How I Use Planners In College

After a semester of college and a high school senior year crazy full I had tried so many planners and different organizational methods my mom thought I was crazy. But I finally found a way to organize all of my events, classes, homework assignments, and everything else going on in my crazy life and I wanted to share. Now, I will point out that while this works for me, it might not work for you at all, or maybe you just use this to tweak your system you already use.

 

What I Use:

2 Planners

Colored pens (Right now I am using paper mate but I think next time I am getting pilot G-2’s)

Syllabi for all of my classes (Not shown in pictures)

Highlighters

Whiteboard

Colored dry erase markers

The ability to accept my mistakes (also not shown lol)

 

 

 

                The first thing I do is gather up (or print off) all of my syllabi for the semester and assign each class a color. For me that looks like this…

 

               Then using that color pen I take every homework assignment and write it into my first planner. Now I have one teacher that I also had last semester who is infamous for delaying, postponing and canceling assignments on a regular basis. Almost every test and assignment was moved or changed at least once. So I will wait for her assignments and write them in as she gives them to us (but I know she gives ALL of them in class). Then I go back and highlight all of the tests and quizzes with the same color highlighter. I also write in a week ahead of time that there is a test that I need to study for. Next, I find all of the large assignments (i.e. papers, group projects, presentations, skills assessments, etc.) and break them down into steps. For example, for a paper, find topic and main points, research, outline paper, sentence outline, rough draft, clean paper, final draft, and final polish. I then decide how long it will take me for each step and, working backwards, write those in the planner giving myself mini deadlines for each step. And that is all I do at the beginning of the semester.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I find planning out my week relaxing and calming and so at the end of each week I have what I call planner time. I sit down with all of my supplies Friday after all of my classes are over and plan my next week (normally watching Disney channel….don’t judge). I get the planner William Woods gives every student and open it up to the next week. First I add in all my classes (I also highlight any class periods that have a test/quiz), and any extracurricular activities (I’m on dance team and a part of CRU and Hands Up). Then, I make sure I have any other appointments scheduled in (advising, study groups etc.).

 

The next thing I do might sound silly but it really helps me….I write in when I want to eat my meals. Most of the time I don’t have a problem but the last thing I want it to be double-booked at meal time. Finally, I write any other events on campus, plays, concerts, extra lectures etc.

Then I pull out my homework planner and my dry erase markers and transfer any homework assignments to my white board for the week. Now normally this runs half a week ahead so instead of whatever is due next Monday through Friday it has anything due next Wednesday through the following Tuesday. I like to be ahead in case I get sick or have a migraine one day and can’t do any work. Now I can easily see what homework I need to work on and when completed I can erase it from the board.

Now the reason I added the ability to accept my mistakes to the list is because I don’t know how many times I have caught myself writing in the wrong color, or in the wrong time slot. So I just have to learn to accept those mistakes and roll with it. Sometimes I use white out on the mistake and sometimes I write over, but I don’t fret over it I just make sure I rewrite it where it is supposed to be so I don’t show up at the wrong time.

I’m sorry for how long this post is and the quality of the pictures but I hope I helped someone with how they are planning in college. Also, I do know that all the pictures span the week of Christmas, no we did not have class but when I wrote this post we had not started classes yet and so I made up assignments and such and used that week so I wouldn’t use an actual class week.
 

Until next time, Love God, Love Each other and Love Disney

~Lacey