We're all back to school, and syllabus week is behind us. This is it, people.

If you care about school at all, you're probably looking over all of your syllabus and wondering how on earth you're going to balance all of these assignments and anything else that's going on in your life: work, extracurricular activities, Greek life, friendships, relationships, family, fun. How are you ever going to be able to manage all of this and still eat and sleep?

Well, friends, I have a really easy trick that's gotten me through two and a half years of college and has yet to fail me. All you need is your syllabus, a writing utensil, a planner, and your brain. If a planner doesn't work for you, a notebook will just work just fine. If you prefer, you can even use your electronic calendar. Pretty easy supplies to gather, right? Nothing that you can't get your hands on somehow. Whatever way works for you.

Now, once you have all of your supplies gathered, look at due dates. Mark all of these first, so you know when these things are actually due and you're not stuck rifling through folders wondering where your class schedule from the first day of class went. Make these dates stick out. Highlight them. Use stickers. Do something so that these dates are prominent, so you can't overlook them.

We all know that nothing is worse rushing to do something the night before because you didn't realize it was due so soon.

Now that that's out of the way, analyze these assignments. How many pages are your papers? Give yourself a day for each page, no matter what it takes, just in case you get writer's block or need to go back in and find better sources. Same goes for projects.

Now, the fun part: homework. You're going to do exactly what you just did for longer assignments. You have a reading to do for next week? Find out how many pages it is, and divide it by how many days you have to do it. Don't just try to cram it all in at once and end up not understanding it. Instead, give yourself the time to read and try to understand the concepts. Not only will this help you on any assessments that come up, but it will help you during class discussion, which usually also counts for your grade.

That's all I've got for you. This is a simple tip, yes, but it's an important way to manage your workload, and since you're spreading things out over days rather than doing them all at once, your days will be more balanced, and you'll have more time each day to do things that aren't class work. You'll be less busy and less stressed!

As the semester goes on, practice better study habits than you did before. You'll thank yourself for it.