So you may not know this about me, but basically I am in love with office school supplies. I love walking down the aisle looking at all the pens or seeing what new design they have come up with for paperclips or staplers. Sometimes I will go to Staples or Office Max, but most of the time I just end up at Target. I can literally spend hours in Target!
Now this post is not all about me loving school supplies, it is about the necessity of getting a planner BEFORE school starts. I am sure you have heard of Erin Condren Life Planners, well, I just do not like them. I think they are too big to be carrying in my bag with me, but they work for some people. Maybe I just have not given them a fair shot. But I just get a more simple one from Target and it gets the job done.
The key to a good planner is having a system and writing down things immediately. I use different colored pens to represent different classes or life events. This allows me to quickly register what the item is for. Sometimes I will even match the color to my notebook (extra nerd status). If I do not have my planner on me then I will put it into my google calendar so that I will not forget.
I saved my planner from last year so that I can show you some pictures.
As you can tell this is the monthly calendar view for November. I am not too sure how the colors will come across on your monitor, but for this semester I used purple for my Peds class, green for my abnormal psych, pink for my sociology class, and a dark green for OB. I have some random day things either in pencil or black ink. This month I had some huge papers due so I have them highlighted to make sure I really paid attention.
The same color coding is carried out into the weekly page view. This planner had it set up in a bullet list which was really easy for me to jot down homework into. Unfortunately, Blue Sky changed the layout of this planner for the 2015-2016 year and so I had to get a different one for this school year. I hope it still works out the same for me!
And this is what it looks like on the side. At the top it has boxes for this week's top three. On the right hand side of the day there is a to-do list area where I plan on writing my homework. On the left hand is just empty lines were I will write any appointments I have for that day.
Overall having a planner will help you keep you organized, but will not guarantee that you will pass unless you are willing to put in the hard work. You must really stay on track in nursing school.
Let me know what planners you guys like in the comments down below.
Please note: This post is NOT endorsed by Target or other companies mentioned.
What do you think about those downloadable planner pages like what you can find on Pinterest? I've contemplated printing my own to put in a mini binder because they have some great templates but who knows how that would hold up.
ReplyDeleteChristine, i feel like the printable pages would end up costing a lot in ink or maybe I am too busy with school to actually create my own. Good idea though
ReplyDeleteI love this planner! I have an addiction to planners. Lol
ReplyDeleteNot to change the subject but how do you organize your text when you read chapters? Like..... Do you tab or put a post it on that reading so you can come back to it to study. My read are skipping all over from chapter 2 one day to chapter 41 the next and I'm tryin to stay organized with the reading and am going crazy wth all the mess. I hope that questions makes since. Lol. I guess what I'm asking is how do you organize your readings?