Who Loves Organization? by Olivia

Who Loves Organization? by Olivia - March 2026 Scholarship Essay

When I first started public schooling everyone was given a planner. It was a small, cheap planner with Thompson Middle School stamped across the front. Like most of my peers, I would use it for about a month or so and forget about it and shove it in the back of a drawer or the bottom of my backpack. This happened for years. My mom used a planner regularly, which spurred me to want to use one my sophomore year. I spent good money and bought a Happy Planner. My idea was that if I made it cute I would use it more often. That lasted for about four weeks. After that I gave up the planner idea for a while.
Then came my senior year. With so much going on - working four different side jobs, going out with friends, keeping up with family, grades and schooling, senior activities - I could not keep up. I knew I needed something to keep me on track and organized. Early August I went to Target and bought yet another planner. I told myself that In order to be successful this year I needed to organize myself and get used to it.
I started to get in the habit of using my planner early in the school year. I pulled it out every morning in the first period, and while our principal would go over the day's announcements, I would be writing things that I needed to do or remember in my planner. When I got home from school I would sit at my desk and go through my list of things and check off what I had done or needed to remember.
To this day I still open my planner every morning and most afternoons. Since I remember things better after I write them, there have been many occasions where I remembered something because I remembered writing it in my planner. I came up with a color coordination system for the monthly section. I write down my work schedule and highlight that a certain color, same with hanging out with friends, dates with my boyfriend, and anything else worth planning.
Being able to organize when I need to be at certain places, or write down when I have a test or when an assignment is due has definitely helped this year. Without the organization and structure of the planner I would have missed many due dates, and shown up at the wrong place at the wrong time.