Hi all --
I am leaving my job at the end of this month to become a full time graduate student (and a TA). I currently have a home office that is a mess. It was originally designed to be a craft room, so I have a big desk with no drawers, a bookshelf and a closet, and I'm at a loss at the best way to organize it for my studies.
I would love any and all suggestions.
Thanks,
Jenny
I think that is a pretty personal decision. You have to look at your study style and make the space fit that. Also, what works this year might work differently next year. When I was in grad school (in the 80's) I needed utter quiet and isolation to concentrate. As I got older I changed a lot (thank god.) Now, I cannot stand feeling isolated, and I like my study space to be cozy. So I painted the room dark blue and got white bookshelves and furniture and lots of lights. To avoid feeling isolated, I have a TV in there. I prefer the TV to watching on the computer because I concentrate better when I have background media, the radio bugs me, the Weather Channel is soothing, and I need my monitor space for other stuff.
The desk is relatively small, but I'm a programmer and I don't need that much paper-space. The bookshelves are spacious and organized by subject. I have a day bed and a balance ball in there as well for seating. I believe it's best to move around and not sit in the same position all the time. We were designed to forage all day, not sit at a desk. I also have a timer which I set for 20 minutes of serious concentration before I get to goof around on Facebook or YouTube. For me, that's critical!
I would say, keep it flexible until you figure out what works best for you. Have fun in school!
Hi Jennysbelly, what an exciting change of life for you! It's definitely going to take some work and your ideal home office will change over time, but I'd advise for your essential first step, taking EVERYTHING except the furniture out of the room, putting it somewhere else, and "interviewing" it before it goes back in.
You'll want to be sure that ONLY what you can *and will* use for your studies and TA duties stays in that room. It should be peaceful, comfortable, and efficient - not distracting. So give your old things a good talking-to and figure out if they will be of use to you going forward, or not.
If you have things that you know you will not have time for while in grad school, now is the time to organize them and pack them away for later - or give them away, if you think you won't return to that activity, or that your tastes may change to the point that you would pursue it quite differently. Remember, it's okay to say goodbye to old hobbies (see thread on unfinished projects).
As you get deeper into your studies you are going to want to have space to accommodate library books, study guides, piles of homework to be graded, binders or folders of class notes, etc. You may or may not want a file cabinet - probably a standalone rolling cabinet that could fit under the desk, possibly with a printer on top, would be most efficient. If the desk is not already computer-friendly, see about installing a keyboard tray and make sure the desk is positioned well to keep glare off the screen and to make power supply easy.
If you don't need the closet for clothes or other storage, you might consider setting that up as your records and materials center, so that all that material isn't out in the middle of your space. Inexpensive shelves or cubbies can be arranged to fit the space and you can close the door on it all when you choose to.
And if you have space to have a comfortable reading chair with a floor lamp (or better yet a lamp hung from the ceiling), that can be a great way to stay in the space with all your tools and yet not be hunched over your keyboard. Visit thrift shops to find a decent old recliner and cover it with a pretty throw.
Good luck!
Thanks -- this is all good advice. I think you are right that it would help to take everything out. Right now I just have piles of papers everywhere (I've been in school since January, but part time). I don't really know how to organize school work. I was very disorganized in college.
Jenny..Maybe you can get rid of the old deak and purchase a simpler one. I would definitely say empty the entire room and just start on a clean slate.
Hope you don't mind if I jump in again - organizing my school work was something I did very well (for me), so maybe some of this will be helpful!
1. As soon as you finish a class, go through your notes, handouts, whatever and ruthlessly thin it out. You are 99.9% certain of not needing to look at that material again. (Your methodology and your thoughts on the subject will evolve.) DO keep the papers, etc. that you may have written, and copies of exams, but only keep paper copies if you don't have electronic copies. A scanner is recommended. :-) DO keep your textbooks, but only if you are likely to take another class in the same area. Otherwise, see if you can sell them. Students always need mo' cash.
2. Keep a separate notes folder for each class and keep it with the books, study guides, etc for that class. Carry with you only what you need.
3. As you go through a class and are tested or evaluated periodically, turn your notes/handouts into "chapters" and clip them together with a note as to when you were examined on that material (and a copy of the test if you get one). Look up the correct answers to anything you missed NOW. You can easily review it again for your final but you won't have to flip through all of it to find your current notes during the next sub-section.
4. After you finish a class, write yourself a memo about how you thought the class related to your overall course of study, whether it inspired new directions for research, and whether you want to pursue it. If you DO want to pursue it, take an hour or two and Google the heck out of it - look at what is already being done on the topic and what publications are currently devoted to it. This will come in handy when you choose a thesis topic later on.
Would love to read updates here as you go.
In college I was fairly organized. I had a separate magazine file for each class, and kept the text book, notebook for notes, and a folder or binder for handouts in each one. Except for Organic Chemistry. It required its own (LARGE) drawer to hold everything. Of course, that was several years ago, before laptops and PowerPoint presentations became so popular. (I also didn't carry textbooks around with me, but I lived on campus, so if I wanted to studying during a break, I could go back to my dorm room.)
Maybe if you live with what you have for a month or two it will give you a better idea what you need and want. That's always been the best way for me to decide what i want to do with a new room.
i completely overhauled my office recently.
it was shocking beforehand; a real mishmash of unsuitable furniture and equipment.
i spent a month or two thinking about the work i do there and the stuff i need to store.
then i started looking online and asking around for desks and solutions.
a friend suggested the ELFA system from howard's storage world (in australia).
it was expensive but the beautiful thing about it is that it was completely customisable and i could utilise all the space i had....and it was an oddly shaped space too.
and we could build it ourselves.....it took just a few hours to take out the old office, clean everything, hang the one top rail and then hang everything off that.
the guys in the shop made a computerised plan based on my measurements and we merely followed the plan.
it all worked perfectly (and we are DIY idiots....srsly utterly useless and unhandy).
i was rewarded instantly with improved productivity, improved filing, improved systems, and a much more manageable workload.
it's a nice place to spend time now, not a purgatorial punishment.
i think they key is to have a good think about what you do in your office and to then look for gear to suit.
Thanks everyone -- it is not really in the budget for me to get new furniture as we are going down basically to one income (I'm not really counting the TA stipdend). Chacha and SarahJ -- thank you. I know I need to take some time this summer and really cull thruogh my stuff from last semester, and come up with some sort of filing system.
Irishbell- I lived with my room the way it is (a disaster of a mess -- I will try to post some photos when I get home) last semester and this summer session and I'm struggling. The clutter is very distracting, but I don't really have storage to put the stuff in.
I like my desk -- it is a good surface but no drawers. I also have an IKEA Expedit in the room which is mostly filled with yarn (this used to be my knitting room). I also have a few extra random Ikea cabinets and a closet.
I should also mention that there is a loft outside the door of my office that I can coop. Technically that could be my office as well. That is also a mess but in there is a another bookcase (wooden with glass doors). That bookcase is empty because we don't know what to do with the space. 2 IKEA Poang chairs with foot stools and another white long shelf thing that has potted plants on it.
I have the ability to utilize both rooms as my areas.
Taking everything out and putting back only what's needed it excellent advice, and it sounds like your loft is a good staging area for that.
My advice is to not overlook yard sales and thrift stores -- you can probably get a good-quality old dresser or sideboard or other piece of furniture with drawers to stash your supplies in for cheap, and a piece of sandpaper and a can of spray paint will work wonders for less than $10. I bought a cheap set of shallow pressboard drawers, and I wish I had held out for something sturdier.
I prefer to work on a big table and have my drawers within reach but off to the side. One mug on the desk corrals assorted writing instruments; another holds scissors, X-Acto knife, hole punch, box cutter, nail file, etc. Anything else I need regularly (correction tape, eraser, business cards, calculator, hand cream, etc.) goes in the drawers to the side of the desk. Stuff I don't need often (stapler, tape, extra supplies, envelopes, etc.) goes on shelves or in drawers across the room.
And yeah, everyone works best in different ways. Unlike @HappyDogs, I can't get *anything* done if there's a TV or radio on. I'm too distractable. For some mindless tasks, a familiar CD is fine as background music. Only you will know what works best for you.
Good luck on this new adventure!
Jennysbelly-
Grab one of those Poag chairs with the ottoman and move that into your office space to use as a reading chair ala ChaCha1.
If new furniture is not in the budget, make sure your desk - chair - keyboard is ergonomically comfortable. Since you will be working with a former craft table, you might want to add a keyboard tray underneath the table to bring the keyboard to a comfortable position. If you use a laptop, get a spare keyboard and plug it in - your shoulders and back will thank you.
You mentioned you have a closet. The most efficient use of a spare closet is to add shelves for office supplies and miscellaneous home office things.
Good luck with your new home office and this exciting new phase of your life!
One thing that works for me is keeping whatever I can virtual.
I have a basic (read: free) Dropbox subscription that provides me with about 2GB of storage space. In there, I have a folder called "School", which is then further subdivided by semester (including a folder called "Current"); each of these semester folders have another folder for each course I'm taking.
Inside these I keep reports, assignments, papers, research materials, course downloads, &cet. in random formats (unchangeable PDFs for completed items, Word/Excel/Powerpoint documents for whatever may need more work).
A scanner can be very useful for this, of course. This has alleviated the need to store dozens of binders and thousands of pages of schoolwork -- probably half a bookcase has been freed up.
Being on a Dropbox folder, they're accessible from any Internet-connected computer, and even my phone, and they're always backed up, so that if my computer is lost, stolen, or dies, I don't lose any of my work.
Good luck with your degree!
I'm starting my second year in graduate school. As a TA in my department, we get an individual desk cubicle in a shared office. I spent most of my time there and used my desk at home very little. So depending on what you are provided as a TA, you may not need your home office to be your main work space.
One thing I am having trouble with is keeping all the journal articles organized. I need them at least until I am done with my program. I dislike reading articles on the computer, so I have paper copies. I'm thinking of trying to organize them by categories into binders, rather than file folders.
Good luck to you on beginning your graduate career!
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