We will help you through the process, print things out, provide aids, and more.

What you need for Part 1: Planning

Your calendar says that you need to study on Monday evening for an exam you have on Tuesday, and Monday evening is also your best friend's birthday party.  

What do you do?

When you have a conflict on your calendar of more than one event happening at the same time, looking at your Week Planner lets you see other times to reschedule an event to accommodate both.  

You look at your Week Planner and find that you have time to study on Sunday.  You can study flashcards at lunch on Monday, then attend your friend's birthday party Monday evening. You can review on Tuesday before the test. 

• Look for test/quiz dates, assignment start and due dates, etc., in your syllabuses, etc, and put those on your calendars for the months in the semester. 

• Add all of your personal or family appointments, events, and other dates. 

• If you are using both computer or phone apps and paper calendars or planners, put these dates into the calendars on both.

The Project Planner Sheet can be used to break large projects down into smaller, do-able pieces (components) with a start and end date for each component.  This can help prevent feeling overwhelmed or stressed, especially if the project ends up taking much more time than you originally thought it would.  

As you go through the syllabuses and assignments in Step 2, you might make a list or fill out the top portion of a Project Planner for assignments that you think you can use them for. That way you won't forget to use them.  

You can use the planner on this website or create one on an Excel spreadsheet or Google sheet.

NOTE:  Creating Project Planners can be done at a later time, like after an assignment is explained during your class.  

If you think you don't need to use these, skip this step. 

• Using a pencil so you can reuse the notebook and dividers next semester, put the names of each of your classes on separate tabs of the dividers. One divider per class.

• In the front of the binder, put your Week Schedule and your Monthly Calendars.  

• Under each divider, put the syllabus for that class, any assignment lists, any Project Planner Sheets or other lists, and any other important information relevant to that class. 

TIP:  Keep your binder in your backpack so that you always have it with you at your classes and when you do your homework.

You can use the binder to keep your homework for in-person classes. 

To-do lists are checklists of tasks that an individual 

needs to do.  

Tasks are usually put in order of preference or importance. A to-do list can be created by writing on a piece of paper, a note card, a planner, or by using task management apps on a phone or computer.  Whatever works best for the person.  Items on the list can pertain to one's personal, school, or job needs.  

NOTE:  Whatever you use, it needs to be something you can carry with you, portable, so you can check it and make changes when needed. 

Creating and using To-Do Lists are essential in time management because they help in successfully 

completing tasks when the tasks need to be done. 

You may already have to-do lists that you use.  If they are working for you, keep them or modify them to include the needs of your schooling.

Whether you use weekly or daily to-do lists or both, they will determine your tasks for at least the upcoming week and a half.

This is when you determine what you will study and when.

Below are suggestions of different ways to create and use to-do lists. 

• Calendar pages, syllabuses, assignment lists, etc:  Look at the next week and a half to see what will be happening (ex., appointments, personal events, assignments, test/quizzes, project parts, etc.) and anything else that needs to be done.

• Weekly To-Do List: Once a week, looking at the available times shown on your Week Planner, enter the tasks you need to do on the days they need to be done on your Weekly To-Do List. 

• Daily To-Do List: Each day, create a Daily To-Do List from the items from your Weekly To-Do List for that day. Check off the items as you do them throughout the day.

• Tasks not finished: Move tasks that could not be done onto another day, checking your Week Planner to see which day will be best. 

• (NOTE) Weekly and/or Daily To-Do Lists (paper or computer/phone app):  If the list you are using (ex., phone app) immediately puts a task on the day that it needs to be done, you may not need to use a separate Weekly To-Do List. 

• (Optional) If you want to keep your personal/family tasks separate from your school/job tasks, you can write them on the list or highlight them with different colored ink or use different task lists (make sure that you look at both throughout the day).