My Kawaii Planner! (Task organization/academic planning, and how I do it!)

Hi guys!! I know it’s literally been FOREVER since I last posted.

I have my entire list of excuses that I will kindly spare you. (It’s mainly just grades taking over my life as always.) Here is my promised post on planners and how I plan what I have to do on a daily basis, and how I keep track of upcoming deadlines and meetings.

Here is what my planner looks like! I used to buy a lot of asian planners from Japan or japanese bookstores, but I find them a bit harder to use. I love the Mead planners because the spacing for each day is perfect. I don’t like it when planners print the times because I don’t get that technical in my planning. So anyway, I just buy a generic planner, and then decorate with stickers! Yay!

Okay, moving on to the “interior” of the planner!
There is a monthly calendar at the beginning of each month. I don’t really use this because I’m too lazy to write down everything twice. (I write everything in the weekly planner, and am too lazy to transfer it to the month calendar.) However, I will occasionally make shopping lists and running to do lists on the sidebar of the calendar. I also write some of my meeting dates for clickpa on this monthly calendar.

In the weekly planner, I write all my tests, due dates, and meeting time/locations in the upper right. I make my daily to do lists on the left. I also color code all my tasks by classes/extracurriculars. I’m a very visual person, so it helps me organize and categorize my things at first glance.

I’ve been using planners like this ever since I started getting serious about academics again! (so the past few years.) I bring this with me EVERYWHERE and as soon as I hear about important dates I make note of it in the planner.

In terms of actual written content, I would advise not writing things in all capitals. I read in an article somewhere that things written in all caps tend to be overlooked. If somethings really important, I’ll make a bubble around it, or underline it in the color that I associate the task with.

I also do have the problem of writing things down but just not getting around to doing them. Something that helps me combat this un productivity and procrastination is writing really personal (and somewhat threatening) notes to myself. Instead of writing, “study for math test”, I’ll say “study for math class you know you’ve been stressed over it so get to work.” When I see the later phrase, it’s more of an emotional reminder that puts more stress on me and in turn finally gets me to start working.

This post actually took a considerable amount of time for me to put together. Hopefully you found it interesting or was even able to get some helpful tips out of it!

Thanks for reading and for any lovely comments! Feel free to drop a question and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can,

-A