A Minimalist Guide to School Supplies

Time and time again, I have found that living with less is so much more.

Believe me, I love school supplies as much as the next guy, but I have learned to cut WAY down.

That way, I get way more use out of what I have and it saves me a ton of time not having to gather up and organize a zillion different kinds of writing utensils, notebooks, binders, and agendas. Not to mention the stuff I used to have that was just junk taking up space in my backpack and my mind.

That's an interesting thing to think about. In order to clear your mind, you must first clear your stuff.

Think about how you spend your time each day. How many hours do you spend organizing, picking up, or trying to find all of your stuff? Don't get me wrong, organizing is great, but if your stuff isn't staying organized for more than a day, there are two reasons: You aren't putting it in a convienent place or you just have too many things. Most of the time both of these are true.

Now think of what you can do with all of that time instead of cleaning up your stuff.

Wow! Am I right?

This is what I use for school everyday (excluding my textbooks):

Small Essentials

I have five colored gel pens in black, blue, pink, purple, and green. Colored pens work great for taking color coded notes, and they also work well for underlining. I don't use highlighter, because it is too distracting when I try to read my textbook. I also buy a pack of mechanical pencils, but I only take one out of the pack at a time. I also have a fine tip white board marker and stylus for my laptop. I use a mini journal, sticky notes, and notecards for my primary stationary, and a calculator for math.

Large Essentials

I find it is simpler to buy a large 5 subject notebook rather than 5 separate notebooks, mainly because it is easier to keep track of just one.

I also have a laptop, which I use not only for studying but blogging (of course), editing my photography, and surfing the web.

My last item in this category is my accordion folder. I hate (it's a strong word, but the only thing that describes my pure frustration) using binders. They take up tons of space and are a general pain for me. I love this accordion folder because it holds a gazillion papers, lies flat, and has 10 separators, so I have all of the papers for all my classes neatly filed in that tiny package.

Once again, rather than having like 8 different binders or folders to keep track of, I have 1 folder. Less is more.

Some Extras

So these aren't totally necessary, but I do find they come in handy. I have a wallet, gum, my library card and a flash drive. These are all small, so I don't mind them living in my backpack pocket from time to time.

This is the roundup of supplies I use with just the basics: