Well I have a 3.94 cum GPA through three degrees so if nothing else I did real well in school, though not as good as my son, who upon graduating from the University of Oregon with a 3.95 now feels entitled to refer to me as an academic slacker. But he's not here to tell you how to really do it so you'll have to be content with second rate advice.
I'm a big fan of some sort of written organization, be it a planner, post-its, critical path diagrams or what have you. I don't think there is one overall supreme method, but I do think that people who have a method that works for them do better. I'm a fan of the notebook, can be very fancy, or just a simple Mead spiral detective notebook, but just jot it down. They are awesome in a lot of ways for giving you a feeling of accomplishment, and you have everything in one place. But when I was in school I would lay out a calender that was one pretty wide page that ran from the beginning of the semester to the end so I could visualize exactly where I was and what had to be done.
As for writing stuff, this idea works so well you'll want to open a pay-pal account just so you can send me money for it. Write your term papers at the beginning of the semester, not the end. There are several swell reasons for this. First of all, the library is better organized at the beginning of the semester and has more books and stuff in it then at the end. Moreover, toward the end of the semester the library tends to get a feeling of panic as it fills with people who've never been in it before, and others who are academically desperate. Much better to go when everyone in there is all sunshine and roses and when everything is there and in order. So I just set my mind (and its not just me, lots of people do this for these very reasons) that any paper due at the end of the semester was really due by midterms.
That gave me two huge advantages. One is I could study for finals without any distractions, and two I always got an A on my paper. I later found out, when I was doing my professor time that any paper that came to me in that way almost, like 99.99% would get an A. Here's why. You turn the paper in early, it gets you face time with the professor, and you ask if they will read it, or grade it, and when that's done (and the professor is reading your paper in isolation, not as part of a marathon reading program over the weekend where you're going to be compared to everyone else - I can not stress enough how powerful that one aspect is) you can sit down, get a little more face time, get real criticism of your work, get ideas on how to improve it. Now, all you have to do is go back (easy in the computer age, but we did it with typewriters too) and rewrite the paper they way they suggested. If you do that, they are forced to give you an A. Really.
It also marks you as a conscientious student in the professors eye, which can only be a good thing, as professors love conscientious students.
many people read text over and over, note cards, highlighting etc etc I live for that myself. The highlighter came out right as I ended high school and I though it was the greatest idea since the bong. But you might not want to shelve that completely, real college tends to get a bit harder as you go, but then again, you're supposed to be getting better at it as you go too.
I spend WAY too much time online and IMing, yet get As and Bs lol, but yeah, I hang with people, I am in a music group, I'm involved in ways, but I tend to lurk online a ton more than many friends.
Here's an interesting idea for a paper for sure. I pretty firmly believe that in the very near future - because it's happening around me as I write this - that a whole lot of people are going to basically be on line all the time. So what is going to be the best way of dealing with being on line all the time, and living in the real world too? How does one balance that? One good thing is that not everything on line has to be done 'right now' and it can linger there quite well. My computer is always on at work, because I need to track email, because I get a lot of gigs that way, and they are often open call deals, he needs ten people, mails it out to 20-25 and the first ten to respond win! Now I can keep Susan's and my email, and Fark open on the tabs, so sometimes the posts here are drawn out over hours and hours because I come and go from the computer. But like my emails, some incoming/outgoing stuff can't be put off, and it has placed an even larger burden of 'being on top of it'. So where do you, and how do you accord manners to real flesh and blood people in front of you, and when do you start typing away?
Some might say a clean room is evidence of a dirty mind. Its nice to have some organization, but there are lots of kinds of organization. I knew and know people who were equally smart and effective who had work spaces that ranged from spotless to 'hurricane just hit it' so that's kind of hard to speculate about.
