I always prefer to have my days planned out, whether it is a regular college day or not. This always helped me stay on track with the tasks I needed to do as well as helping me be more efficient. I learnt to be very productive and with that, I was able to tackle many projects, complete a lot of coursework and most important of all, I can keep up with everything that is going on around me. I mentioned in a previous blog of mine that structuring my days is what made the enormous difference in my GCSE studies and managing to go beyond the grades I received.
Project management is certainly what motivated me to start getting used to planning and having a strategy when it comes to needing something done for a specific deadline. Regardless of whether you are an academic or vocational student – a plan will always come in handy, I had to assign myself a day to write this blog!
However, everybody is different. It is not possible for me to produce a ‘one size fits all’ approach for productivity. I tested 3 different planning methods to write this blog, here is what I found out.
Calendar
An amazingly straightforward way to practice being productive is to use a calendar. A calendar most commonly displays an entire month’s layout with a day-by-day view so you can see what days you have mapped out your content on.
You may be familiar with the term ‘cloud’ but what does it have to do with this? Since I share a big interest in technology, I have been using digital tools to simulate the experience of having a daily plan. By using the cloud, you can plan your days ahead of time on multiple devices ranging from phones to computers, this is especially helpful when you want to unionise your schedule instead of having multiple pages of notes on your phone and forgetting that you had an assignment due. I would recommend using Outlook Calendar, Google Calendar or Apple Calendar as digital solutions.
A calendar has certainly come in handy for personal tasks that needed a more detailed breakdown. I personally use a calendar to colour code and organise the most major events that I have lined up, this includes online meetings, deadlines, and term breaks.
To Do Lists
A to do list is a simple tool that will allow you to stay on top of little tasks. Usually, to do lists are very concise and simplistic, they feature nothing more than a title e.g., ‘Finish Homework.’
I have tried different applications for to do lists and from what I found, the best candidates would be Microsoft To-Do, Google Keep and Apple Reminders. They are all extremely easy to use and can be used in the Cloud as well.
To do lists have come in super handy for project management because it allowed my team to be ahead of my competition and the initial schedule whilst not over-extending them.
Timetable
Sometimes simplicity is key, timetables are a more detailed version of a calendar. This is particularly useful to people who prefer to have a colourful schedule to follow. Timetables can be used to schedule personal and professional events to effectively use your time.
Many websites exist to help create a template of a timetable, the website I used was getrevising.co.uk. All it takes is to create a few tasks, then drag and drop them onto the template.
I used timetables to follow a routine that does not change often, which allowed me to print out copies to hang up on the wall or to keep one on me.