Best Student Planners To Help Get You Organized This Year

By Francine Fluetsch on March 7, 2016

2016: The year you said you would get your life together. Well, maybe you didn’t actually promise yourself you would do it, but I’m pretty sure everyone had it on their resolutions list (you didn’t forget about those yet, did you?).

Our college lives cause us to constantly be running around: to class, to work, to meetings, to late night study sessions, to campus activities, and whatever else you have going on in your crazy life. If you are looking for ways to get organized, why not consider a college planner?

Here are a few to get you started, since everyone works differently. Check them out and see which would be best for you!

Campus weekly planner: 

image via www.pinterest.com

If you are new to planners and don’t want to get too hardcore too fast, why not opt for a planner from your school’s bookstore? They usually come with cute stickers that say “homework,” “exam,” “workout,” etc, that you can stick on the pages and remind yourself when what is due. Trust me, the stickers make it worth it.

The school ones are great in the sense that they have all school holidays marked, when the quarter/semester ends, when finals and midterms start, and when the next term starts. The weekly planners have a lot of room for you to write your assignments, which is great for remembering, and they do have a tiny monthly calendar space for you to use, but these aren’t very big and it’s a little hard to cram everything in, so I’d recommend a monthly planner, as seen below, if you like seeing everything you need to do in a laid out fashion.

Old school monthly planner: 

image via girlmeetsbow.blogspot.com

If you’re like me and take longer trying to figure out an online device than you spend using it, chances are you might be more geared towards getting a planner that’s still on paper. I would personally recommend a monthly planner that you can get at Barnes & Noble or any bookstore really, that allows you to see your plans for the whole month! Weekly calendars are great, but they make you forget about big projects coming up, so it’s more beneficial to see what’s happening for the whole month so you can plan accordingly.

My planner has the monthly calendars in the front, and then has line list pages in the back where I can list out what I need to accomplish each day. I like the contrast of both, because in the calendar squares I can write all the due dates I need to keep in mind and meeting times and such, and the list area allows me to take notes on what exactly I need to do each day to meet the deadlines that my calendar shows.

To make it easier on the eyes, I bought a pack of gel pens and assigned a color to each class/job/activity that I am doing. This way, I can keep track of things better, and though other people will stare at your colorful mess, it will make sense to you and help you feel organized.

Also, the list and color aspect adds a layer of satisfaction, because you can cross things off the list as you accomplish them. This helps me stay motivated, and let’s me see when I’m allowed to take a break from studying.

Whiteboard planner: 

image via www.hercampus.com

This is for you visual people out there. While having a planner that you can carry around is ideal for some, others prefer a giant planner that will stare them in the face when they are studying, never letting them “forget” about something big that is coming up. A white board is great because it is reusable every month. You can make it into a calendar by taping off squares and then writing the dates in, so every month you just have to erase and start over.

You can also color coordinate this by buying different markers, and you can hang it somewhere dead center in your room, so you always know what’s happening. If you want to know what’s due while you are on campus, you can take a picture of your white board and keep it on your phone. This way, you’ll always have access, but in order to change it you’ll have to go home, so that could be the one annoyance with this.

Mystudylife: 

phandroid.com

If you are more on the tech side, mystudylife is a free app that works on all of your devices. They can help you organize your classes, assignments, when your tests are, and all of your other activities. You can write in rotations for the days and the weeks, so it’s easy to look at and easy to use.

They also have a setting where you can get notifications about tasks that you haven’t completed yet, when your next class is, and when you have an exam coming up, which is perfect for when life is being insane and you can’t keep track of what day it is. You can program anything you want into your to-do list, and can keep track of all events going on in your life. You can even sync all of your data so it’s available on all of your devices, even when you are offline. No more excuses, you won’t be forgetting a thing with this planner!

Google Calendar: 

image via chrome.google.com

Google Calendar is another great planner for you people who love doing things online. An awesome feature is that you can share this calendar with anyone, so if they need to see when you are free, simply share your calendar and you are all set. You can also program Google Calendar to set alarms for certain events, like “oh crap your midterm is tomorrow, study your ass off!” or things like that.

The great thing about this one is that you can log events by the hour, so you know exactly what is going on each day and when it will be happening, and you can color coordinate the boxes so you can see priorities, classes, exams, when you have actual free time, etc. Though I prefer paper calendars, I do use Google Calendar to schedule my students that I tutor. This is by the half hour, so I can just simply look at my Google calendar and know when I have to be where.

These are pretty basic examples of some planners but they are so helpful! Since the tech ones are free, I’d recommend giving them a go first, but if you are like me, you might need to resort to a paper one. Everyone works differently, and once you figure out what the best way is for you to get organized, you’ll stay organized!

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