How to Prepare for a New School Year 📝 10 ways to start the school year strong! 💪

[Music] hey guys welcome back so in this video i wanted to share how you can prepare for the upcoming school year and 10 things you can do before school starts or a few weeks after going back to school to start off the school year strong i feel like most people lose their motivation after like the first week of school so hopefully these tips will help you stay productive and motivated throughout the entire semester or at least for the majority of it links to everything i mentioned timestamps and more information is in the description box as always and with that being said let's not waste any more time and get straight into the video [Music] the first thing you need to do for back to school is to get your life together this includes a number of things the first one being fixing your sleep schedule i feel like most people and this definitely includes me as well like to stay up late at night during summer break browsing social media just like scrolling on tik tok or instagram this is a luxury that you can afford during summer break however this habit will definitely hurt you after school starts so you should fix it and start going to bed around eight hours before the time when you want to wake up in the morning something that really helps me with this is setting alarms around the time when i need to get ready for bed because otherwise i'll just keep scrolling on tick-tock forever and forget that i should go to bed until it's like 2 a.m so set a reminder or some sort of alarm to help you go to bed early another step in getting your life together is building good habits and routines you can follow throughout the semester i recommend creating a productive morning and night routine and writing down each and every single step that your ideal routines include once you have your routines planned you should start practicing them as soon as possible because as the semester goes on and your assignments start to pile up and you get busy with tests and quizzes it's going to be a lot harder for you to build new habits and follow new routines so the best time to start is today there's an app i recommend using called routinery basically you input all the steps of your routine and how long each one of them takes and it walks you through your routine with timers and helps you track everything i found it super useful so i just wanted to share it with you guys moving on the second thing is to declutter your life this includes a few mini steps firstly you should go ahead and clean your room and declutter your physical environment as much as possible if you haven't done this already go through your papers and notes from the previous semester and organize them get rid of everything you don't need i promise you'll feel super refreshed and amazing afterwards next you should prepare your study environment make sure that it's well lit for studying both during the day and night time i love decorating my desk with things that make me happy so that i'm excited to sit down and study in this area however make sure that you don't put too many things around you because that can have the opposite effect and become distracting lastly don't forget about your digital space go through your phone clean your desktop organize all your files and delete anything you don't need also make sure that you have enough free storage on all of your devices so you can store all your files and resources you need for the upcoming school year next up let's talk about music playlists i don't know what about you but i can't imagine my life without my favorite songs and playlists because music is the only thing that keeps me sane throughout the semester so every year before i go back to school i sit down and find new songs update my playlists and organize everything doing this is so important to me that i even pick out aesthetic covers for every single one of my playlists here are some playlists i recommend you create for the upcoming semester the first one is a study playlist 90 of the time when i'm doing anything productive i'm listening to one of my study playlists it helps me focus so much and makes studying and getting things done a lot easier for me if you're looking for a good study playlist then a few of them are public on my spotify so feel free to search up my username or use the link below to find my account another playlist you should definitely create is a playlist full of happy songs some days during the semester you're going to wake up feeling unmotivated drained and tired and a good happy playlist full of upbeat songs can help you cheer up get excited about life and your goals and just put you in a great mood i like listening to this playlist during my morning routine to start off the day with positive vibes i listen to it during study breaks whenever i feel down and i want to get energized and i also turn on this playlist whenever i'm doing chores usually cleaning your room or folding laundry is really boring but when you're listening to a fun playlist that makes you want to dance and puts you in the best mood ever even doing your laundry becomes super fun lastly i created a chill playlist that helps me relax get cozy and de-stress after a long day [Music] my next tip is to set goals for the school year because i genuinely believe that setting goals helps you prioritize things and spend your time more intentionally when setting goals i recommend using the smart goal system it basically says that your goals have to be specific measurable actionable realistic and time-bound the first goal that i set for my upcoming semester is doing all my work on weekdays so that i can completely relax on weekends and not have to worry about school this will help me maintain a healthy work life balance and not overwork myself or burn out my second goal is to finish and submit all my assignments 24 hours before their deadline and this is because i tend to put things off to the last minute so it'll help me start things early and hopefully finish them early as well and my last goal is to socialize more and make friends this is because i'm starting my first year of university this fall and after staying in my room and not really going out much for the past one and a half years because of the pandemic i've honestly forgotten how to talk to people so this is one of my goals the next tip is to find a good organization method for back to school being organized during the school year is essential because the more organized you are the less stress you're going to be less stress means better grades better productivity and of course better mental health there are two things you need to organize as a student the first one is your physical things like your notes and papers and there are many ways to go about organizing them you can have one notebook for each subject you can have a binder you can have one of those expanding file folders there are so many options i personally like to use a binder notebook for many different reasons however something that works for me may not work for you or something that worked for you in middle school might not work for you in high school so it's important to experiment until you find something that really makes your life easier and genuinely works for you the second thing you need an organization system for are all of your digital files so create a folder structure that helps you keep track of your assignments and all other documents then something i recommend is moving all your files to a cloud storage i'm using google drive but there are many options out there like dropbox or icloud this is helpful because you can access your files everywhere for example you can use your phone to revise something on your way to school the next thing you need to do to prepare for school is to find a study buddy staying productive and motivated when you're studying all by yourself is really hard because no one is holding you accountable but once you find a study partner you guys can ask each other questions discuss ideas and hold each other accountable which will help you stay motivated ideally this person will be someone from your class so that you can share your notes with them or ask them different questions regarding the specific topics that you're studying but this doesn't really happen often so you can easily find study buddies on the internet i created this little study room for my friends and i but then i thought maybe you guys would find it helpful so i'm sharing it with you guys basically you open up this link on your computer and click start watching and once you enter my study room you'll hear a lo-fi study playlist playing in the background you can go ahead and explore the page there are a few motivational quotes and stickers all around the page and there's also a little study inspiration board there's also a chat at the very bottom where you can chat with other people talk to me or everybody else in the room and make friends i'm not really sure if this is cute or kind of lame so check it out and let me know your feedback in the comments the link to visit my study room is here dot fm slash ellen kelly studies next up let's talk about back to school shopping i feel like one of the only fun things about going back to school is getting ready and buying all of your cute stationery supplies and aesthetic notebooks however it's important to understand that aesthetic stationery isn't really going to help you do well in school in fact the excitement is going to wear off after the first week so instead of spending most of your money on aesthetic school supplies i recommend purchasing more practical things that will actually help you throughout the semester for example if you're someone that gets distracted by your phone when studying all the time then you should purchase a study timer i did this and this helped me remove my phone from my study environment and since then i've been so much more productive at this point i've stopped collecting stationery and now i'm collecting study timers first i got this purple one with a small display and then i got my cube timer [Music] and literally yesterday i got my mini three timer this one has cool functionality and allows you to set intervals and then track the total amount of time you've studied and it's also the most aesthetic thing ever i'll definitely talk about this and explain how it works and everything during my back to school supplies and stationary haul so look forward to that another practical purchase i made was my laptop stand before i had one i was always crouching down and sitting with horrible posture which caused neck pains and back pains after getting my laptop stand and raising my laptop to my eye level i no longer have them and it's comfortable for me to work on my laptop another thing i've always wanted is to have a vertical ipad stand because whenever i'm reading things or referencing my textbook for notes a vertical orientation makes way more sense so finally i got my snap tablet stand from moft so it comes with a little sticker you put on your ipad and then the stand magnetically attaches to your ipad and it offers three vertical and three horizontal positions it basically gives you any angle you could possibly need i love the fact that it's portable so i can even take this to school with me and the best part is that it doesn't limit all the other accessories i can use with my ipad so i can switch between my magic keyboard and this stand seamlessly within seconds i believe that this kinds of investments are more worth it than stationery because they make my school life easier throughout the entire semester instead of just getting me excited for the first few days however aesthetic stationary is also important so just buy the practical stuff first and then spend the rest of your budget on all the aesthetic supplies you want to get another important thing you need to do before school starts is set up a planning system for the new semester so a planning system is going to help you keep track of all your deadlines due dates assignments and also plan your study sessions ahead of time so you have enough time to revise for exams you can have a physical planning system like a planner or a bullet journal if you're more of a creative type and like to draw things but personally physical planning takes too much time and effort for me so i like to do my planning digitally i used to use my calendar app and just put all my deadlines and events however this year i've decided to move to notion and organize all my school related assignments over there i don't have a template yet but as soon as i create one i'll make sure to share it with you guys as well another tip to start the school year strong is to create an inspirational resource you can refer back to when you get unmotivated or lazy i think it's kind of inevitable at some point during the semester you're going to lose all your motivation to study and do things and it's important that you have something that you can refer to for inspiration i firstly like to look at my goals but sometimes that's not enough so i'll visit my pinterest boards full of study inspiration and aesthetic study related pictures you can also create a mood board if you don't have one already so let's say you want to be a lawyer then your mood board should include a lot of pictures that are law related that will help you keep going and inspire you it is also a good idea to follow study related accounts on social media there are many youtube channels you can follow like mine that are study related and can inspire you and there are thousands of instagram accounts that you can look for for daily study motivation my last tip is to slowly start revising or take courses before school starts i'm not saying that you should study during summer break but it is a good idea to start revising and reading through your notes a few days before school starts so that you can recall some information or if you're taking new classes this semester that you haven't studied before then i recommend taking courses online there are amazing websites like edx and coursera that offer completely free courses from amazing universities like harvard they are super informative and fun to watch and can really improve your understanding of different subjects before we wrap up this video question of the day let me know in the comments down below when are you guys starting school or when did you start school if you have gone back to school already and also let me know what type of classes you're doing so if you have online classes or in-person classes or maybe a mix between the two i'm starting school in october and i'm going to be doing in-person classes so i'm super excited about that i really want to do a lot of back-to-school videos this season so comment down below any video requests or video ideas that you want to see from me and i'll see you guys super soon in my next video have an amazing day bye [Music] bye

Channel: Ellen Kelley

Views: 2,526,177

Keywords: ellen kelley, how to prepare for school, how to start the school year strong, things to do before school, back to school, things to do before back to school, 10 back to school tips, how to prepare for the school year, 10 ways to prepare for a new school year, get organized for school, how to get organized for school, back to school tips, 2021, how to prepare for high school, new school year, prepare for school, how to prepare for a new semester, back to school hacks, revisign, 10

Id: YfSpkoOq-nc

Length: 14min 38sec (878 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 19 2021