Make it Manageable

The School Work Conundrum

When it comes to working in high school, the general perception is that there’s only one way to edit and organise your work, and that’s work books. The reality is, there are limitless options with regards to your work, and you’re free to choose whatever you want for your personal system.

However, whether you be into using workbooks, manilla/lever arch folders or legal pads, you’ve got to be be sure that your system addresses your needs in three key areas:

-Organisation. You need to be able to organise your work effectively, knowing where all your work is at all times.

-Efficiency. You need to be able to create, peruse and edit your work with relative ease and speed, so anything that’ll slow you down should be frowned upon.

-Transportability. You’ll be taking a lot of your work to and from school each day, so you need to make sure your work is in a format which easily transported from point A to point B, without logistical difficulties. 

With this in mind, you might want to take a look at the different work config’s available for use. 

WORK BOOKS:

Organisation - The great thing about workbooks is that they are (when written in from the front backwards) always in chronological order; your most recent work will be towards the back of the book. Throw in some small section breakers/identifiers (post-it flags, tabs, etc) and you’ve got an easy way to organise your work.

Efficiency - With the flags/tabs in use, creating and organising work is a breeze (just write and stick). Editing work is as simple as finding it, although your ability to annotate is diminished by the restrictive nature of chronological writing (you cannot add an extra page between pages, for example). 

Transportability - Workbooks are neatly bound, requiring no effort to ensure the safety of your work while transporting (assuming a perfect, liquidless world), with no falling-out of work (unless of course, you take horrible care of your books). 

MANILLA FOLDERS (with loose pages)

Organisation - While the different organisation techniques for such a tool are positively boundless, picking and sticking to one is difficult, particularly when you’re looking for something easy to peruse and even easier to organise on the fly.

Efficiency - The adding of each sheet of paper to a folder after organising the pages takes a little more time than simply writing in a book, but it’s far easier to add an extra page or two to certain topics and areas of work. It’s really up to you as to whether or not you can sacrifice some time for easier editing.

Transportability - The risk of papers falling out of your folders at any time might be a deal breaker depending on how you wish to transport your work. I personally find that the risk is too great, having had many a homework task be lost at the most inopportune times. 

LEVER ARCH FOLDER (Books or loose sheets):

Organisation - No matter what way you edit the contents of your lever arch folder, you can make it so that you’re guaranteed to see things in chronological order, and the lever arch folder is similar to its manilla cousin in that the organisational techniques you can use are nearly endless.

Efficiency - Your speed of access and editing is slowed briefly by the very nature of the lever arch folder and how it stores it’s contents, but your efficiency of editing is equal to the content media (see the efficiency sections for either books or manilla folders, depending on your preferences). It’s really up to your method of organisation to determine whether or not safety of contents is a worthy trade off for efficiency of editing. 

Transportability - The lever arch folder is a little chunkier than folders or books alone, and so this may be a deal breaking factor for those with limited space in bags (or arms) when it comes to transport, but either way you’ve got an especially sturdy container for your work, meaning less risk of file loss.

LEGAL PADS:

Organisation - Assuming you refuse to use folders or books with your legal pads, you’ve got yourself a flexible, chronological system of organisation, though by itself it can be hell to find the files you’re looking for. 

Efficiency - Creating work is as simple as pulling out the pad and taking a pen to hand, however speed when it comes to file location and editing is severely limited by the purely chronological nature of it’s organisation (unless enhanced with labels or similar tools). Editing files is also a hassel, with no real way to add pages of work after the fact.

Transportability - By themselves, legal pads are compact and light, making them the perfect travel companion for spaceless travellers. However, their open nature makes damage and file loss much easier than the other methods of organisation, and so great caution must be taken when using legal pads on-the-go.

Hopefully, this information will help you to make the best choice regarding your school work and how you do it in 2011.