By Nicole Eisenberg > University of Maryland, College Park > Sophomore > Marketing & Finance, Photo by Household Planners
Being humans, we have a bit more to plan than eating, sleeping, and playing – which might be a dog’s agenda for the day. We do have the advantage of opposable thumbs, which makes it much easier to jot down our responsibilities in our planners (instead of having to scratch out assignments in the backyard sandbox)!
These four University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) students give us the dirt on how to organize our planners before it’s too late and finals are right around the block.
Sophomore Beya Likhari stresses marking long-term dates on your calendar as soon as the semester starts. That way, “you can plan ahead and organize your workload accordingly,” says Likhari. She also recommends programming your exam dates into your phone and Google calendar; that way they’re always with you.
Short-term deadlines are just as important to meet as long-term ones. Therefore, freshman Sono Khan recommends organizing your day-to-day responsibilities. Khan explains that “every day I write each class and put anything due or pending for it right next to it…” He then puts “a small box next to each assignment or appointment” that he can check off once he has finished that assignment. Khan’s trick is to put a box next to each class even if he does not have work to accomplish that particular day because it feels so satisfying to cross something off the list.
In order to keep your planner organized, you must know when you have time to actually complete this work. Freshman Braxton Dubin says that at the beginning of the semester he always writes down when his classes are on each day. That way, he can plan his workload each day according to his class schedule.
Besides schoolwork and classes, you can also use your planner as a way to schedule in fun and relaxation. Andrew Bulls, junior at UMBC, says “if your planner is nice and organized, so is your life…The more frequently you use it, the less time you [have to] worry about stuff, and the more time you have for doing some fun stuff!” His best advice is to “leave some open space in your life for your friends and family. Life goes beyond an ‘A’ in Organic Chemistry, so connect with people, have fun, and use your planner as your tool to a well organized life.”
