Q&A Post #2
I was asked if about how I managed to stay organized, whether I had a specific study schedule or any tricks I could share. I replied that I am heavily reliant on my bullet journal, which lead to these questions:
How do you structure your bullet journal?
So the agenda parts of my bujo (because I use it for everything, drawing, lists, brain dumps, journaling, scheduling, etc) are:
-Yearly (mostly holidays, birthdays, etc)
-Monthly (for me this has ended up just being a list of the days in the month where I can quickly reference appointments and bills and stuff)
*Semester: I make a start-to-finish list of all of my assignments for the semester, broken down by week. I use this as my reference rather than the course schedule online.
-Weekly, sometimes daily if I have a lot going on that day. This is the most important one, and I’m constantly changing how I do things to find what works best for me. I take ideas from Pinterest, Instagram, the bullet journal subreddit, Tumblr, and even sometimes from specific products that give me ideas I like (like the EVO journal, which I think is overpriced and not something I will buy, but I took their little quiz and started making my own spreads inspired by the info they gave me).
I don’t ALWAYS have the spoons for it- sometimes my spreads are beautiful and hand-drawn, sometimes they’re mostly washi tape, sometimes it’s just a super minimalist list. Everyone is different and what I like about weekly spreads is that you can change you mind a lot and try new things. Some people use habit trackers to track medications or water, some people task-batch, some people just want an appointment book.
What works best for me (as of right now) is doing a weekly spread that gives me room to write one thing I’m grateful for every day (or what the highlight of my day was, or something interesting I learned). I also have a space for brain dump/notes, and space for to-dos for the week.
I sit down first thing in the morning with my bujo and decide what my priority/priorities for the day will be. I pick at least one but no more than 3. If there are other things that I need to do but aren’t as important or don’t need to be done at a specific time, I will sometimes put them in a separate “other tasks” list.
Do you break the day up hour by hour (ex. read textbook from 9am-10am etc.)?
No. No, I do not. I do not have that kind of self-control. If I tried to micro-manage my time like that I would be so stressed out because I would always feel like I’m falling behind or running late, or like I’m a slave to the clock.
I DO use the Pomodoro method (I use an android app called Tide because it has the timer and white noise, but there are timers online too like marinaratimer.com) when I’m trying to do schoolwork this is extra important. You would be surprised what you can get done in 25 minutes if you don’t let yourself wander off.
Also, I have ADD, so I have an Adderall prescription that helps a lot too. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
What would a typical day or week look like?
Well, I freelance and do random crap like that because I can’t seem to be happy and well when I’m working regular hourly jobs, even just part-time. So I’ve become pretty nocturnal. Still: wake up, take care of my dog and cats, and if I’m feeling good and productive and focused, then the next thing I do is sit down with a glass of water and my bujo.
If I’m burnt out and struggling, I tend to sit in front of the computer and watch last nights tv shows. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend like I function every single day or like I have my shit together at all. Somedays, getting up and dressed and feeding myself is all that I get done. But it’s perfectly okay for that to be the priority for the day, and if I’ve taken the time to sit down and bujo in the morning and decide that self-care is my priority, then I find that I don’t feel like I’m just being lazy and procrastinating and hiding from assignments I hate (writing assignments… papers are the worst for me)
So... wake up, take care of animals, journaling to decide what my priorities are for the day. Then I watch some tv and eat breakfast/lunch/whatever I can convince myself to eat. If I’ve really got it together that day, I try to only watch one episode of something before making myself do at least one Pomodoro. Sometimes that ends up being a full 4 rounds (25 minutes of focus, 5-minute break, repeat 4 times before watching another episode of tv) but sometimes I get it all done in 25 minutes or only have the will to do one round before watching another episode. Then it depends a lot on what my daily priorities are.
Did you ever have bad weeks which would cause you to fall behind?
Yes. All the time yes. I spend the entire second half of the term playing catch up and freaking out. It’s part of why I chose classes online. They have a very clear cut late policy: you can turn in any assignment up to 2 weeks late. If it’s between 1 minute and 1 week late, they take 10% off, then 20% for that second week. It helps me a lot because if I can’t get to something that is already late one day, it’s not gonna be worse to do it the next day. 10% is 10% is 10%. And I do well enough during the first half of the term to get a high grade going, so my half-assed crap the rest of the time is good enough to get me to the grade threshold (another good thing about my school, 900-1000 is an A, 800-899 is a B, etc. I know I can lose 100 points and still get an A. If I do REALLY well throughout the semester I can sometimes get to the point where I don’t need the points from the final paper at all, which helps because papers are the hardest for me)
