#school organisation

I wrote down my brainstorm for my planning method down in a notebook and I decided to share since the new school year is starting again! This is just my method of studying, it doesn’t have to work for you! Maybe some components of it will, maybe some will inspire you to figure out your own!

I just found out in recent years that planning and staying organised is really the key to keeping my stress levels low and my grades high!   So, I hope this will help you like it did for me.

Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines

Thing nr. 1 to stay on top of will always be deadlines (in my opinion). I get really anxious when I don’t know for sure when things will be due, so I always make sure I have a clear view of my deadlines in school. These include essays, papers and exams, but also what readings I need to do before what class, practice questions I need to do, etc. 

I use a big planner in OneNote, with the weeks on the left and the subjects above:

I just write anything that was in the syllabus or the professor told us to do in this planner. This way I can get a quick overview of everything I need to do in each week, which brings me to my next point: my personal planner!

Structure

I just can’t live without a planner! I always use a paper one, but you can use whatever you want of course! I bought the moleskine weekly planner this year and I’m loving the layout so far!

Here, I write down every class, appointment, study session, gym visit, etc. in here. This way I can clearly see how busy I am that week and I can keep track of everything I need to do (so I don’t forget). On the note page on the right, I draw 8 columns: 1 for each day and a space for my habit tracker. Under each of these days I write little to do lists for that specific day.

That’s where my big academic planner comes in! For each day, I write in those to do lists what reading I want to do, what part of an essay I want to finish and just regular to do’s like picking up some books or messaging a friend! My personal planner is where I keep everything in one place so I now what I need to do for each week.

Important note: I also schedule breaks in this planner. If you’re like me and you tend to overwork yourself this might help for you too! I plan my breaks for running, going out with friends and down time on my own too, just to keep myself in check. I know I’m prone to overdoing it, so if I plan in these breaks, I trick myself into some self care!

Group projects

Working on group projects can be really stressful, so I always try to take some of that stress away by making a big list of what needs to be done, by who and when it needs to be done. Sometimes a clear overview of every part of the project is provided, so I use that as a guideline, sometimes I need to come up with my own.

I usually use OneNote for this too (I love OneNote!), which I share with the other people in my group so they can view/edit it too. It’s a great way to keep each other accountable and make sure no misunderstandings happen during the process.

Specifics, just for me

And because I’m a bit of a planning-freak, I have another separate 365 days planner. If I have a especially busy day I’ll use this planner, because my to do’s won't fit in my regular planner. This usually happens when I have an entire day to study and want to make sure I don’t miss anything!

Firstly, sinead_awesome_girl809 is also me so no copyright issues there!

Hi ppl,

Not so funny story time; I was writing this really good post about all the things in my backpack, it was super detailed. I try to post it and my wifi drops out. I’m way too lazy to re-write the whole thing so here is a simpler version.

I have 3 categories of “stuff” in my backpack; Textbooks and stationery, food and water, and extras.

Textbooks and stationery

Appropriate textbooks for the day

Record book/daily planner

Pencil case

Highlighters

Graphite pencils

4 colour pens

Fine-liners

Sharpies

Glue stick

Scissors

Eraser

Pencil sharpener

Food and water

Water bottle (sometimes with lemon juice in it)

Muesli bar

Apple (sometimes I take two)

Sandwich

Unhealthy snack (scotch finger biscuit etc..)

Coconut yoghurt with seed mix (my school doesn't allow nuts.

Extras

Phone

Laptop

iPod

Chargers

Earphones

P.E. uniform (if I have sport that day)

Guitar and/or keyboard with cord (obvs doesn’t fit in my bag)

Bus money

House key

Thank you for reading this and I hope you gained something from this article.

xoxo

Start of stationary collection for school. Very pleased with how it’s turning out.

The last week of July I became fascinated with the concept of a bullet journal so searched on Amazon for a notebook, pens and post-it notes. I’ve only been doing it for a week but absolutely love how it’s turning out. Much of the book is actually ideas from other people but because I went on long Youtube journeys and delved through Tumblr, I sadly can not give credit for them.

I chose to get a hard cover squared Moleskine (240 pages, 13x21cm) and I’m very happy with the size and feel of it, the pages are thin so my pens go through slightly but not too much. I find the squares helpful and look really nice and additionally help with spacing and placement.

My key is standard of bullet journals but has included colour coding keys. On the next two pages I have my index which has a messed up title area but it’s not a page I frequent so I dont mind.

By far my favourite page is the year view because it took me ages and has a good result, I also designated colours to each month which will be noticed further down. My year goals are sure to increase when I start school so until then it is a very short list.

As I started on August 1st, my first month is August, I’ve done a calender view with room for post-it notes that are colour code; blue here means school.

I also kept with the bullet journal list of a monthly view because it gives me two ways to see the month and help me remember more things if I have to read and write it out twice. I’ve added expenses so I can keep a detailed track on my money and what I have in my bank, what I spend most money on and if I have loaned money to others, I’ll remember to ask for it back in the future.

These pages are my first week, as I’m moving soon we are sorting a lot of things out and in the most British way, we had a lot of tea to accompany the hard work therefore, I had to add a ‘Tea Tally’ to prove to myself that even if I don’t drink a lot of water, I do still drink during the day. I thought I’d also add what times I wake up and go to sleep which is pretty pointless on holiday but I know it will help when I go back to school.

Finally, as I made homemade pizza today I thought I’d add the recipe to make my first ‘collection’ and it saves space in comparison to the huge cook book it’s in. I learnt that I actually really like writing in block capitals so may continue this handwriting when I start September.