Anyone’s who hung out with me for an extended period of time knows that I have a dirty little secret: I LOVE MY PLANNERS. Yes, that’s right, I said planners. As in Plural. As in I am so obsessed with staying organized that I use two separate physical paper planners. I’ve already explained to you how I use my syllabus, but here’s how I use my lifelines!

This year, I became obsessed with the Day Designer, but seeing as it runs about $60, it wasn’t exactly working with my college student budget. I was SO excited when Whitney English announced a collaboration with Blue Sky that would be released at Target.

I’m obsessed with having a daily layout, because once the semester starts I’ll have recruitment, courses, three writing positions, three separate board meetings, other sorority commitments, and my job.

I like having my weekly in order to have a condensed, minimalist overview of everything I have going on. My daily has so many details that it gets pretty busy looking, and it’s hard to see when I’m free at just a glance.

My top tips for using a planner:

• Pencil in classes and meetings so you know your availabilities without looking all over. This goes for appointments, as well! For this I use Washi Tape (which is removable pretty tape) in case a meeting/class is cancelled or shortened.
• Use page flags and sticky notes for things that don’t have to be done THAT day. They can be moved around from day to day until you have time to tackle the task, and then they can disappear!
• I also put all of my professors and TA's email info/office hours in my agenda, so that if I was emailing them about an appointment I didn't waste 20 minutes looking it all up. It was a MAJOR lifesaver, especially knowing how to spell names!
• Write out assignments ahead of time so that you know just how busy some days will be! This also helps so you don’t have to flip back and forth between a ton of papers.
• I color coordinated this with the binders/notebooks from the classes too. Like, medical anthropology was everything blue and algebra was yellow. I picked my favorite colors for classes I wasn't as sure about to motivate myself a tiny bit more.
• Use your planner to track water intake, daily budget, vitamins, etc. I am so bad about taking pills, but since I have really low iron, it’s a necessity. I’m going to put reminders in to take my pills every day, and a place to mark off my daily eight glasses.

Overall, there’s no set way to use a planner, which is part of the beauty. Play around and see what works best for you!

Are you obsessed with planners? Are you more a Lilly Planner or a Filofax type of girl? Send me pictures of how you use your planners!