College is a very hectic time. You go to class, are involved in activities, and in your spare time would like to be social and meet some new people and go out. This is tough and there is no reason that at the end of the day you ought to feel tired and really look forward to falling asleep. There are some very good ways to stay on top of all your errands and activities though. Keeping a tight schedule will hold you in good stead and will help you prioritize events ahead of time. Knowing what is coming up will also help you prepare for things. At the moment, I am in search of and trying to gather as much information as I can about jobs and internships for the summer of 2008. Although it is months away, campus recruiters are already crawling around and having information sessions all the time. By staying on task, and finding out as much as I can ahead of time and creating a schedule and plan of attack has kept me organized thus far. There are some great tools and advice that I would like to share with you now, in order to stay on top of the ball.

Syllabi
Every class that you attend at college will come with a syllabus. The first week of classes at Michigan is termed, "Syllabus Week," because you will typically show up to class and the professor will hand out a syllabus, talk for a couple of minutes, and let you go. The syllabus contains every bit of knowledge that you will acquire throughout the entire semester. It contains the readings, exams, and term papers. What I have found incredibly helpful is just sitting down with all of my syllabi at the beginning of the week (I think about the beginning of the week as Sunday). I will go through each syllabus and write down every task, reading, writing, or whatever, that needs to be completed during the course of that week. I will group all the assignments together by class and by day that they are due. This way I can see which classes I have the most amount of work in and which assignments I have to prioritize ahead of others. After completing an assignment, I will take a pen and cross out that particular task. This serves two purposes. The first is that by writing down the assignment, I make the act of doing it tangible and I know it is there. Second, by crossing it out it gives me a little bit of motivation and is kind of like a pat on the back. As I cross out more things, I get more and more relieved and feel as though I am on top of things.



Use A Calendar Program
One good way of keeping track of where you need to be and what activities you have coming up in a given week is by putting them down in a calendar program. There are a lot of these to choose from. For instance, you could use Microsoft Outlook which is a mail program that comes with a calendar program. Google also provides an excellent calendar service called Google Calendar. These programs are very helpful, because they visually block off portions of your life. You can look at the screen and see, in a fun color-coded way, all the blocks of time that you have going on. I recommend putting down everything that you hear about. Even if you don't think you'll go to that club meeting or won't want to meet with that study group later, just put it down. I think that this is critical to staying organized. First, you'll continually start to look at your calendar and if you're not particularly busy, you might decide to go to one of these opportunities that you originally had scoffed at. Second, it forces you to establish a plan of action. If you have a lot of overlapping activities on any given day, you ought to wake up and say to yourself, "First I am going to go to A, then I will go to B, and then I will go to C." Along the way, you'll probably run into things that slow you down or throw you off track, but maintaining the course is key. Make the best of these programs and try to keep them with you at all times. You can do this by carrying around a Palm Pilot or a Treo (or an equivalent). Time is money.



Think About Your Life in 30 minute Increments
I first heard about this idea in the film, "About A Boy" starring Hugh Grant. It has made more and more sense to me as time has gone on. If you go into an activity in your life not having an end in mind, then you'll probably never finish up. Give yourself personal deadlines, and hold yourself accountable to that. Allocate time accordingly too though. If you think that something is going to take 45 minutes, allocate 2 blocks of 30 minutes and use the resulting time to catch your breath and perhaps plan for your next attack. It is just as important to take breaks as it is to continue working.

College is a juggling act. There is always something that has to get done and it’s tough to learn how to manage your time and prioritize which things ought to come before others. I suppose that’s part of the learning curve of college and life. Prepare yourself now for the future ahead. It will be a lot simpler when you get there. Be smart. Be aware. Be the solution.

This post was originally written by Tyrone Schiff
University of Michigan · Organizational Studies · 19 Sep 2007