Week-by-Week Academic Planner

If you want to excel in school, you’ll need to become focused. Does that mean hard-core-study-all-the-time? No. Definitely not. No one should study all the time. No one should neglect friends, family, fitness, or fun while in college or graduate school. Managing your time to attend classes , work, meetings, and social events, along with completing reading assignments, papers, and preparing for exams, is a balancing act. It’s easy to forget something and fall behind. A big part of success in college and graduate school relies on your ability to organize yourself and effectively manage your time. Enter the one-page or 2 page weekly planner.

While a month-by-month academic calendar is important for keeping track of the big picture: when is that paper due and what must you do each week in order to complete it on time, s successful students plan not only their month, but each week. Your weekly planner can be as simple or complex as you’d like. At minimum it should include your obligations, such as course meeting times, work schedule, social schedule, meetings, and due dates. It is also helpful to allocate study time and make note of what you plan to accomplish during that time (e.g., Thursday, 10-12, locate references for history paper). Figure out what you need to do when – and you’ll be a more organized, happier, and more productive student. You can find weekly academic planners at your campus book store or you can download a page-per-week or 2 page-per-week planner.