Top 6 Ways For A Mentee To Keep Organized

While a mentor needs to be prepared for every lesson, in order to benefit the most from what a mentor is trying to teach, a mentee needs to be prepared to really learn what they are being taught. The most efficient way of learning is by being organized.

Being organized helps one to prioritize what they need in such an efficient way that they can achieve the set goals with the least amount of stress. The more organized a person is the higher the productivity and the lower the panic, frustration, exhaustion, and anxiety that normally comes with a lot of work. 

Having things organized to help you learn helps you to:

• Maintain a healthy work-life balance.
• Reduce stressful situations.
• Increase the productivity and efficiency of your work.
• Helps you to sleep better. An organized mind is more restful.
• Give you an overall healthier lifestyle.

That said, there are many ways to keep more organized. But first, you need to decide how you will keep more organized. With technology? Without technology? Or with a little bit of both?

Paper or Technology

Once upon a time, paper planners were all the rage. People would use these exclusively to keep themselves organized in their lives and in their work. Then technology happened with the beginnings of the PDA. Since then, we have discovered many ways to stay organized through technology. 

Paper can be used anytime, anywhere. But you need to carry it around with you. If you make a mistake you need to rub or cross it out. Too many mistakes can leave a confusing picture. You need to always have a pen handy to make paper useful. 

On the other hand, paper is not going to run out of battery life. You can leave it on your desk at the end of the day, so you are not repeatedly drawn back to work. Mentally, people are more likely to stick to something that is written down on paper making it great for goals. 

Technology can also be used anytime anywhere, although sometimes it will only work if you have internet access. If the battery dies and you don’t have a charger nearby, you have lost access to your important notes. It is hard to switch off from technology so you may find yourself repeatedly drawn back into your mentee notes instead of enjoying your free time. 

On the other hand, technology can set reminders and alert you of upcoming deadlines. If a mistake is made you can simply delete it and it won’t leave a mark. The chances for collaboration with your mentor increase when you are using technology. You are likely to always have it on you as it can be as small and light as a smartphone. 

The bottom line, both options have positives and negatives. It is up to each individual mentee to decide what works best for them and suits their lifestyle the most.

Planners

Yearly planners can help you keep track of activities, daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. With a decent planner you can:

• Log goals and milestones on set dates.
• Keep track of upcoming meetings.
• Due dates for assignments.
• Schedule time off.
• Keep important notes that you don’t want to forget (Like key points from your mentor).
• Add notes of import around every set appointment.
• See how much time is left in a day once all appointments are logged.

Planners and organizers are highly versatile. The above is the absolute basics of what they can do. Some planers even allow you to add pages that help you to budget, plan meals, keep track of exercise and prepare all necessary materials for a project. 

Both paper planes and technology planners can provide such a range of helpful sheets that it shouldn’t be hard to find one that suits what you need the most.

Calendars

Having a calendar is like having a planner at a glance. The basic idea of a calendar is so you can see everything in the month with a look. This can help in several ways:

• Knowing the plan for the month increases motivation. 
• You are less likely to get caught last minute with something you’d forgotten about.
• Helps you to prepare for upcoming events with the right priority.
• If the planner is stuck in a family-friendly place, like on a wall near the door, the family can work around things already booked in when they need you for something (most of the time).
• Keeping family events on the calendar too prevents you from double-booking things.

Calendars can be on your desk, on your wall, or on your phone. If you have a family that you need to share a calendar with you can get phone apps that share calendars across everyone invited so you can all be clued into what the others are doing all the time.

To-Do Lists

The value of a to-do list is directly proportionate to how well you use it. A to-do list can be a very efficient tool when used correctly, but if used in the wrong way it can lead to more stress and a never-ending list of work. Here’s what a mentee should do with a to-do list.

1. Check your priorities for the month/week/day.
2. Write the list the night before you need it.
3. Place the priority work at the top.
4. Add the less important jobs underneath.
5. Work down the list.
6. Tick off every job done and reward yourself with a little something each time. (A coffee? Biscuit? Little wrapped chocolate?)
7. At the end of the day write unfinished urgent jobs at the top of the list for the next day.
8. Repeat every day, even on days when nothing is really planned. Let your list say take a day off and reward yourself when you make that tick. 

The method of rewarding yourself for completing a task makes the whole journey more enjoyable and helps a mentee to love to learn. The to-do list itself will also help the mentee to be efficient in their day-to-day life providing a more productive day every day.

Workspace

A clean and organized workspace makes work more enjoyable. Having a clean area around you where everything is in the right place, where you need and expect it to be, reduces stress. It also reduces the time wasted looking for that important document that you are not sure where you put it down if you keep your work area organized.

The psychology behind having a proper and organized workspace is important. A clean workspace makes us feel like we have already accomplished something, this, in turn, helps us to get motivated to work. A cluttered workplace can lead to frustration and depress us from being more efficient. 

Keeping an area where we can go to focus on the important things, and keeping that area clean, helps us to keep things organized. 

Contact

Maintaining contact with your mentor is vital to staying organized. Why is this?

1. You always know what the other is doing and/or planning. This will help you to keep your calendars and planners up to date.
2. Keeping that contact with your mentor helps you to stay motivated and focused on reaching your goals.
3. Your mentor is a constant reminder of what you are trying to achieve, this keeps your mission clear in your mind.

Maintaining contact with your mentor does not mean that you have to meet up with them every day, or call them every other hour. Technology can help loads in this department with the use of instant messaging, emails, video messages, and more. Face-to-face contact, though, should not be undervalued. And handwritten letters hold significance in this fast-paced world.

Failing to maintain that contact with your mentor will undermine all the work put in no matter how organized you have been. So, make you this part of your mentoring is also part of your organization no matter how you do it.

Project Books

Writing your main goals in one place with all the notes to help you achieve it can be confusing. Keep each goal in a separate notebook, computer file with all the notes needed is another way of keeping organized. 

A fresh book with the goals and milestones written at the start will help a mentee to focus on one topic at one time. This clean approach keeps the mind on one job. If you had everything in one book or one file, you may find your mind slipping not other topics, and not achieving what you set out to achieve.

Splitting up each project into a new book increases efficiency on any given topic. You will know where to find all the notes on one topic when you keep all your projects in this organized fashion.