Study Skills - Planning and Organization

Study Skills, there is a lot to it - Note Taking, Studying for Exams, Being Productive, Being able to focus, and a lot more. But, before anything else comes, Planning and Organisation.

Planning is essential. You need to know how you're going to achieve something with a plan. Organizing things according to your plan makes it easier for you to follow your plan otherwise, it would be pretty easy to skip through.

Organization System

Things you need for an effective Organization System are a Task Manager, a Calendar, a Note-taking System, and some Physical Storage.

Task Manager

There are many different task managers out there, but only a few come with your essential features. Your task manager should be able to record a task's details, due date, and be able to show you any due date's coming soon. 

I use an app called 'Taskade' as my Task Manager, but there are other options like Todoist, Trello, Any.do and Microsoft To-Do.

You can also use paper systems like bullet-journalling.

Calendar

Your calendar is for the upcoming events you need to know about. 

If you're using a paper planner, then your task manager and calendar maybe, but keeping these two separate works better for me. 

Your calendar is best for events at a specific time and shows you the agenda for the week, day, etc. You should be able to add event details and color-code things if needed.

I use 'Google Calendar', and it works pretty well for me. Other options may be Apple Calendar and Calendar.com.

Note-taking System

Note-taking is essential when in class. Paper notes are pretty simple; you can use notebooks and use different sections or an entire notebook for each subject.

For digital note-taking, my choice has always been 'Microsoft Onenote'; you can check out Evernote, Goodnotes 5, or even Google Docs.

Physical Storage

You may not need physical storage in online sessions. But there are times when there are handouts to be printed and stored or perhaps just activities done on loose paper. Use different folders for storing and keeping it all organized.

Deep Dive into Organization

Once you've cobbled up your system, you need a scheme to keep it all organized. A scheme is just a set of rules and conventions that help to keep your system organized.

We usually use our computers to store different documents. I would recommend setting up your computer's organizational system like a tree. 

A folder named 'Class 8' for example, then sub-folders for different subjects and more folders for projects, documents, and notes related to the class. Look at the image example:

You can you this technique for your digital notes as well. This is why I like using Onenote so much. I can create notebooks for each class and different sections for each subject. I can further make different pages for different chapters and sessions.

Tips

1. Color-Code Events to highlight which part of your life they display, like school, extra-curricular activities, and some personal time. 

If you use a paper planner you can do this, with colored stickers and markers.

2. Create Projects within your task manager and group similar tasks together. Create a project for each class as well as for additional projects.

3. Quick Capture

While using your system, you need to store the correct details immediately, instead of just saying that you'll remember it.

There are two main ways to do this:

a. Commit to entering things into the correct place the moment they come up. For instance, your teacher gives you homework and you open your task manager immediately and store all the details.

b. Using a daily note, and writing things down there when things come up throughout the day. This is a temporary storage place and you clear it out and assign things to the correct place at the end of the day.

I like the first method better because I may procrastinate to move things to their correct place.

Planning

Now that we're done organizing, we need to start planning. I do planning in two main contexts: Weekly and Daily.

Weekly: I take an overview of how my previous week went and take a look at the upcoming events for the next two weeks. I do this on Sunday so, I have a rough idea of all my events.

Daily: I create daily to-do the night before so I know what my target is for the day.

I also do some long-term planning during exams and big projects to gain a rough idea of how my month will go on.

This organization and planning method will keep you going only if you keep reviewing things. I hope this helps you, and there will be a couple more blogs coming up based on 'Study Skills'

See you all next week! Stay Tuned for more!