Your Complete Guide To Organization At Work

Hi Edsters,

With the craziness that is working at a magazine, it is important to stay as organized as possible. I have been guilty of forgetting minor details or been in need of a desk clean-up before, especially the more the summer goes on and the long term assignments need to be worked on. Working with editors and other interns has taught me a few tips about staying on track with assignments and not forgetting anything. It is definitely important to remember what you have due and the details your boss gave you. 

Here are the times I have felt unorganized and tried to find a solution to the messy.

When running an errand... I could spare myself a lot of semi-heart-attacks if I kept better track of receipts. I have never lost one but I have by mistake placed them down on a shelf or put them in a mysterious pocket I didn't know I had. Therefore, I find it best to put the receipt in my wallet next to whatever cash I have on me. That way it is easy to notice it when giving it to your boss. Another important tip is to put the company credit card (if given one) somewhere also noticeable in your wallet, away from other cards. 

Getting My First (And Second) Byline

And finally, the moment I’ve been anticipating for weeks now—my very own byline in the magazine (two, to be exact)! When the new issue came out this week, the first thing I did was flip to the pages my two stories were on to see how they came out.

What I found was a bit surprising.

Reasons to Love Your Job

A fresh batch of the new issue arrived last week. I immediately flipped to the masthead at the front, and I’ve got to say—there’s nothing like seeing your name in print! It was pretty satisfying to flip through the magazine and see all of the pages I had worked on in the past few weeks. I had gotten to know each word on that page so well, and now it was on newsstands for everyone to see!

So much work goes into creating a magazine, and visually they’re amazing.  After the past few weeks working at the Mag, I can now appreciate all the work that goes into making that happen.

Each word is meticulously chosen by the writer, and then spell-checked and fact-checked by us interns. That takes a lot of careful reading, organization and communication.

How Do You Find Ways to Stay Motivated in an Unhappy Internship?

I think the biggest issue for me is that no one cares about the work I’m doing. It’s been hard to find intrinsic motivation because the work isn’t inherently interesting or challenging, but as an intern I kind of expected that. What makes it difficult, for me at least, is that the work I do doesn't seem crucial to the operation of the mag. Mostly, I'm working on small blog posts that are nice but unnecessary.

Often, I feel like my editor has to search for things for me to do. I almost feel annoying asking for work sometimes, because I think he spends more time searching for tasks for me than he saves by having me do them. Even when I am given a task, it rarely comes with a deadline or any sense of urgency, and occasionally I think my editor just makes things up to get me to stop asking (like when he tells me to research something for a potential front of the book story for the February issue).