How I Organize My Agenda

If I had a dollar for every time I mentioned agendas on this blog, I'd have enough money for an agenda for every day of the week, I swear. I attest all of my life's successes and triumphs to the fact that I organize every aspect of my life, in one way or another, through my agendas. Yes, agendas. I keep my blogging agenda separate from my school and work agenda, but will not be sharing that one because it would ruin quite a few future posts. Wink wink.

I try to use every section of my agenda for something different, whether it's to track days and hours I work, exam days, due dates, important events, whatever it may be. I keep track of homework assignments, tasks for work, even just small little notes I need to leave for myself. I keep track of essentially everything through this little floral guy from Ban.do.

The first thing I use in my agenda is the monthly calendars. This is where I mostly keep track of days I'm working and the hours. It just helps me organize when I have free time during the week and when I don't. Like the rest of my agenda, I keep my work days organized by color. If I'm working at the consignment shop, I use blue, if I'm babysitting I'll track it in green, and if I'm working at the other boutique, I would use purple or pink or whatever color I please. That's just an easy way for me to see where I'm going to be on what days and for how long.

I track my classes the same way. I use different colors for each class and try to keep it consistent throughout my entire agenda so that I know when I see assignments written in blue pen, it's for my health and wellness class. I track two different ways weekly. First, I'll keep all of the due dates for that week written down on their corresponding days, as well as things like exams, so I know what my timeline is for that week.

When I know when my due dates are for my online class assignments, papers, or exam days, I'll know how to properly fill in my week. Using the same colors for each class, I'll take one of my free days and I'll make myself task lists for each assignment. So, for example, if I have a discussion post and a quiz due for my COM 211 class, that means that sometime earlier in the week, I'll have to read the chapter and take notes, write a discussion post for that chapter, respond to one of my classmate's posts for full credit, and take my online quiz for that chapter. So I'll create a bulleted list on say, Wednesday, if that's my free day off from work and I'll check each task off as I go.

When I'm done with an assignment, I always highlight it when I finish it instead of crossing it off. I like to track the progress I've been making and if I completely scribble it out, I won't know what I actually finished!

There are plenty of ways to organize an agenda and this is just my particular way of using it to my advantage. Obviously, you'll tailor make it to your schedule based on how many classes you're taking, how many jobs you work, maybe even based off of where you work and what you do. You might want to add social events to your monthly calendar or birthdays or whatever days seem important for you to notate. Make sure your agenda fits you and your lifestyle so that you utilize it to its full potential!