Undergraduate Blog / Career Development

Tips for Staying Organized During Your Internship

Your summer internship is an awesome opportunity to get a glimpse into professional life after college. With this, however, comes the insight that the real world is busy: juggling traffic, deadlines, meetings, as well as maintaining a work-life balance can get stressful. Over the past few weeks, I have learned some ways to make the busyness of day-to-day life more manageable!

  1. Prepare the night before

      You will thank yourself in the morning if you already have your clothes laid out, your lunch made, and your day planned! This takes the chaos out of your mornings, and allows you more time to be mindful, make a nutritious breakfast, and be ready to tackle your day.

2. Use the old fashioned paper and pen

We all know and love Google Calendar, but some days we may not be by our computer or phone to see which tasks are upcoming. Also, physically writing your tasks by hand helps with retaining information, and will likely stick with you longer than quickly typing it on a laptop. You will be less likely to forget a meeting or important task if you use both methods!

3. Communicate with co-workers

Keeping in contact with other interns and co-workers will help you to remain on course through the duration of your internship! Communicating with others in your department on a regular basis will ensure that you are on-task and up to speed with the responsibilities at hand. It is difficult to fall behind when you have others holding you accountable!

4. Prioritize!

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the tasks at hand for the day, which can hinder productivity. By prioritizing tasks based on what is most important for the department, you can better manage your workload. This will also allow for more work to be done in an efficient manner, while reducing the stress of the onslaught of impending work.

By following the above tips, the stressors of an internship can be greatly reduced as you become more organized and prepared!