So, I have been diagnosed with a handful of mental illnesses (C-PTSD, MDD, SPD, etc) most of which have the fun little side effect of making me extremely disorganized. They also make self care extremely difficult.
Midway through a semester, it is not abnormal for me to look up and realize I haven't showered in 4 days, I have half a dozen assignments due next week that I haven't even begun, and my living space is a mess. This wasn't really that big of a problem until about 2 years ago, and it's been getting steadily worse. After my friend took her own life in September, I basically lost my shit. I dropped from a 4.0 to like....2.75 last semester just because I couldn't keep it together long enough to study, or to even know what I needed to study. I got so overwhelmed that I kind of feel like I just gave up.
The weird thing is, I LOVE organizing. The part of my brain that is not controlled by my mental illness is actually very clean, very organized, and NEEDS things to be in their proper places.
So, I do what I can to head it off. I have reminders that go off on my phone for self care like showering and taking my meds, and I have a Mantra that I repeat to myself when I feel that fog coming on. Shower, change clothes, go out and be around people.
Schoolwork is trickier. It requires actual long term effort to stay on top of things, something I just don't have in the middle of the fog that depression keeps over my head. Even when I think I'm doing well, I'll realize I've been procrastinating some important assignments.
So I decided to tap into my organizational skills and DIY my own academic planner. You can find these online and in some office supply stores, but I already had most of these things on hand, so I just made it myself.
I started with a medium sized 5 subject spiral bound notebook, and the syllabus and schedule for each class I'm taking. The censored parts are the class locations and times and my professors' information such as email and office hours.
Then I hot glued post it notes and flags to the inner cover.
I have every assignment and reading written out, color coded by class, every test date, etc all written out by week.
Every day, I see what needs to be done ,I grab a post it, and write out what part I'll do that day. That way it is flexible enough so if something comes up, it can easily be moved around.
I repeated the process in my notebook so that I could have that flexibility with note taking if I need to. I won't always have my planner out during class, so if an instructor gives an opportunity for extra credit, or there's some important info about an upcoming test or assignment, I can write it on the post it and transfer it to the planner after class.
Anyways, this was just what I came up with. I'd be really interested in seeing or hearing what other people do to stay on top of things, so if you have any tips or tricks, feel free to leave them in the comments. :)
