thank you so much to grammarly for sponsoring this video it's time for back to school
so i am starting college this year finally when i first got here i was so overwhelmed i was like
emotionally exhausted from saying goodbye to my family i knew only one person here i had to buy
groceries and didn't know where i had to do immigration documents and do my laundry and
so let's clear away all of that bad energy and together have a calm start to our school year
okay we're done oh oh so first things first let's get our tools ready so these are the apps and the
extensions that i'm going to be using to plan my academic life and get things done efficiently
because i love efficiency so first up is my calendar app i use ical for all of my events
and time blocking which is where i plan my week by putting my tasks onto my calendar
not just on a list and so i estimate when i will do each thing and how long it will take so that
i have a plan for the week and don't over book myself i'm using that a lot this week
as you can see and it's very chaotic because things are very unpredictable at the moment
but it really helped me to get a grip on things when i had so many things to do and no idea when
to do them so for example when my classes start and i have a homework assignment to work on
i can easily find an empty block and schedule in some time to work on that
i was also able to sync my class schedule from blackboard to ical so that i can see my
classes next to all of my other events and if i want to show or hide it i can just check it
flash card so this is for space repetition and active recall yes that's what it's called so
i have an eight study tips video that is very popular if i do say so myself so i talk about
those techniques and flash cards are really good for applying those i'm not sure exactly how much
memorization my degree will require because i'm studying communications and digital media
but you never know i will tell you though that i used quizlet a lot during high school for classes
like ap bio or ap psych where you had to memorize a lot of vocabulary a lot of concepts and it was
extremely helpful so grammarly is the sponsor of today's video thank you grammarly although
i'm studying in spain at a spanish university all of my classes are in english so with having
to write video scripts and newsletters and emails and now on top of that essays and assignments i
have a crap ton of writing to do so i wish i could have an assistant to do all of my homework for me
but grammarly is going to be my all-in-one digital writing assistant so you can actually
download the grammarly browser extension and use it within tools like google docs or gmail so that
the corrections and suggestions appear directly where you're writing and you don't even have to
switch between apps if you like efficiency as much as i do then you definitely need to
get grammarly because a big part of the writing process is editing so grammarly double checks for
spelling grammar and punctuation errors as well as showing you where your sentences might be too long
too difficult to read where you can cut out words or replace them with more engaging ones the really
nice thing that i like is that you can actually set custom writing goals based on the formality
and tone that you want so when i write my weekly newsletters i write them as if i'm writing to
a friend because you guys are my friends duh so it's casual and friendly and joyful and optimistic
but if i wrote like that for a formal school essay that might be a little weird i might
not get the best grade so with back to school season coming or already here make sure you're
prepared with tools like grammarly you can go to grammarly.com/theblissbean to sign up for a free
account and if you'd like to get extra features you can upgrade to grammarly premium for 20%
off to help you save time and work efficiently alrighty so the next step is teuxdeux which i
use to keep track of to do's and assignments this works in tandem with my time blocking calendar so
a lot of people have asked me beatrice isn't it overkill to use both a time blocking calendar
and a to-do list no so for example i might have a block on my calendar that just says
emails and then on my to-do list i have the actual tasks so for example take spanish placement test
um sign contract send video ideas you can check out my weekly planning video if you want to learn
more about that system but for now we're gonna move on so there's not a lot on here but one thing
is that because i'm studying in spain i do have to speak spanish a lot when i'm out and about so
because my vocabulary is very lacking i have spanish dict on my phone um and as my former
spanish teacher used to emphasize all the time to us it is pronounced spanish dict um i use
the clock cap a lot for setting 25 minute timers for the pomodoro chunks and then i just have a
couple of bookmarks on my phone so we have like a covid health passport to enter campus and so
i have that and then the blackboard platform that we use for schedules and grades and stuff
one really important thing to do when the school year starts is to decide how you're
going to manage distractions so i have two really awesome extensions for google chrome
that help me with that one of them is called pause and so what this does is anytime you
go to a distracting website like social media or some news sites because those can suck you too it
makes you wait like five seconds before you can access it the other one is called youtube feed
blocker which does exactly what it sounds like it removes like the recommended videos and your home
feed um and so if you go to youtube you basically have to go to your subscribed
channels or search for something otherwise you're not going to see anything else and then on my
phone i had redownloaded a bunch of distracting apps because it was summer and i was traveling
but now it's time for business so no more twitter netflix hulu prime video i started playing this
dog game a week ago which is really cute and fun but at a certain point you realize that you are
spending your time baking biscuits for digital dogs that live inside your phone i don't know
you just rethink how you're spending your time so i said goodbye to the dogs that i've been
raising and deleted that all of these apps that i deleted except the dog one i can still access
on my computer so it's not like i'm cutting it cold turkey it just means that it's going to be
harder to access which is friction that ensures you only visit those websites when you really
really want to one thing i love to do while i'm working is block out outside noise so when i was
in high school i always had a pair of earplugs in my pencil case now i've had a little bit of a glow
up so i've been using my airpod airpods pro airpod pros airpods pro which are noise canceling and
then i play some white noise on spotify it blocks out everything use caution i guess like make sure
you're in a safe place but if you are in a noisy classroom or library it is fantastic so this is
my little desk area it's actually built into the bed so i can't move it anywhere else um at home
i had like this big motorized electric standing desk so this is a little bit of a glow down for
me but i've actually had zero problems with it i really like it i don't have much decor on it
and i think i'm gonna keep it that way because i think it's easier to focus if there isn't too
much stuff around me so what i have on here at the moment are two of the notebooks i use most often
this scent diffuser thing um google home laptop pencil case and blue light glasses most of the
desk decor is on my wall so that it doesn't clutter up the surface but i can still look at
it and enjoy it uh so i basically just put up some polaroid photos and art prints that i had and some
fairy lights which i cannot turn on yet because i don't have a screwdriver to put in batteries
as for school supplies so personally my system for studying is not that complicated i've never been
one for like complicated binders or color coding systems and this may come as a surprise to you
considering how much i love digital planning but i actually really like taking my notes on paper
for school i know a lot of people bring laptops to lectures once they start college and i think
i'm gonna start with a notebook and then see like if i can't keep up with the speed of the lecture
then switch to my computer but i'm willing to try both methods for the time being i did stop by an
office supply store and stock up on a few things so i got let's see i got two lined notebooks
these post-it notes they're called funny notes i don't know what exactly is funny about them
um these stabilo highlighters and i'll tell you about how i use them later a mechanical pencil
a gel pen and this is like a folder that has multiple it's a plastic folder that has
multiple pockets in it so with the notebooks and the highlighters i have a pretty simple
system for taking notes it's not cornell notes or anything like that i just like to do bullet point
notes i indent them for subtopics when i have a heading i write it in uppercase and underline it
i underline vocabulary words and then indent each line of the definition so that it really
stands out on the page and then a few days later i like to go back through my notes and read through
them to solidify my understanding and then i use yellow for anything that's important orange for
vocabulary and pink for headings the colors are not important but this is usually the color scheme
that i stick to finally school makes your life busy obviously but your health should not take
a back seat even if you are running out of time so one important thing is hydration so for the time
being i actually don't have a proper water bottle so i've been refilling this plastic water bottle i
ordered like a uv water bottle that cleans itself via uv light i don't know science and it cleans
the water inside it so then you can drink like any tap water and it eliminates the taste there's
like water fountains built into the walls here in segovia like it's a very old city so you're just
walking on cobblestone streets and there's stone walls and then there's just water streaming out of
the wall and you can drink it it tastes a little weird but it's potable water supposedly in terms
of exercise i am not planning on joining any gyms for the moment because i do have a pretty big room
and lots of floor space so there's a lot i can just do in my room on youtube two of my favorite
channels are fitness blender and yoga with adrien and then two apps that i really like are seven
minute workout and the just dance now app so that is where you can play just dance with your phone
and like stream the choreography on your computer also if you're in college you're probably gonna be
doing a lot of walking i know i have been climbing a lot of hills since i got here so that is already
like a built-in workout that's enough finally i have a mini fridge in my room so let's go to that
i'm working on stocking this fridge with some healthy snack options so that i can eat them in
between meals at the cafeteria um i just have not visited like any big supermarket groceries yet so
there's not much in here um no cohesive meal can be formed from these ingredients i guess
you can like take a cherry tomato and dip it in some hummus finish off with a single pecan
sounds like a meal to me also just a reminder that big transition times can be really stressful
and all of your systems may fall apart but you have not failed if you like fell off of doing your
routines once you started college or something like that now is a good chance to create new
routines modify existing ones find a new groove and just settle into your new exciting life so
i hope you enjoyed this video um i like fake cried at the start of the video but actually i am really
excited for school especially now that i filmed this and bought these school supplies i haven't
been in school for two years so i'm really craving that back to school energy so hopefully everything
goes well and i hope all of your classes go incredibly as well thank you so much for watching
this video be sure to give it a like and subscribe to my channel and i will see you next week bye you