From fashion to food-prep, here are my tips for getting organised this summer

We all know that after exams are over, suddenly the freedom and spare time you were looking forward to gets filled up with coffee meet-ups, cinema trips, internships and family holidays. Here are my tips to stay organised and on top of everything over summer 2024.

Don’t be Clueless when it comes to your wardrobe
I cannot be the only one who had dreams about Cher’s wardrobe in the 1990s cult-classic Clueless. It had a technology that could sift through her wardrobe and piece clashing items together until they match. If you’re headed for an internship, work or placement this summer and don’t know what to wear, or you have a dress code that you need to meet, Whering is the perfect app for you. It’s compatible with any phone or tablet software and offers your very own Clueless-style wardrobe at your fingertips. The app uses renowned fashion brands, staple wardrobe items, and the option to upload an unlimited number of photos of your own wardrobe items from boots to bomber jackets. You then have your entire wardrobe quite literally in your hands. You can mix and match items, shuffle your wardrobe, increase the layers as you piece them together, and save outfits from your cupboard into your own digital wardrobe. This will allow you to not only visualise everything you own in one place, but you can change up your summer looks with ease and turn heads in your re-styled and revived office wear.

Summer days, drifting away…
With internships, summer jobs and general summer shenanigans, one way to keep on top of your schedule and create a group calendar with your friends is Timetree. This an app that allows you to share, collaborate and coordinate plans and regular routines independently or in a group(s), in one beautifully vivid calendar. You can add event reminders, repeat events, event notes and memos. In my friendship group from home, we use it to plan once everyone has moved back home and away from the hustle of uni or working life. To stay organised and find any window or days of free time, Timetree displays everything in one place, one tap away, one calendar.

Journalling can schedule time for you to take care of yourself

Moodle, Moodle, apple strudel
When thinking about the next academic year, motivation alone is hard, but staying motivated and keeping on top of your knowledge from the past year’s modules is intense. I was discussing this article with my housemate who told me he keeps on top of his high-pressure, physics degree by downloading lecture notes, slides and problem-sets from existing Moodle pages in preparation for the next academic year. It is tough to get locked in over summer knowing people are on the beach, in a pool or on a plane but having the resources ready, consolidated and refreshed in your mind, even a couple of weeks before uni, could keep your head in the game and ahead of the curve when considering the next year’s new/ core modules.
P.S. Did anyone get my Wonka sub-title reference?

Journalling your way to a stress-free summer
On the subject of keeping your head in the game, journalling can schedule time for you to take care of yourself. It is not only trendy or aesthetic but also beneficial for your mental health. The best thing is that it’s just for you. You can be as explicit or as veiled as you like; you can treat it like a diary, tracker, planner or all of the above. Since it’s just for you, it can be as rugged or creative as you’d like. Things you could journal:

• Budget
• Mood
• Sleep
• Weather/temperature
• Food/meal-planning
• Planning your day or week ahead
• Things you’re grateful for
• Goals for the day, week, month etc.
• To-do lists

I honestly believe listing three things you’re grateful for before you go to sleep then reading them the next morning is one of the most reflective and calming things you can do to end and start your day. Like Timetree, you could colour code everything with your calendar and your own key. This means everything is uniform and correlates with your schedule.

If you break down your meals/recipes and have everything chopped, frozen and ready, all you have to do is put it in a pan

What’s on your plate?
So, you’ve journalled and planned your meals, now what? I appreciate that by staying at home, you may not have the same culinary freedom you do at uni, but food-prepping will be your best friend alongside your meal plans. Whilst it might initially seem like a chore, it’s a lifesaver once you get in the habit of it. With everything measured and chopped, all you need to do is chuck them in a pan or throw a portion of last week’s pasta bake in the oven and dinner is sorted.

Trust me when I say: the freezer is your secret weapon. Okay, so it is not so secret considering it takes up half the storage space, but it’ll be your partner in crime. My food-prepping game got to the level where my housemates started calling me ‘vegetable lady’ because every Sunday evening I’d be at the island chopping away. They committed to the name so much, that they gave me a personalised mug for Christmas. If you break down your meals/recipes and have everything chopped, frozen and ready, all you have to do is put it in a pan and wait for it to cook. The best way I learnt this was making a huge portion of vegetable stir fry and then freezing it after so I could savour it for a rainy (or, let’s be honest, lazy) day. Whilst it might seem like a lot of effort at first, taking a couple of hours out of your Sunday or Monday night, the rest of your week you’ll have one less thing to worry about.