Fight the disorganization demon. This archive provides information management tips, strategies, and tricks to improve your organization skills in graduate school. So that you can get through your degree easier and with less stress.

Disorganization among graduate students (particularly in the digital realm), contributes to procrastination, lower productivity, and feelings of stress and overwhelm. Building an information management system (i.e., getting organized) can help you to fight disorganization and make you more focused and productive. You will waste less time trying to find, order, and combine the massive flow of information you’ll encounter in graduate school.

Organization isn’t a skill you’ll get a class on, so let me teach you what I’ve learned (sometimes through painful experience) about how to manage the huge amount of information you’re exposed to every single day. Let me save you the pain and panic of losing files, having conflicting versions of your papers, and wasting time trying to find what you were working on. I’ve made a lot of mistakes you can learn from and heard a lot more from clients, and I will share those lessons with you.

Make it easy to find digital folders and files, reduce electronic document clutter, manage your emails, maintain document version control, ensure reliable file backups, keep up with your reference libraries, combine peoples’ feedback into a single document, get and keep your office conducive and pleasant to work in, and more. These strategies for information management and organization can simplify your day and help you get through graduate school with your sanity intact.