My Life on the Net

 

If you’re like most teenagers, you’ve found yourself hoarding a lot of stuff in your room.  It’s years of things – be it boxes for your products or trinkets from your travels… it all adds up.  So, I’m sure you’ll be wanting to get rid of some of it for when you’re moving out of your parents house and making it on your own.

Compartmentalise

Boxes take a lot of space.  Even little boxes, like the ones used for your movies and games, are often overlooked.  It’s cheap enough to buy a CD folder that can take 200 or so disks before running out of space.  They’re normally rather cheap, like this $30 one that holds up to 320 disks, or a much smaller and compact one like I do that only holds up to a hundred.  I picked up my first one for $2, but quality varies by price.

BOOKS ARE EVIL

If you’re a reader, you’ll know how much space your library can take up.  Sure, you’ll need books for your studies but most personal books are available in variety of different ways – like using eBooks and borrowing books from your local library. Not only are you saving space, money and time travelling to the book store – but you’re saving the environment! I recommend Stanza for eBooks if you’ve got an iPhone or iPod Touch as it’s got a load of free books on their repositories.  For those in the US, don’t forget that the eBook readers could be an alternative, but right now these are a little too expensive in the UK.

All Paper is EVIL TOO

Ah yes, it is.  Take a scanner with you and a copy of Evernote.  Then with anything you receive just scan it in, shred if it’s sensitive, recycle and Evernote will be able to read and search all of the text and categorise it for when you really need it.

While I’ve been at home this year it has become really helpful in collecting my notes, as with multiple computers, it syncs automatically to it’s server and is available on the web, pc, mac, linux and on the iPhone.

Reassess Your Wardrobe

We all carry useless junk.  Most of it is clothes, shoes you never wear and pairs of jeans that haven’t fitted you in years – but you secretly hope you’ll fit in before Christmas.

If you need it, take it.  However, if you don’t think you’ll need it for a few months then you can always put it aside and when your parents come to visit they can bring it up… or you can just buy something new and improved after you move.  This will save the much needed space in your small wardrobe.

Hide the Cable Clutter

While most students transition to laptops when they move to university there are a few that still bring their desktops, and their cable clutter with them.  It can look messy and generally uncomfortable.  If you’ve got the money, it’s always worth just getting a good laptop – but if not get a cheap cable tidy kit, or if you’re on a tiny budget, cable ties to make many cables into one thick bundle that will look a lot less of a problem.

If you also think that all of your gadgets are taking up too much space, and want to further reduce the messy clutter that can be caused by external hard disks, routers, modems and power-strips there’s always the pegboard approach.  Simply cable-tie everything to a cheap piece of pegboard and hide it under your desk and nobody would know… However, if you want to affix it to the underside of your desk to conceal it – make sure that it’s affixed non-destructively as you may have to pay a fine if the desk is damaged in any way.

DO You Really Need an Alarm?

If you’ve got a computer there’s not really much need for an alarm.  There’s some great examples of web and software based applications that can wake you up in the morning, but there’s always your phone – with most hosting an alarm feature in one form or another.

My favourite web-based alarm is kukuklock as it’s simple enough for even the drunkest of students to operate.

Keep Your Door Open

You’d be surprised how much this helps.  If you’re room is messy people will be less inclined to come in and say hi, so think about them when you’re hiding stuff and make it nice and welcoming.

You Need No TV

Most of us has watched tv most of our lives.  It’s something you start to think is a necessity in your life, but most of these shows are now available online.  There’s hulu in the US as far as I know.  In the UK, there’s many services including BBC iPlayer and Channel 4 Catch Up. As far as I know you don’t need a TV licence for these services, so you’re fine.

However, if you stop watching tv every night you’ll notice how much time you’ve got left to enjoy yourself, get outside and enjoy the clean air.

Landline Not Required

Thinking of getting a local number when you move?  Don’t bother.  If you’ve got a mobile phone that can do most of the work, but if you really need a landline phone purchase a local number from Skype and use your computer to send and receive calls.

Beat the Clutter in Less than 5 Minutes a Day

Unclutter has an excellent blog post with ten tips of how to beat clutter in five minutes.  It’s a great start for those students that are only getting used to fending for themselves.  Simple tips like making your bed each morning help so much in beating the clutter that won’t take much of your day.

 

For some of you starting university soon, I hope this helps a little to make your room a little cleaner and a little more easy to look after.  Have fun!

I’ve learned a few things since I started my life in university - mainly just how high school should have been. If you were like me, your school experience was full of boredom and I remember never really feeling challenged. It had it’s positives, sure, but the negatives highly outweighed them.

Although the course I chose to do at uni wasn’t exactly challenging, I’ve still learned a lot. It may not have been about Web Design or Web Development - but more about life and different ways of learning.

The ability to work on your own projects.
School kept me busy, especially in my last two years. Everywhere I turned, there was homework due or a huge amount of classes to revise for. Not fun. At university, this semester I have just over 10 hours of classes a week - a stark drop from the 28 hours I had in high school. It means I can work on what I want - let it be sleeping, watching tv, coding ever delayed web projects or photowalking.

It’s not just the lack of classes that helps - it’s what’s available to us. If I need to, I can go into university and use their software, their hardware, research in an enormous library or even rent equipment to do what we need.

It’s not as stressful.
There’s still assignments due, sure. But instead of overnight coursework taking up your time when you come home - you’ve got a month, maybe even two to write an essay or design a website. Simple, which means I don’t feel as stressed until the last night remembering that I haven’t done a thing for it.

The coursework isn’t as specific.

I remember my essays from last year for Higher English and History were extremely strict. Strict questions, strict answers.  It’s a bit of a jump when you move to uni to have a question that could mean a variety of things - but i’ve found it really helpful not feeling restricted. It means I can go where I want to go with the question, and I still pass well.

I don’t need to get up as early.

Well, it’s an 11am start for all of my classes. Yay. Sometimes it’s even later. Double Yay.

Everything’s a little easier to store.

I could never find my notes from high school. They were always bundled in ring-binders and disordered - so if I was looking for a specific note on let’s say… The Great Gatsby, i’d have to spend about half an hour looking for it.

With most of the notes, assessment details and lectures available online - it saves a bunch of time and takes only a few minutes to find what you’re looking for.

Don’t worry about the move to uni - they make it easy.

If you know nothing - you’ll be fine. If you know a little - it’ll be easier. If you know too much - prepared to be bored.