How to stay organised: a guide for new counsellors

One of the most important pieces of advice I can give to new counsellors is to stay organised and proactive in supporting your students’ academic, career and personal-development goals. 

In particular, I strongly recommend using an integrated student tracking and planning system. By integrating calendar management, Google Sheets, Google Docs and Google Drive, this tracking and planning system allows counsellors to maintain a comprehensive, organised and actionable record of student interactions, progress and goals. 

It is not only efficient for individual counselling, but can also be shared across a counselling team to enhance collaboration and collective expertise.

Step 1: Calendar management – keeping track of everything

The first and most critical step is to fill in your calendar with every counselling-related activity. This includes one-on-one student sessions, parent meetings, career workshops, university application deadlines and professional development events. 

Using a digital calendar such as Google Calendar ensures real-time updates, reminders and easy sharing with colleagues. For example, during university application season, I enter each student’s individual submission deadlines, standardised-test dates, and scholarship timelines. This allows me to proactively follow up with students and prevent last-minute issues. 

Proactive planning is key to effective counselling, and maintaining a detailed calendar is the foundation for all subsequent steps.

Step 2: Centralised digital tracking – Google Sheets and Google Docs

After organising a calendar, the next step is to create a centralised digital tracking system using Google Sheets. This sheet is designed to capture comprehensive data on every student, including:

• Personal details and academic records
• Career interests and aspirations
• Universities shortlisted and application status
• Scholarships and extracurricular achievements
• Counsellor notes from each session.

The spreadsheet is dynamic and colour-coded for accessibility, allowing me to identify students who require urgent attention, those making steady progress and those needing additional support. Google Sheets also allows multiple counsellors to access and update information simultaneously.

Alongside Google Sheets, I maintain Google Docs for individual student counselling notes and reflection logs. This ensures that qualitative data is captured, including insights from conversations, behavioural observations and student reflections. 

Data-driven counselling enhances guidance effectiveness, and this combination of spreadsheets and documents makes it possible to analyse trends, prepare personalised action plans and make informed recommendations.

Step 3: Central storage and version control – Google Drive

All documents, spreadsheets and supplementary resources are stored in Google Drive, organised by academic year, student cohort and type of activity. This serves multiple purposes:

Accessibility: any counsellor can retrieve information quickly.

Backup and security: Google Drive ensures that all data is backed up and secure.

Collaboration: counsellors can comment, update and share resources across teams.

For example, when planning a career workshop on STEM opportunities, I can access previous session notes, track attendance and follow up with students who expressed interest, ensuring continuity and relevance.

Step 4: Tangible applications for other counsellors

This tracking and planning technique can be adopted by counsellors in any high-school setting. Here’s how it can be applied:

Start small: begin by tracking a single cohort of students using a spreadsheet and calendar system.

Use digital tools: Google Calendar, Sheets, Docs and Drive are free, easily accessible and allow collaboration.

Regular review: set aside weekly or monthly sessions to update records, analyse trends and plan interventions.

Share and learn: encourage counsellors to contribute their experiences, making the system a living resource that evolves over time.

Step 5: Benefits of the tracking system

From my own experience, this system has transformed counselling practice. Students receive personalised guidance, timely interventions and consistent follow-ups, which significantly improves engagement and outcomes. Counsellors benefit from efficient workflow, evidence-based decision making and enhanced collaboration, which reduces stress during peak periods, such as around university application deadlines.

By planning in advance and tracking deadlines, I can anticipate student needs rather than reacting to problems. Maintaining accurate records and data demonstrates reliability and ethical practice. Sharing calendars, spreadsheets and progress reports with senior leadership and counselling colleagues ensures transparency and alignment with school objectives.

The tracking system also allows me to analyse trends in student interests, assessment scores and university selections, enabling targeted counselling.

Additionally, sharing this technique at staff meetings or with professional networks contributes to the global counsellor community. It also allows counsellors to adapt the system to different school contexts, including international curricula, varying cohort sizes and diverse student needs.

By implementing this system, new counsellors (and those who have been counselling for a while) can enhance student outcomes, streamline their workflow and contribute meaningfully to the wider counselling community.