Get Organized for College: Week 7 Planning for Classes and Big Projects or Papers

Hi, everyone!  This is Lara Hammock from The Marble Jar Channel and today's video is the last in a 7-part series to help you Get Organized for College.  This video is all about how to plan well for classes and deal with large projects or papers. 

Plan for Classes

In this final video, we are finally going to talk about how to plan for and organize each of your classes at the beginning of the semester.  The nice thing about college classes is that the professors generally have done most of the planning before the class even starts.  Once you get the syllabus, you will have a good idea of the all of the reading, assignments, and workload for each class.  The first week of classes for me is a planning week.  I spend at least a couple of hours per class on that first week planning everything out for the semester.  So what does that mean?  I will map this out based on the organization tools that you have already set up.

• Digital Notes - For each class I create a note with the professor's contact information, office hours, and any website links.  I also write down important info like the grading scale and the weight for each assignment.  I may even scan the syllabus and attach it to the note. I always make this a digital note since I want to be able to access this information from anywhere.
• File Organization - Depending on how I've decided to take notes, I set up either a paper file system or digital file system for each class.  This means either a color-coded binder, tabs, and file folder for each class, or a new folder and tag in a digital system.
• Task Management - I love it when professors are super detailed in their syllabus.  I look for that detailed table that tells me what readings and assignments are due each week and I take the time to preload them into my task management system.  I use Todoist and have a video that gives more specifics, but basically, if the professor has laid out what is expected on a weekly basis, I plug all of those assignments into Todoist in advance with the due date being the Monday of the week it's due.  That way, every Monday, all of the assignments for the week for each class will pop up which I can then assign to different days of the week depending on what my study schedule looks like.  I prefer to have this all loaded in at the beginning of the semester since otherwise it takes time each week to refer back to the syllabus and plug it in for each class.
• Calendar - the last thing I do for each class is determine when big projects or papers are due.  I immediately put those due dates on my calendar.  Large projects are different from readings or small assignments since generally there will be multiple steps over a longer period of time to complete them.  Which brings us to how I

Plan for Big Projects or Papers

The most important two concepts required for planning out long-term projects are starting early and chunking it down into smaller tasks.  I know this is not always the way you like to work, but when you've only given yourself 2 days to research, outline, write, and edit a 15 page paper, I think it's safe to say that you aren't putting forth your best work.  Not only that, but by putting it off until the last minute, you are still kind of stressed about it the whole semester.  So, start early and get a little done at a time for less stress and a better work product.  Again, let's talk about this based on the tools you've already set up.

• Task Management - During that first planning week, you do NOT need to plan out all of the steps for every paper and project due for the semester.  That would be overwhelming.  However, you do need to determine WHEN you will be doing the planning.  For me, it depends on how big the project is.  If it's a 10 page paper -- I might want to plan 4 weeks in advance.  If it's a 20 page paper -- maybe 8 weeks.   Either way, I'm going to look at the calendar, count backwards the right number of weeks and put a task in my task management system for a 30 minute planning session. And, for each big project that I have, I put in a separate planning task.
• Notes - When the day comes to plan, you are going to start a brand new note and write down all of the steps that you need to take in order to complete this project or write this paper.  You will also need to estimate how long each of these steps will take and then determine what date you will want to accomplish each step.  You may have a list that looks like this for a 15 page paper.  So, you may be wondering -- why would you put these in a note and not directly into your task management system?  Because you may be able to reuse these steps for future projects.  I used to do this in Google Sheets and I had different templates set up for different kinds of projects: research paper, video project, assessment project, etc.  I also had calculations that showed when each step needed to be completed based on a due date, but you don't have to worry about yours being that fancy.   All I'm saying is that the more you plan, the easier it will be to plan in the future -- save this mental planning work so that you can use it again later.  The next step is
• Task Management - This is when you add all of these steps to your task management system along with  estimates on how long each step will take.  Todoist allows you to add subtasks to a task, so that's how I would put these in, assigning dates to each.  For any task that was an hour or more, I would also add it to my
• Calendar - After all, you'll probably be able to squeeze in a 30 minute task with other things you are doing, but you need to make sure you have room on your calendar for something that will take an hour or two.  It may seem duplicative, but it is helpful to ensure that you have allocated time to complete these tasks.  Even just putting the planning task in your system will make you feel more on top of things and less stressed.  And taking small bites of the project is a great way to avoid procrastination. 

If you spend a couple of hours during that first week of classes for each class getting organized and planning ahead, you will be so much more on top of things for the entire semester to come.  This will both decrease your overall stress level and enable you to be a better, higher quality student.

Just two additional things.  You should keep in mind that the best predictor of good grades in college has nothing to do with your GPA in high school or your SAT or ACT score. The biggest predictor is -- attending class. So plan to go to every single one of your classes starting on day one.  The second thing is, as soon as possible you want to figure out how to access resources at your college or university.  Get to know the tutors and writing experts at the study center before you actually need them. Figure out who your advisor is and how to contact them. Once you start to feel like you're in trouble, it may be too late, so spend some time at the beginning of the semester seeking out these resources and getting comfortable with them.

Planning Worksheet/Checklist

Depending on when you are watching this video, you may not have any classes yet to plan for!  If that is the case, there are no actions for you to take.  The worksheet gives you a checklist that should help to set up each class on the first week of the semester.  Print it out or save it in your notes app so you can refer back to it once you are ready to start organizing your class work. There is a link to this checklist/worksheet in the description below. 

So that is it!  I hope you got some good organizing skills, tools, and ideas from this series.  Let me know what you think.  Comments are always appreciated and thanks for watching!

Worksheet - Checklist for Planning for Classes & Big Projects