College is a crazy milestone in your life because it feels like a roller coaster that only goes up. Moving away from home and starting a life of your own, your stress level sky rockets. If you do not make the necessary changes, you will go mad. Use your time here to not only earn a degree but build habits that will help you in the long run.

Habits take 21 days to form. If you do not work at them, you will never see progress. Changing your life is not something that happens overnight, you are human and a work in progress. You are constantly growing and developing. The best thing you can for yourself is to sit down and make a list of goals. This list can be within any time frame just make sure you pick something that is going to motivate you to keep going. When you think of goals for your list, keep in mind that this list will change over time, so you need to allow it to develop alongside you. If a goal no longer fits your needs, change it.

The biggest thing to think about when forming these goals is that you are not perfect, so you are not always going to succeed every day and that is okay just try again tomorrow. You are going to have days when you eat unhealthy or you do not workout but trust me, one day is not going to destroy the work you are doing. Once you have you created your list, hang it somewhere you will see it every day because there is no point in making a list if you never look at it again.

Your goal list is made, and you are on the right track to becoming a more organized you. The next thing to keep in mind while you are away at college is that you cannot take everything with you. Throw away extra things you do not need. Go through a drawer a day and make a pile that you intend to take to goodwill at the end of the week or month. When you live in clutter it may seem hard to think clearly. A lot of people find it hard to function or be productive when they are in a busy environment if you keep your house, dorm room and car clean you may find that daily actives feel more manageable.

If you are like me, then cleaning is something that you dread. You probably have a basket of unfolded clothes that never gets handled, but trust me you can keep your life clutter free. I’ll tell you the secret: clean 15 minutes a night. If you pick up after yourself every night, then you are not going to build on the mess every day into something that takes hours to get under control.

The last tip I have is to meal prep. Your body will thank me later for this one. Going to college is expensive and you work every week just to live paycheck to paycheck. Meal prepping will save your life; when I say meal prepping I do not mean make a sandwich to go to campus with. At the start of every week, set two days a side where you are going to cook, make a Pinterest board with recipes that fit your needs and just make a large serving that will feed you for a week.

When you organize your life, you will find that everyday tasks no longer make you feel like your drowning and everything seems a little easier.

“Clutter isn’t just the stuff in your closet. It’s anything that gets between you and the life that you want to be living.” -Peter Walsh.