Like most students at Geneseo, I have an overabundance of commitments and only 24 hours to do everything in! Here are some tips that I’ve learned over my time at college that I humbly share with you all.
- Learn how to use Google Calendar
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Less than a year ago, I didn’t use Google Calendar, and now I’m wondering how I ever lived without it. Over the summer I started using it for work and have never gone back. It’s so easy to schedule meetings and things when both parties have Google Calendar because you are able to virtually schedule meetings with just a few clicks! You can also check someone’s availability by subscribing to their calendars. It’s also easy to visualize your schedule when it is literally drawn out for you on the screen.
- Start using Trello
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After Google Calendar, Trello is the best way to schedule my life. Trello is essentially a virtual to-do list. I can literally plug in everything from each of my syllabi and it will tell me when things are due. I have individual boards for each of my classes, my work, and my personal life. Within each of those I have to do lists for each thing, complete with due dates, sub-lists, and links to important websites and documents for each. Because it is a virtual planner, there is no running out of space or having to squish words into solid boxes – which makes it perfect for the over-committed college student with a billion and one things to do.
- Schedule in your food consumption periods (I mean … meals)
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I’m sure that I’m not the only one who forgets to eat sometimes when I have an extremely busy day. What I’ve found works very well is to schedule in my meals on my busy days. That way, eating is literally part of my schedule and so I feel that I have enough time to do so. It’s also a perk that I often schedule these meals as times to see my boyfriend during the day.
- Don’t overschedule yourself
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You need to make sure you have enough time to do all of your classwork. None of this is worth it if you start flunking your classes! A lot of the time, I find that the difference between a solid B and a solid A in a class is literally just bothering to do the readings for each class. Each day, either between obligations or in the evenings before you go to bed, you should make time to do your classwork for the next day. I’m currently working on doing this myself, it’s a hard thing to do.
Good luck with time management as we are solemnly striding closer to midterms season!