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Planners; Reviewed and Organized
Seeing as it's the beginning of the New Year and the spring semester is coming up in the next few weeks, I thought it would be a good time to talk about planners. As I mentioned in my Top Ten College Essentials post, I think planners are one of the most useful tools for success and time management. I know many people who use electronic planners and love them, but I am not one of those people. I've tried various apps and online calendars, but I always end up forgetting to use them. For me, making a physical to-do list is more motivating and having a paper planner makes it easier to organize my life.
Whether one of your New Year's resolutions is to be more organized or you are just interested in finding the best planner for you, here's my review of the planners I've used over the past five years. At the end of the post, I also detail what I record and how I organize my planner.
I used a Lilly Pulitzer planner throughout most of high school, and I loved it at the time. However, I don't think I would ever switch back to this brand for planners. The format of the planner doesn't offer enough space for everything I would want to write. In college, there's generally more dates and assignments to keep track of compared to high school. That being said, if you are looking for a simple, lined planner, then this is a great option.
Lilly Pulitzer recently came out with a weekly to-do planner. Just looking at the layout alone, I prefer this style to their dated agendas.
I used the Erin Condren academic planner my last semester of high school and first semester of college. Overall it was a great planner, and I was able to keep track of all my assignments and upcoming projects. One of the best things about this planner was having a weekly view on two pages. I take longer than necessary to complete most assignments, so I usually like to give myself a head start. Being able to view an entire week's worth of due dates made it easier for me to create a tentative schedule of when I should start working on an assignment. I also liked having three different sections since I generally record three main categories; due dates, homework, to-do list.
The Erin Condren planners come in numerous styles and are customizable. Of the three brands listed in this post, Erin Condren offers the most design options.
The Day Designer is every organizer's and list-maker's dream. I used the daily planner all last year to manage my life, and I'm using it again this year. Before having the Day Designer planner, I used an academic planner, a weekly calendar, and various to-do lists every day. The best thing about this planner is that there are so many sections. Essentially, it's all three of the planners I was using daily, consolidated onto one page. One downside of this planner is not having a weekly view. Other Day Designer styles are formatted similarly to the Erin Condren planner, but the design of this particular style only allows for a two-day view. This planner is especially great for anybody with a busy schedule because there are time slots from 5am to 9pm. Also, I've recently noticed that Target and Staples are selling the Day Designer brand!
Here is an example of how I organized my Day Designer planner last year:
Breaking down the sections:
Today's Schedule
I had made these stickers before being sent home in the spring, but for the brief period when I was going to class, I found it helpful to include the location. In this section of the planner, I listed any classes or activities I had planned for the day using stickers and filled in the time gaps with a tentative schedule. As I've discovered about myself, I get more accomplished when I've previously established a time to work on a specific assignment.
Today's Top Three
Although I didn't list anything on this particular day, this section was primarily used for non-school related tasks such as working out.
Homework
The homework section is where I kept track of any assignments or exams that had not been completed yet. Since the format of this planner only shows two days at a time, the homework section helped me stay on track and know what assignments were coming up in the near future.
To-do List
I would usually make the to-do list the night before or the morning of, and it's just a list of assignments I wanted to finish or portions of projects I wanted to work on that day.
Tonight
This was a continuation of Today's Schedule, and included anything I wanted to work on past 8pm.
Notes
The notes section is where I would write the assignments that were due that day. This portion of my planner was filled out at the beginning of the semester.
This is an example of my planner this past fall when it became even more necessary to stay organized. I don't know what college will look like this semester, but this is how I managed school when all my classes were online and asynchronous.
Breaking Down the Sections:
All of the sections were pretty much utilized the same way as the previous example, but there are two main differences.
Today's Schedule
Since I didn't have any scheduled classes and was pretty much on my own for the entire semester, this section was used to block out time to work on various assignments. For the first time in my academic career, I was entirely responsible for making my schedule every day, so this section was the most useful for overall time management and productivity.
Gratitude
Obviously, this section was not used for the intended purpose. This semester all of my professors indicated the date we would (or should) start a new chapter. I filled this section out at the beginning of the semester, and it helped me know which video lectures I should be watching and when.
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