University Stationary Essentials

Although everything seems to be done online, there are still a bundle of stationary essentials that will keep your academic life as stress-free as possible which aren’t tied to your laptop and can be a great way to help keep yourself organised.

Folders

A folder is a great way to organise all of your random bits of paper, module handbooks, assessment maps and any academic papers you may need. Keeping these all together in a folder means they won’t get lost and you can keep everything in one place. Moreover, if you need evidence for engagement, such as during a dissertation, having a folder full of meeting notes, lab practical results and research papers is a great way to show your supervisor that you are engaged and organised in the project.

Sticky Notes

Another great addition to add to your stationery essentials shopping list is sticky notes! Sticky notes and page markers can help track any ideas you have whilst reading books or research papers. Page markers can be used to mark a specific chapter, sentence or quote you’d like to remember, whilst sticky notes can be used to add your ideas to a point or give yourself a feature note about what you’d like to do in that section.

Diaries

Staying organised at university can be hard, especially as deadline season looms, however, a diary is a fantastic way to keep track of everything you have going on, as well as track grades, spending habits, hobbies and goals. A digital diary also works well, however, a printed monthly or weekly plan can also be filled in and pinned up to your wall if you don’t check it every day. This also works well as a way to visually keep track of when deadlines are approaching and ensure you have enough time to prepare. These are also great to track any habits you’d like to keep up. For example, filling in a habit tracker and seeing that visually every day could help you to stick to it easier as you’re seeing it every day.

Trackers

In addition to this, using highlighters in combination with a diary or habit tracker helps to keep things organised as you can coordinate different colours with different modules, hobbies and events. These methods can also be employed when reading research papers as they can keep different categories separated. For example, you could highlight in one colour you’d like to use for critical analysis, one for facts and one for quotations. This could also make it easier to retain information for exams since you’ll associate specific information with specific colours.

Notebooks

Finally, despite notes usually being made on laptops, a good notebook is still a good addition to your bag. Notebooks have so much use and don’t just need to be used for lecture notes. For example, you could use it to simplify and connect information. They are also a good tool for blurting which is a revision method that utilises active recall. A notebook can double as a diary if you want to keep your stationary minimal too!