As the school year rolls to the end of the first semester and as students meet a workload unlike the year before, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain a healthy school life. There’s tests to study for, textbook readings to complete, and presentations to rehearse. Not to mention, we all have our own extracurriculars and passions to pursue and friends to keep in touch with. There’s a list of responsibilities that lay before us, and it becomes increasingly more important to properly manage our time. 

Just the perfect way to do that is through the keeping of a daily schedule planner.

A daily schedule planner is different from the traditional planner that primarily reminds you of your workload to complete. Although they serve similar purposes and both are helpful, daily schedule planners help track your day as you go with specific times. 

To give a brief explanation, the image on the right is an example of what a daily schedule planner looks like. Next to each number are six boxes, each representing a 10 minute time interval. In the central column labeled “meta study plan,” you can write your goals for a subject or schedule the amount of minutes you intend to work on an assignment. As each ten-minute interval is completed, a box would be crossed off on the “10 min time table.” The numbers on the left indicate the time; if one box was crossed off next to the number 5, it would be interpreted as having studied for 10 minutes after 5:00. While this is the planner’s intended format, it is free to be used in any way that is most convenient to the user.

Based on my personal experience, using a planner is the best way to increase your motivation and productivity. By setting daily goals, you are less likely to procrastinate and spend unnecessary time to complete an assignment (you’d be surprised to see how little time it takes to actually finish all your homework). To add on, it’s the perfect solution for when you feel overwhelmed from an extensive workload. Writing down your responsibilities will visually aid in organizing your workload from least to most important, tremendously helping to increase the efficiency of doing homework. 

So, if you ever find yourself overwhelmed by all your homework assignments to complete and sports events to attend, try using a planner. It may lead to a healthy, productive academic year.