Heading back to or starting uni is a huge deal. You’ve got to pack all your worldly goods into the back of your dad’s car and pray that nothing falls out when he opens it. Yep, that happened to me, goodbye all the new plates. To stop the packing nightmare we’ve got a few organisation ideas and tips for getting to uni and for being organised once you get there!

1. Make a list

Before leaving, make sure that you know everything that you need, you’re bound to forget a few bits but make sure you’ve got everything to get you through your first night. We’re talking contact lens solution, toilet roll, toothpaste, fresh pants and maybe some tea bags! Image ℅ @alliemayredmond

2. Don’t take everything

Trust me, you won’t need everything that you think you will. Pack as if you’re going on a month-long holiday. You can always go home for things that are essential.

3. Pack wisely

I heard that the old rolling your clothes instead of folding trick means that you have more space to pack, so, I gave it a go! If I can get a week’s worth of clothes into a hand-luggage suitcase, this is a seriously awesome hack. Roll everything that you can and stuff them into other places i.e pants into shoes. It’s literally life-changing.

4. Get some storage

Now, when it comes to actually being organised at uni, storage is the key because you won’t have a lot of space. Things like box files are great for storing stationery in on the way to uni and they’ll be super useful whilst you’re there too. You could also go DIY with your filing, this is a cool storage idea too!

5. File it

This is along the same lines as above but a tiny bit more serious. Create a ‘personal’ folder of everything you get from the bank, your student loan company and the university, (they send you stuff for a reason) – it’s probably important and you won’t be scrabbling around every piece of paper you’ve ever seen 4 years later for your Student Finance number… Trust me on this one. Image ℅ @IKEAUK

6. Get your plan on

Uni is the best place to hone your planning skills! Whether you plan your meals, your outfits or just your entire life – planning is a pretty essential skill of adult life unfortunately. List pads are great for this. Image ℅ @charlottedm_

7. One for the girls

Invest in a little make-up storage, halls are pretty gross places so keeping the products that you’re using on your face away from grub and grime is essential. There are so many cool hacks on Pinterest for storing things and you can get some nifty little acrylic boxes which are awesome-ly wipeable from loads of high street stores! Image ℅ @alliemayredmond

8. Save, save and save again!

This tip will take action once you actually start creating work for your course. There’s nothing worse than realising you’ve lost your memory stick or that you saved a file to a library computer and you have to go through all the possible ones until you find it (me again!). Therefore, grab yourself an old school memory stick, sign up to Dropbox or Google Drive and save things to your laptop’s hard drive. Get into the habit of doing this every time you produce some work and you won’t be panicking last minute!