It's not a success tip that you hear very often. Actually, you might have never been told to toss out your planner to make your time management improve, and that's probably because it won't. If you want to stay on top of commitments and get assignments done promptly, you should probably keep using your planner. But if you're ready to switch things up, ditching the planner is an idea worth thinking about. A no-planner work ethic might seem counterintuitive at first, but if you give it a chance, you might just end up converting to the planner-less lifestyle.
So what good could come of not organizing what needs to be done? The beauty of not writing done your to-do list is that it effectively doesn't exist. With no ability to glance at how much you have to do, a daunting workload is no different than having only a task or two, which could be just enough to keep you in a good mood after a long day of classes.
But how do you remember to do assignments? If it's important enough, I'll remember, and if it isn't, it can wait. A similar approach to prioritization also works well: whatever I'm worried about the most, I do first. Colored pens can't compete with the most natural way to plan homework time.
That philosophy plays very nicely with a slightly more unconventional work ethic.
Without a planner to dictate how I tackle assignments, I'm free to channel my energy in spurts. Sometimes a project is screaming for my creativity, and when it is, I can easily lose track of time working on it. But that isn't always the case. There are assignments that I dread doing, and although I can't get out of doing them, I can prevent them from ruining a creative high that could be better used on another assignment.
Of course, I can't deny there are downsides to not using a planner. I might procrastinate less if I used one. It's possible I would remember more due dates if I cared to write them down instead of juggling them in my head. But where's the fun in that? At the end of the day, I'd rather keep things interesting, and nobody ever told a story about the time they finished all their homework and went to bed on time.
