfect. Thank you. I was just going to add real quick as you go in this poll, one of the suggestions that came into the chat and I love it, why we were all hungry when you were talking about tomatoes, cheese, and all that things, was that setting the scene by putting your gym clothes on when you want to go to the gym or actually making yourself, preparing yourself for that. I thought that was a great tab. So, setting the scene is a great tip. Yeah, for those of you who already caught it, we do have a multitasking question up here. Do you multitask again. Please be honest. Always a lot, sometimes infrequently, rarely or never. Do you multitask? Do you try to do more than one task or project at a time? I will give a few more seconds for people to respond. All right. So looking at the results for this group, we're across the board. We've got our largest percentage is actually 36% of you said a lot, but we have answers and sometimes infrequently and always. I appreciate those who are very honest and said always because sometimes that is where we land with things. I guess the biggest thing I want to share here is that multitasking as being a successful method to get things done is actually a myth. So recent psychological studies have shown that multitasking does not actually save time. In fact, it's really the opposite. So you lose time when switching from one task to another, resulting in a loss of productivity, and routine multitasking can actually lead to difficulty in concentrating and maintaining focus when needed. Because what happens is our brain has to keep shifting gears to change to different things. And so we're losing some of that efficiency and that understanding. So when you focus on one task at a time and have your full engagement, which is where some of those other techniques, the Swiss cheese or the Pamaduro technique can be really helpful is because you're really focused and engaged on that particular process. So if we talk a little bit about focus in particular, it's about we sometimes actually lose focus because of external things, right? Those things that happen outside of us, there's distractions, the unexpected things that are happening around us. And it can be things like phone calls or emails or texts or um, it could be the social media, movies, videos, phone games, unexpected visitors, friends, family, family obligations, things like that. Again, please know that some of these things are not time wasters or distractions in a bad way. Sometimes we need them to relax or connect with others. But again, if they are preventing us from moving forward, then we need to find ways to handle it. So, um, we are going to let you have another touch base point question checkpoint about what one of your biggest time wasters or distractions is and how can you prevent it. We'll just take a minute write down on your own, your biggest time waster or distraction and it's stopping you from getting things done, and write a strategy that you would use for how you would prevent it. Then Jael Janelle and I will share one of ours. Cha, Janelle, do you have one you want to share? Time waster and how you address it. I will say I have fallen victim to TikTok and I spend a lot of my time on it because it's a really good brain break to just scroll through mindless videos. So definitely I think a great way of helping with that is when I need to um, focus on a specific task. I will make sure my phone is in another room or very far away from me, so I have to actually put some effort to go pick it up. And then with that, sometimes that doesn't even stop me. So there are locks you can put on your apps or time limits you can put on your apps. And I know sometimes when I'm getting really distracted, I will use those and only allow 1 hour a day. That way, I try to prevent myself from continuing and getting into that habit. Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of those even in the Q&A of time limits, um, yes, removing the phone, blocking notifications, turn off automatic notifications. You could designate times to use it. I even like the simple one of if someone does come into your space, you're trying to work and they come into your space, even just standing up while you're talking or in a meeting can help you stay focused on topic. So there are a lot of different strategies that can help with those. Great job. In essence, you need to come up with a process that lets yourself focus and says, please do not disturb for others around you as well. All right the last piece that Je has been referencing is saying no. So knowing your priorities and your goals and your priorities on your to do list can really help you with saying no. It is a very small word. It is a word in a sentence all in and of itself, no is, but it can be very hard to say. Blocking time for those important but often not scheduled priorities such as family and friends, self care. Exercise, sleep, et cetera, is really, really important, and it helps you maintain your priorities. But the biggest thing is that you have to be convinced that you and your priorities are important. That is actually the hardest part in learning to say no. So once you are convinced of the importance of your goals, your priorities, saying no to the unimportant things in life can get easier. So remember that your well being is also an important use of time. So scheduling time to relax or do nothing can help you rejuvenate, both physically and mentally, enabling you to accomplish tasks more quickly and more easily. There are many instances where you may need to give an explanation for why you have to say no, so it could be for work or for certain obligations that you should give a reason, but there are also situations where you don't have to give a reason. You can just politely decline an offer an event, a project, a get together, or do that delegation or delaying, right? So you can say no, thanks. I won't be able to make it. I'm not taking anything else on right now. I'm learning to limit my commitment. And even the simple one of no thanks, I won't be able to make it, you don't have to give an explanation if that's not going to fit your life. So you can say no thanks, I won't be able to make it. Yes, prioritize yourself. I like that. Thanks for adding that in the Q&A. So saying no, think about the ways that you can politely decline something that isn't going to reach your goals and align with your values. So that wraps up our time. We have finished our formal content, but we do welcome questions in the Q&A. We've had some wonderful questions already, but we will end up stopping the recording soon and we will answer those questions. But we also appreciate if you will complete the survey that I'm going to put in the chat for you. That is just a few questions, and I think it's three questions. You can also scan that QR code on the screen to access the survey. It's really important part of the process to reflect and consider how you're going to apply what you learned into your actual life. That's the next step to getting organized with your time or your space. So please complete that three question survey to help us learn what you learned and to add that reflection to your life. So once you've done that, if you have no questions, we appreciate you joining us for this adulting one oh one session. Hopefully you'll join the next one in April, and we are grateful to have you have shared the hour with us. Hopefully you learn something new. I'll just add everyone's signing off. Handling the Q&A, thank you for enriching our lives. I think we are walking away with some better suggestions that will incorporate for future programs, and I always think it's a great program, and we learn as much from you as you learn from us. So thanks, everyone. That's great. Janelle. Thank you for sharing that, yeah. You will receive an email with contents. So stay tuned for that in a few days as well as the recording

MSU Extension 4-H Adulting 101