Keeping up with school work is a challenge, especially during a pandemic where all classes are online. It is so easy to forget what all is due when, updating calendars constantly, and keeping up with whether or not you have completed an assignment or not. In the past I have tried using white boards, calendars, agendas, and even writing on my hands and arms to try to keep track of everything I need to do for classes. All of those things worked to an extent, but rarely would I keep up with any of them for longer than a month. One new method that I have found to work well for me, though, is using sticky notes.
How I utilize my sticky notes is that I have every class and club be their own color and on my wall I create a class column where I have all my classes and clubs listed starting from online classes to classes that start on Monday all the way down to Friday. And across on each row I will use the corresponding class color to write down assignments that are due. Usually I just go week by week with assignments unless it’s a project-based class where I will put up sticky notes with the due dates for each milestone. This is helpful for me to visualize what all I need to do each week. I go one step further and break down each assignment. Per sticky note I put down one task, whether it be taking a quiz or watching an assigned video, and when I am done I stick it on another wall labeled ‘finished’. That way I can easily visualize what all I have done this semester and feel accomplished instead of just feeling the dread of having a lot of assignments with no end in sight. My finished wall has become so full already that many sticky notes are already falling off.
One of the reasons why this method has helped me is because I can physically move assignments from the class wall to the finished wall. The act of just moving that sticky note gives me the boost I need to feel accomplished. When I was using my whiteboards I would erase what I had completed, which would feel like I was not rewarding myself for finishing it in the first place. But with these sticky notes, I can visualize what I need to get done and can more easily plan how to complete each task.