I guess this probably isn’t the best time to be writing this, as I have recently been pretty disorganized. The other day I spontaneously went down to see my grandmother (totally unlike me to do things without a plan) and then got back at 5:30pm. Up until the point I got back, I remembered that I was going to check on my fruit flies for genetics lab at 7:30. However, when 7:30 rolled around, guess who wasn’t in the lab. That’s right, I remembered at about 9:30 as I was getting into bed that I was supposed to have checked the fruit flies. Oops! I also have forgotten my water bottle in genetics lab twice and took off my hat in genetics class the other day and forgot it under my chair. Last Thursday I also totally spaced on something I was supposed to photograph with another person. There weren’t many photographers at the Linfield Review meeting and even though I told them I was super busy on Thursday they still assigned me something at 8:30pm that evening (which is usually my bedtime, if you’ve read my evening routine post). When did I remember that I had to take photos at it? The next day at 5pm when I was looking at my calendar.
Long story short, the last week and a half I’ve been very forgetful. At least I haven’t lost my 3rd calculator this year (knock on wood). But, here is how I usually stay organized and how I keep track of all my homework.
For years I’ve used Google Calendar religiously. Since I got an email when I was 12 I’ve used my Google Calendar for everything. And I mean everything. When I got to high school, I’d use a homework tracker as well as my Google Calendar, but this eventually got really tedious having to put in all my homework assignments at the start of every semester. It probably would take an hour or two at the start of each semester, and then I’d have to check it every day and imput homework daily when I didn’t get a syllabus. I used this for my first semester of college as well and then I dropped it. My first few years of college it seems like I have been pretty good at keeping all my homework assignments in my mind and getting them done on time without writing them down.
I’ve experimented before with bullet journaling. I had a bullet journal on and off for about 2 years. I remember first learning about it on YouTube, getting myself a dot box journal, packs and packs of pens, washi tape, and jumping in head first (as I do with a lot of things). I think I might have continued to stick with it if it wasn’t as time-consuming for me to set up a monthly calendar and habit tracker every month, and those weekly spreads I never did, even though they might have been helpful. I liked being able to customize how things were organized and arranged, but I hated having to spend the time trying to be artistic.
So now I am using a planner. One thing I started doing with my bullet journal is that I write down all the homework assignments I have (within reason – for example, the week after I’m not going to include unless it’s a large project) and then every day I copy over the ones I haven’t completed. This gets time-consuming and helps motivate me to do them. Now since the planner I’m using has 4 days to a 2-page spread, I write the assignments on one day and then I just check them off until I have to flip to a new 2-page spread. I just put a check mark next to them when I get them done.
One thing that I don’t like about using my planner is that there isn’t a place to put my daily schedule. There is a blank block, but no time slots. I personally like having the calendar-type page in my planner (hourly calendar). But I am using my Google Calendar in addition to my planner and it seems to be working. I do tend to forget to write in my planner though, but oh well.
Again – this is going to be another one of those posts that gets a reboot once I get my head screwed on straight. This post was started a few years ago, and, as you probably guessed by the string of posts today, it has been sitting in drafts for a little over a year. But no more! Fly little post! Fly! (I might be suffering a little bit of literal cabin fever)
Let me know what you think!