Tag: desk calendar

Categories
Fun Ways to Organize

How I am Staying on top of my Schedule

Hey hey friends! Happy Tuesday! I hope you all had an enjoyable and fun Labor Day weekend. Although, I was at school, I did have a fun weekend with friends, and it was a great way to say goodbye to summer. Although, school started back last week for me, I’m still trying to find a good routine. Last week was all about getting adjusted to a new schedule, classes, work time and organizing all the appointments. This week is weird since we had off yesterday and tonight I’m going to a concert with friends. I’m trying my best to soak up every moment at school this semester.

I know I’m late to the game, but I am finally on the band wagon with using the calendar on my phone and laptop….I know I know, it’s a long time coming. Before I get started on how and why I am using this system now, I want to give a little bit of background on how I stay organized. 

A few years back, I did a post about staying organized with school. You can read about it here.

Let me break it down for how I stay on top of things, I have a feeling this may change once I graduate from college, but for now this is what works. 

  1. Big Desk Calendar
My desk calendar

I love to see everything laid out in front of my on my desk. I have everything color coded. Certain colors for classes, Green for school things (tutoring, dinners, meetings), Blue for Work (staff meetings, when things are due), Red for when I work, and then purple for anything else that comes up. I like seeing the month as a whole and this helps me plan better when I have new things to put on the calendar. I got this planner from the Simplified Collection by Emily Ley at Target. I put everything on this calendar- it’s basically my master one-school, work, home, family, friends. It all goes here. 

  • Small Planner

This comes in great for assignments and school work. I got this planner from Staples with the At a Glance collaboration with Simplified by Emily Ley (do you see a pattern here?!- You better believe I am getting the 2020 Simplified Planner when they Launch tomorrow!)

This has the week layout. Every day is split in two columns (The My Day and To Do). In the My Day is where I put any meetings, events, test dates or things to remember. In the To Do is where I list all my homework assignments.

What my weekly spread looks like

This is the first year that I used the monthly calendar too. Although, I love my desk calendar I was scheduling things without looking. I only write the important things in the month section like tutoring, meetings, scheduled events just so I have a reference. This planner is mostly used for school things-homework, exams, meetings for school and work things for school. 

The month of September as a whole in the month section of calendar
  • iCalendar 

This past summer, I started to use the calendar app on my phone and laptop to keep track of work things and events happening with family and friends. Since I wasn’t in school I wasn’t using a planner and since I spent most every day on my laptop it made sense to have my calendar in front of me, now I am loving it. It’s so easy to use and I LOVE how you can sync your phone and laptop calendars to be the same. I am also able to customize when I put things on the calendar and color coordinate them too. Also, the best part, by using iCalendar it keeps all my blog posts in order and I can schedule things better too.

For this calendar its divided by four topics: school (blue), blog (purple), personal (yellow) and important (red).

My four categories of what I put on the calendar

For school I only put important meetings, appointment and work commitments( no homework, no tests, no when my classes are), for blog I put down what posts are being published when, personal is activities and things with friends and family, and important are basically when the big things are due like credit card statements. This calendar is the big picture stuff, I refer to this when I am planning an event or meeting to see if I have conflicts and I always have it with me, unlike my desk calendar and planner which aren’t always on me. 

The whole month at a glance

Is it necessary to have all of these? Probably not, but it’s what works best for me. I am a super organized person, so I like to do all this and keep myself on top of everything. I am thinking once I graduate about ditching the desk calendar and just keeping a planner and using the calendar on my phone. Thoughts from any recent graduates about what works best for you? After I graduate, I want to focus on simplifying my life more and I know once I am done with school a lot of these activities will be done too, so for now I am enjoying my life with my three color coordinated calendars!

I hope you have a wonderful week ahead!

Categories
Fun Ways to Organize

How to Keep Yourself Organized

Hello Friends!

We are halfway through January, finally. I don’t know about you, but January always seems to drag for me. Today, I’m sharing my tips on how to organize for the new year. Whether you have everything colored coded like myself or can barely remember when you have a doctor’s appointment these tips can help your life run smoother for you.

  • Have a planner or calendar or both. As a college student staying organized is a priority. I have a large desk calendar for my room and a small day planner that goes wherever I go. I like the layout of the big calendar, so I can look ahead at things but it’s always convenient to have a small pocket planner with me. I typically write most of my assignments in the smaller planner since I refer to it throughout the day. Although it takes time at the beginning of every semester, I write every test, assignment, meeting, and due date in BOTH my pocket planner and desk calendar, so I am always on top of things. Hard work at the beginning pays off later.

My big desk calendar with all the important information written down, from assignments, meetings, work. It’s all in one place and color coded.

My planner goes wherever I go and once again its color coded for every class

  • Color Code. I can’t stress the importance of color coding. I have a colored pen for every class I take, typically I have it match my binder as well. For example, my advertising strategies binder is blue, so I take my blue pen and write all the assignments and projects in both my planner and big calendar. I do this for every class. I typically reserve a bright color like red to write down important meetings or unexpected thing that may come up. Not in school anymore? Not to worry this system works great with kids, have a separate color for each of your children and write all their activities out on the calendar in that pen. It makes finding things on the calendar easy.

Post it notes and colored pens are crucial when it comes to organizing.

Matching a colored pen to the colored binder makes it easy to spot things on the calendar.

  • Post It Notes. Post it Notes are my best friend. Whether its for little reminders, a to do list, or just marking a page in a book, I always have post it notes handy. A trick I have used to college is to write everything I need to get done each weekend on a post it notes and cross stuff off as I go, at the end of the weekend, throw it out.

    I write everything I want to accomplish on a post it note and cross it off as i complete it each weekend.

I work best when I am organized, and these are just a few ways that have worked well for me. What ways do you keep yourself organized? What are your favorite products you use to stay on top of a busy schedule? Let me know in the comments below!