Although I have only been in college for about a month now, I’ve learned the important tricks on how to stay on top of things. The steps below will absolutely help you stay organized and complete all your assignments on time!
STEP 1:
Buy. A. Planner. If you don’t have a planner, order one on Amazon ASAP. My planner organizes my entire life and without it, I seriously do not know how I would stay on top of my work. Planners are an absolute game changer and I would definitely recommend getting one if you don’t have one already.
STEP 2:
Purchase some colorful pens. After I bought my planner, the first thing I did was buy a pack of colored pens and assign a different colored pen to each of my classes. By having certain colors representing each class, I am able to write my assignments down in my planner without having to guess which exams, quizzes, or projects are for which classes. Pro tip: make sure you have two sets of colorful pens so you can leave one set in your desk and keep one set in your backpack.
STEP 3:
*Warning: this step is a little extra. Okay, maybe it’s a lot extra. I may or may not have spent an irrational amount of time deciding which colored pens should represent which classes. Ultimately, there was reasoning behind every choice: green for economics because it represents money, blue for American politics because it represents democracy, red for managerial statistics because, well, isn’t math just always represented by the color red, and so on. If you’re as crazily organized as I am, this will be something that you’ll definitely want to do.
STEP 4:
Organize which assignments are written in the monthly section of the planner versus which assignments are written in the weekly & daily section. In the monthly calendar, I tend to write more long-term assignments including exams, quizzes, papers, and projects. This helps me see the bigger picture of the semester and allows me to plan my time better for more substantial assignments. I also use the monthly calendar for sporadic meetings such as calls with my advisor or zooms for clubs. I use the weekly section for my daily assignments such as readings, daily homework, or lecture videos. Writing my assignments for each day reminds me what I have to accomplish in both the day and the week, which helps me stay on top of things!
STEP 5:
Once again, this step is most definitely extra. If you couldn’t tell by this point, I have a love for organizing my things ! Once I finished working on my calendar, I went onto my Canvas dashboard and color coded my classes to match the colors I used in my planner. This can be done by clicking the three dots option for each class and selecting which color you want!
Although I do love to organize, the most important thing to remember is that not everything is going to go as planned in college (or in life)! As someone who enjoys organizing pretty much everything that there is to be organized, the go-with-the-flow college lifestyle is something to adjust to! With that being said, staying organized with your academic calendar will leave you less stressed & give you more free time to have fun instead of doing your procrastinated assignments at the last minute!