Our family has just survived our first week back to school. In a wonderful stroke of scheduling luck, the girls’ school started the same week as mine, and I was able to get Boy back in daycare that same week. After carefully coordinating the cars (only one has carseats at the moment), packing lunches, laying out outfits, and several calls back and forth about who would be getting the children and when, we’re kicking off our long weekend by doing pretty much nothing on what is surely one of the most beautiful evenings of the year.
Luckily for me, the first week of school is a little slow academically, which gives me the chance to start off right. What does it mean to start “right”, and how do you do it? For me, it means getting organized: getting all of the stuff you need, getting everything on your calendar, and getting down to business with reading and homework. Falling behind on an easy week is a very, very bad idea. Don’t do it.
Put in on the Calendar
I’ll go into more detail later about the stuff I use for school because it’s not as important as the scheduling. You can buy new school supplies or switch out your backpack mid-semester. It’s much harder, if not impossible, to catch up mid-semester if you fall behind. Obviously I’ve known my class schedule since registration last spring, but there will always be some adjustments as well as assignment dates to note. For one thing, I learned this week that one of my labs only meets every other week (we have online assignments on off weeks). Not only do I get an unanticipated three extra hours of library time every other week, I also know for sure that I’ll be able to pick up the kids on those days. Frankie will be happy.
The first thing that I do for all classes is put my exam dates on the calendar. All but one of my professors has given us exam dates and stated that they try really hard to stick to them, which is awesome. Classes are rarely cancelled in the fall for weather, so the odds of exams being moved are slim. Finals definitely don’t move, so they’re on the calendar, and I’ll share them with Frankie when we go over the schedule this week. One professor does not advertise dates in advance but gave a vague week for when an exam would probably be, so now I know to reschedule a doctor’s appointment. You might want to put other important dates on there too, like the end of add/drop periods, fall break if you get one, and major project deadlines. Share the dates with people close to you. Frankie has already agreed to drop the kids off on days that my 9:00 class has exams so that I don’t have to stress about being late. Frankie is awesome, if you haven’t already gathered.
Make Lists
Now this is a personal preference of mine, but I choose not to clutter up my planner with every single assignment, reading, and due date. If you’re a traditional student without family responsibilities, this might not be an issue for you. A normal academic planner will probably suit you well. But my planner would be a cluttered mess if I added all of my school stuff to an already-full personal calendar with the kids’ and Frankie’s comings and goings. What I do instead is keep a running to-do list on my iPad. You could use a notebook or a document on your computer for this—whatever works for you. I personally like keeping the list on the iPad because I have the advantage of hand-writing with the pencil while also easily editing the same document over and over without fear of losing it or confusing myself with multiples.
My to-do list is actually several to-do lists on one sheet of paper. One sheet is all that I allow myself because I edit the document daily, and I want to be able to see everything at a glance. I start by making a heading for each class, and under each heading I put everything that I need to do for that class in the next few days to a week: reading assignments, homeworks, online quizzes, practice problems, stuff to buy. Everything. Then, although this is redundant, I make a separate list of upcoming deadlines, generally in chronological order by due date. This way I can easily see everything that needs to be turned in for points without having to scour each individual class’s list. Finally, I have a “What’s Next” list. If you can see the image here (and I have limited alt tags if you can’t!), you’ll see how much stuff is on here. And it’s just the first week of class. This is the least amount of stuff I’ll have to do all semester.
The “What’s Next” list helps me to focus my energy on my upcoming tasks in the most efficient way possible. This is often by deadline, but sometimes it’s not. For example, I have a chemistry homework that’s worth as much as an exam due on the 6th. It’s a big, important assignment, and it would be stupid to save for closer to the due date. I need to work on it now. So I push some easy assignments closer to their due dates to prioritize the big thing with a later due date. Likewise, I got my differential equations book late and was a little behind because the professor jumped right into the new content—and I haven’t had calculus in almost twenty years (I spent all summer reviewing!). So last night I made sure to read the math book and try a few problems until my brain just gave up. And other nights I might have important stuff to do but be so tired that I knock out some of the easier things like mindlessly making flashcards of functional groups or reading the safety section in my lab manual. You get the idea. The “What’s Next list is extremely fluid and allows me to plan the best use of my time in the moment. I intentionally make it flexible and have no guilt about changing it up.
Right now the best use of my time is having dinner with the family and enjoying this weather. We only get a few evenings like this a year, and I don’t want to miss it
