By Adrianna Zampieri
Summer is over; the semester has started, and it’s time to get your stuff together. Daily assignments. Quizzes. Exams. Essays. Projects. Your workload will pile up before you know it, and you don’t want it getting out of control. And you definitely don’t want to be that person who misses an exam because you wrote down the wrong date.
Being organized is an essential part of your success, so how do you manage the chaos? Enter your new best friend: a simple day-planner.
If you’re feeling particularly crafty, take the time to make your own planner. Spending time and money putting it together means you are less likely to abandon it, and planners require commitment. The money spent on a custom planner, however, won’t hit your bank account nearly as hard as a $40 pro-planner from Office Max or Lilly Pulitzer.
Instructions for a Simple Planner:
1. Acquire a binder in the color and size you desire. Smaller binders can be found at craft stores such as Michael’s.
2. Create a template in Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign that mimics the pages you would see in a store-bought planner. Don’t have the time? No problem. Free templates are available on Pinterest. Print off as many as you need, and put them in your binder.
3. Use binder tab dividers to separate the months.
4. Add your own personal touch to the pages of your planner. Feeling Redass? Cover it with TAMU stickers and pictures of Rev. Write in maroon ink. Pet parent? Plaster it with photos of your furry, scaly, feathered friends on every page. Or simply just bedazzle the heck out of it—if you prefer things a litte flashy. Point being, the possibilities are endless and you can’t risk falling behind in your studies from the very beginning. Take a little control on the cheap, and have fun with it.
