As we've been exploring during this back to school series, organization and effective
time management are key to a balanced study routine.
The basis of any time management system for school or college is your academic planner.
Today we will be exploring a digital and a traditional notebook-type planner and how
to properly set them up for a new academic year with simple methods.
For the traditional setup, I've picked an 18 Months Moleskine Planner.
This planner features the typical spread containing a week on one page with a page for notes.
I always felt like this combo was perfect to effectively schedule tasks and academic
events while also keeping enough space for a comprehensive list on the right side.
You can use a planner like this to use the organization method in "How to Become a Straight-A
Student", a book we've discussed in last week's video.
Keeping this setup as simple as it gets, we'll start by filling up the notebook's schedule.
A practical tip is to fill in all of your classes first and then pre-schedule some regular
study sessions during the week.
Even if you have to move things around later, time blocking these sessions as part of your
study routine can give you a boost of motivation and discipline in the long run.
Once you have dates for most of your assignments, quizes and exams, it can be useful to use
a monthly spread to schedule them.
Although weekly spreads give you freedom to write things down with more detail, a month-at-a-glance
gives you a better perception of your future work load.
To simplify the whole process of writing down tasks related to the same classes over and
over again, I like to use a color code per course.
You can either use stickers or colored pens for this.
It's a decorative element for your planner that actually serves a useful purpose.
To plan things for the week, I'll be using the right page to brainstorm and list all
the tasks I need to complete for the week without any specific order of urgency or importance.
Every time I know I need to complete a certain task in a certain week, I'll flip over to
that time frame and jot it down in the right page of my planner.
Once I am able to understand the time I'll have available during those seven days, I'll
migrate the tasks from the right page and assign them specific days and timeslots in
the left page.
Each time a task is migrated you can either cross them over or use a cross to signal that
the task has been successfully scheduled.
And that's pretty much it for the most basic and simple academic planner setup.
You don't need a complicated setup or organization system to stay on track with all of your work
so keeping it simple in the beginning and building it up from there can be very useful
in the long run.
For our digital setup, we'll be using "My Study Life", which is a free app that runs
on all devices and your web-browser as well.
You can sign in with your google account so it guarantees that everything you plan is
synched between all platforms.
My Study Life features 4 main components that you can use for your setup: a calendar with
a layout very similar to the ones you can find in other mainstream calendar apps; a
main list for tasks, a schedule and a place where you can input important information
about exams and assignments.
Before you start adding your information, it's important to go to "settings" and redefine
your preferences.
Your default start time, class duration, as well as the time format and starting week
day are all settings you should update before you do anything else on "My Study Life".
After you setup your preferences, you should start by adding a new academic year.
This initial setup will allow you to add classes, a schedule and assign a color code for your
tasks.
By adding class information, you'll be also automatically creating your schedule in the
schedule tab.
The repeating format will be set up according to your initial preferences, so you can either
have the same classes every week, or with other type of rotation.
After setting up your classes and schedule you can start filling in information about
assignments, tests, quizes and group work in your dedicated exams tab.
Finally, the tasks tab should be used for everyday work, like doing homework, solving
problems and do your class readings.
As always, it's important to use detailed information while scheduling tasks.
You can schedule both assignments, reminders and revision, which allows you to use the
reminder slash task system we were devising in our paper planner.
When you click a scheduled task, you're also able to set your completion rate, which is
particularly useful for long-term tasks like a project or a long session of reading.
As all web-enabled time management apps, my Study Life relies on a password so you can
access it anywhere.
If you're using your Google account to get it, then you're using the same account that
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I hope you enjoyed today's video and i will see you next week.
Bye guys!