It’s a couple weeks into the school year, and everybody is settling in. You’ve stopped arriving fifteen minutes early to class, your morning coffee is no longer optional, and your teachers are starting to load up the homework, BIG TIME. Where do you turn when things start to feel just a little overwhelming? For me, the first stop is my trusty planner, which I’ve customized to fit my own organizational needs. Spending just a couple of minutes setting up your planner to work better for you is a quick and easy way to prioritize your schedule, see what you really need to do, and most importantly, just relax. Maybe you already have a favorite planner, or maybe you’re just trying to remember all your homework. Either way, I have a few tips you can use to make your planner one of the most effective and helpful academic tools you own.
First, if you don’t already have a planner, make sure to find one you love.
Picking a pattern that really speaks to you (and maybe some fun colored pens to boot) will make you more motivated to use your planner every single day. This sort of planning system only works if you can keep it up, so picking a planner that has plenty of space, lines and dividers if you want them, and can slide easily into your backpack will be well worth the investment.
If you already have a favorite planner, but don’t know where to go from here to make it more helpful for you, I have a couple of nifty suggestions that just might do the trick. Let’s start with the basics: what should you actually be writing down? The easy answer is that you should write down whatever works for you. For some people, that’s only the homework assignments received that day, while for others, it’s all the clubs, intramurals, and appointments that book up your hours. Whatever level of detail you lean toward, if you really want your planner to help make you a better student, make sure your entries are specific. For example, if you have a test coming up in a week, writing simply “study bio” under today’s date is too vague. If, on the other hand, you write, “Review Chapters 2 and 3 in the book; make flashcards with key terms,” instead, the specificity will make you much more inclined to actually complete those tasks. By focusing what you need to do, you are much more likely to actually do them.
Okay, you might be thinking, “I already do those things! Tell me something new!” To that, I will reply with some of the more uncommon planner tips I use to make my days more efficient.
First, I use one of the blank pages at either the front or back of my planner to make a master schedule with all of my friends’ schedules. I highly recommend doing this (color-coding encouraged!), because it allows you to find times to eat together or to see who’s available to be your gym buddy. And if you write down your roommates’ schedules, it’ll be easier to figure out when you can get some alone time to de-stress.
Another useful tool you can incorporate into your planner is what is known as a a tracker. This comes originally from the Bullet Journal system (which I love and swear by). You can track all sorts of things on a daily basis, such as how much water you drink, whether or not you remember to take your morning pills, your mood throughout the day, whether or not you work out, or any other habit you want to reinforce. To create a tracker, simply make a box for each thing you want to track along the side of the space for that day, with a little icon to show what each box is tracking. When you’ve accomplished that for the day, you can color the box in. To track your mood, you can create a little key with various faces at the front of your planner and fill in each day’s box accordingly. Trackers are super helpful because you’ll have an easier time keeping up with those habits you want to maintain with a visual reminder!
Another way I use my planner is as a source of inspiration for those stressful times during the school day. To do this, on Sunday nights I take a couple of minutes to choose a quote for the week and write it across the top of the weekly page. Throughout the week, when I’m busy scribbling in various assignments, it always helps to read those words and just take a deep breath. I also find it helpful to try and write down one thing I’m grateful for in the space for each day. Both of these are good ways to ground yourself in the midst of the chaos of school.