As we’re going into Week 4 of the spring semester, I wanted to share how I set up schedule! I’ve always needed to rely on a planning system to help me feel organized and to help me prioritize my tasks. Without it, I’d feel lost and easily overwhelmed by all my responsibilities. Overtime during college, I’ve developed a setup that makes the most sense to me. Figuring out how to organize my time has also given me insight on how I make sense of information.

Classes are in blue, one time events are in green

The first part of my setup is my iCalendar. Here, I can visually see when my classes (in blue) take place and when I can have some downtime or study time. I also will put in reminders for meetings and appointments and generally any time based event. Since it syncs with my phone, I can see my daily events wherever I go. I also heavily rely on the alerts it gives me since I sometimes forget to look at the calendar and thus momentarily forget upcoming events. I also find that the alerts help give me time to emotionally prepare myself for what’s coming.

I sorted this table based on week and date and gave each week and course its own color. Seeing which weeks have a paper assignment has also helped me plan out assignments where I get to choose the due date, such as presentations.

How each course page looks.

Next is my bread and butter: Notion. I learned about Notion a year or two ago and was gravitated to it because of its customizability and sleek interface. I’ve used it to organize a lot of my personal notes but when it comes to academic tasks, this is where I can see all my assignments for the semester in one spot. I’ve set up a table in which I can see what topics my classes are focusing on for the week, what type of assignments are assigned, and I can open each topic up to see my homework. I can also view this table in a calendar form. In addition, I filtered the table to show each class separately and connected them to their respective course pages. On these course pages, I uploaded the class syllabus so that I can refer to other instructions and resources that my professor has provided. This setup has helped me keep track of the work that I completed, partially completed, and have yet to do and it also helps me gain a better understanding of how the different class topics throughout the weeks connect with each other conceptually.

Unlike the beautiful artistic spreads one can see of bullet journals with a quick Google search, my bullet journal is very bare bones — I’m just working with what I have in my dorm room.

Lastly, I have a paper-based item to write down my daily tasks, both academic and personal. In the past, I would simply write things down on a scrap piece of paper in list form, or use a to do list app, but this semester I thought I would try to make my own bullet journal. In my journal, I map out a weekly spread containing a small calendar to show what week of the month it is, boxes for each day of the week (the Saturday box is right underneath the sticky note for Friday), and a weekly future log that sort of looks like a dotted graph. For each day, I will write down my daily tasks based on priority, any small reminders such as buying shampoo or whatever, and any questions I may need to ask someone. I think I prefer to have a physical object to write these items down because it makes me feel more engaged and in control of my day; the task list is a daily goal list that I strive to complete.

Going back to how scheduling has taught me how I digest and make sense of information, I’ve learned through this setup that I value being able to see the relationship between the big picture and minute details. Had I not developed a way to keep track of responsibilities, I would have viewed all my tasks as an ever growing list of things I would never have enough time to complete and would have a harder time balancing academics with my personal relationships. I’m curious to learn about how everyone else organizes their time and I hope my setup is helpful to someone out there looking to find a system that makes sense for them!