Organizing for tasks that do not repeat

High school is repetitive (in a good way). Where are you supposed to be next Tuesday at 10:40 AM? In September you receive a piece of paper that tells you, and you fairly quickly memorize it. What are you supposed to do this evening around 8 PM? Run through a list of classes for the next day in your head and recall, look up, or ask a friend what the homework is. You do not need an advanced organizational system to stay on track (or, more precisely, school has created an advanced organizational system for you).

Searching for the right college, however, is a series of actions that generally are most likely things you have not done before and things you will not do again. This poses a challenge, since you are used to succeeding without any way of making sure you get things like this done. This may be one reason why the college search can feel harder than a class, even though it is neither as intellectually challenging nor as time intensive.

How to handle tasks like this? I like David Allen's Getting Things Done, but whatever system you choose I suggest the first step is recognizing that you may need a structure to organize your college search to-dos.