With work, school, and everything else in between, my schedule is always stuffed! Sometimes it can get overwhelming, but as this A-Type gal knows: nothing fixes a mess like a good list and calendar.
Looking for a place to start? Here are my top go-to tools I use to stay organized:
For Monthly/Weekly Planning - Google Calendar
What do you mean you haven't used GCal yet? Is it annoying that I call it a Gcal, even in conversation? Probably. But this thing has saved my professional and social life on more than one occasion.
What I love:
It automatically updates to all devices with the Google calendar app, so I don't have to flip between calendars on different platforms and devices to figure out when I'm free.
You can select which calendar you want to see. I separate my calendars into categories such as "general, school, exercise, meal plans, and social." If the whole beautiful colourful mess is too overwhelming, I can deselect some of the calendars and just look at what's upcoming in specific calendars.
The to-do list on the side allows you to create smaller tasks to achieve and you can set dates to do them that will sit right on the calendar interface. This allows me to move around my task on my to-do lists if my schedule is tight.
You can set reminder alerts for upcoming events. This is helpful on the rare occasion I snooze my alarms--Google will send a push notification that tells me "traffic is light. It will take 13 minutes to get to work," which hopefully is enough time to pull myself out of bed and get to the office!
What I don’t love:
I'm a super listy person (can you tell?), so I like to make sub-task lists within my task list. You can do this within the task function, but you cannot place a date on subtasks. Often because my to-do list is so long, I try to organize my master list by major project, but it would be nice to be able to schedule sub-tasks
The app isn't as slick as the desktop version. The app is harder to navigate and edit events
When you check off a task it disappears which kind of negates the dopamine hit of checking items off the list
For Daily/Weekly Planning - Ivory Paper Co Planner
This company produces high-quality daily and yearly planners that you can customize to your preference. I LOVE their daily planner because each weekday is a new page, so when you're done with the day you can flip and move on!
What I love:
The daily planner includes extras such as meal planning and water tracking. These elements are key to keeping my mental and physical health on track
There's an hourly schedule per day but it's not complicated. The daily schedule runs from 8 am to 10 pm (which honestly is for the best because I shouldn’t really be working on anything outside those hours).
The aesthetic. Just look at those clean lines and gorgeous covers.
What I don’t love:
The high-end price tag. It's expensive, but for good reasons. It’s a high-quality product manufactured in the US. It's a splurge for an agenda but, for me, it's worth it.
Saturdays and Sundays share a page. Those are my days to get stuff done, so I want separate pages for each, but maybe it’s a sign I should take a day off to do nothing every now and then.
For Special Event Reminders - Old-Fashioned Physical Calendar
Sometimes I can't get to my Gcal because I'm locked into an intranet, so having a physical calendar on the wall with important dates is super helpful to me. Sometimes I need a static image that doesn’t move around with a click of a button to remind myself of important birthdays and anniversaries and vacation dates. I'm a writer and a lister, but I will always need the visual in my head to plan it out.
For Note Taking and Project Organization - One Note
If you're in school, you've probably used something like this before, but I love the One Note interface. It's easy to use and has a logical layout and my notes don’t get lost like they do if I write everything down in word or my Apple notes app (which sometimes syncs multiple emails with different categories of notes rather than chronological order).
What I love:
You can subcategorize your subjects into notebooks, sections, and pages!
You can colour code each section for easy location
You can add tags, checkable to-do lists, and star important information—overall the interface is really user accessible
If you have a tablet or Surface, you can write your notes out with your stylist as if it were a real notebook
What I don’t love:
Depending on your Microsoft account's storage capabilities, the linked cloud service could be limited
Everyone has different needs for calendars, but those are just a few of my favourite organization tools.
I would to know what you use to organize! Let's connect! My LinkedIn DMs are always open to chat about the organization, public relations, insurance, or really anything!