Managing your time and keeping all your studies in order is an important part of academic success. Graduation may well be the biggest goal of a young adult’s life, and the best way to accomplish a goal is to organize the steps necessary to achieve it. Student planners (naturally) help students hone organizational skills, but they also improve learning, help prioritize subject knowledge, and free up time for other activities outside of school.
A good student planner and the knowledge to use it effectively has countless benefits, which we’ll cover at length below. But first, let’s define student planners and see how they help organize learning.
What is a student planner?
A student planner is a tool that helps students organize the tasks and activities they need to complete over the course of their education. Traditionally, student planners were physical notebooks with sections divided by days, weeks, semesters, subjects, or some combination of both.
But these days, most learning happens digitally. In most environments, students use laptops or tablets to study and complete their assignments. Assignments are delivered in a digital format, such as a Word document or a spreadsheet.
While some students find traditional student planners useful, planning and organizing academic agendas has also moved to the digital realm.
As with other tasks and activities, there are countless software options to choose from to help keep yourself organized, academia or otherwise. There’s no shortage of calendar, reminder, to-do, and note-taking apps. But while most planning now happens on computers, the fundamentals of student planning remain the same — there are core qualities that make for an effective student planner.
What makes an effective student planner?
For students looking for the best methods to organize their academic agenda, the question arises: what tools do I use, and how do I use them? The answers largely depend on the student. Every person learns a little differently and needs different tools for different tasks.
An effective student planner is one that adapts to your learning style and enables you to personalize your studies and routines in the way that works for you.A stand-out student planner will have the following features:
- A powerful calendar: Adding all your classes and assignment due dates should be simple yet flexible.
- Powerful note-taking features: Planning is as much about raw input as it is about organizing, and a stand-out student planner should provide you with powerful note-taking features so you never miss a thought.
- Project management features: One of the best ways to tackle tough assignments is to break them down into smaller tasks using project management methods.
- Effective filtering: Your student planner should provide you with a way to filter tasks and assignments so you can clear clutter and focus on what’s important.
- Document management: Keeping all your research documents, study guides, and drafts in your student planner keeps you in the zone when you’re in study mode.
- Contact management: You’ll no doubt keep phone numbers and email addresses on your smartphone, but a great digital student planner allows you to keep specific records and notes for each contact that comes in handy throughout your academic career.
Above all, a stand-out student planner should provide you with the flexibility to rearrange its features in a way that keeps you organized and productive. There are a lot of different softwares on the market, from the calendar on your phone or laptop to full-fledged Work OS like monday.com. Whichever tools you choose to manage your academic pursuits should work for you, not the other way around.
Next, let’s look into how you can use the planner and gain even more from your educational experience..
The benefits of using a student planner
The biggest benefit of using a student planner is prioritization. When you understand what to prioritize to reach your academic goals, you can direct your energy to studying what matters most. And this all leads to more focus, more productivity, and a serious confidence boost.
Some other student planning benefits are:
- Improved grades: You’ll likely face some difficulty with one subject or another at some point in your academic journey. But with a student planner, you can easily overcome it by organizing a path to get you to your goals. Features like time mapping let you see what’s ahead on your schedule in the short and long-term, and blank pages let you sketch out ideas for projects. And when you can easily look back on your progress, the confidence boost pushes you forward even more.
- Better concentration: With distractions abounding, it’s difficult for anyone in the modern world to stay focused. Student life is no exception. A good planner helps you focus more on studying by giving you a central place to follow and organize your academics and hold yourself accountable.
- Learn better responsibility: Holding yourself accountable to a student planner where you organize your schoolwork and academic agenda creates a sense of responsibility for your education. You’ll value your time more — how you spend it both in and away from school — and appreciate your efforts and achievements. And this is a lesson learned that’ll benefit you for the rest of your life.
Until now, we’ve only seen how student planners benefit individual students. But learning is often a group effort, and using the right tools can benefit student groups in the same way.
Great student planners can make re study groups more efficient
If you’re a study group leader or involved in organizing a major academic event, a collaborative student planning tool can supercharge your efforts. Imagine all the features and benefits above with the ability to share them all with your classmates and work on project assignments together.
With monday.com, you can plan events, group assignments, and other collaborative activities from idea to execution. You can also create a database with information and contacts of students, alumni, professors, or other important academic contacts that you can share across your study group.
A simple student planner template is the first step to organizing your own coursework and then sharing it with your peers. When you don’t leave your academic planning to chance, you become a better student, become a better student leader, and give your academic pursuits — and your future —the best chance of success.
Academic planning, from enrollment to diploma
If you want to organize your semester schedules and create a weekly plan that also tracks your personal and academic evolution, a student planner is the best way to do it. It might be one of the single best tools to help you achieve your academic goals.
By managing your days and weeks of study, you’ll optimize your routines, increase your focus, and improve your grades. By learning to better manage your assignments and time, you’ll improve your ability to set and achieve goals and meet deadlines. With a student planner, you’ll also learn valuable project management skills that will serve you well after graduation, wherever your path leads you.
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