As students, we can all relate to having a super full and sometimes stressful schedule. If you don’t, I am telling you it will happen from experience! Having to manage my full engineering course load with multiple extracurricular involvements and part time jobs has taught me that the way to get through it is to up your time management skills. While there are several tools for time management, digital calendars and other online tools have been helpful for me in the past.
Calendars are a no-brainer. Everyone uses them – otherwise, how am I supposed to know that I have to sprint from Place Vanier to Buchanan at 8am on a Monday morning? Calendars, whether digital or physical, have played an essential part in my day-to-day life as they track which classes, meetings or events I have for the day, week, or month. However, there is more to calendars than just scheduling meetings and events.
How I use online calendars to plan my time
Some initial planning is required when it comes to time management. One of the first things I do at the beginning of the semester is to download my class schedule to my calendar once I have finalized my courses. This is how I create my plan in a few simple steps:
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Create a calendar for each class and other commitments
I like to create a separate calendar for each of my classes and other involvements such as: part-time jobs, sports, or even career/professional development. Each calendar is color-coded, so I can easily visualize what activities or events are upcoming.
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Add all important dates and deadlines from the course syllabus to each calendar
Once each calendar is set up within the app, I go to the class syllabus to get the important dates like midterms and projects/assignments deadline and transfer them to each of the calendars I made for those classes. I also set multiple reminders depending on the type of task or deadline.
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Schedule your activities in your calendar
I find it helpful to schedule all my activities in my calendar. It gives my day more structure when I plan to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, do my assignments, and hang out with friends or just rest in my calendar. Although having all our daily activities could reduce our chances of procrastinating, wasting time, it is also good to note that it is okay to not get everything done on our lists or calendar.
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Check for upcoming dates periodically
After setting up my calendar with all the important dates and deadlines, I check my calendar at the beginning of the week to see which deadlines are coming up. That helps me identify the most urgent tasks that I need to accomplish, so I add them to my to-do lists in my journal/planner accordingly.
As the semester goes by, I update my calendar with any new deadline. I also like to check my calendar on a weekly basis for upcoming deadlines, tasks, or action items. This helps me identify more urgent tasks that go on my journal/day planner.
Created by Sam in Google Calendar
Types of Calendars I Use
iCalendar
This is the default calendar app for iPhones. The app works well in setting up meetings and events, but it was particularly helpful being able to download my class schedules directly from the SSC into my calendar. I get reminders about my upcoming classes, which often saves me from being late from classes when I decide to take a break to grab lunch between classes. It also gives a “time to leave” alert and how long it takes to arrive based on what the traffic is like for the day.
Google Calendar
As an iPhone user, I have a tendency to stick with the default apps. However, the discovery of Google Calendar was revolutionary for me. I knew it existed, I just never attempted to try it until a friend recommended it. After using Google Calendar, I prefer it to iCalendar because of the user-friendly interface, ease of use, and versatility. Not only are you able to add events, but also goals, tasks and reminders. One of my favorite features on Google Calendar is that you can subscribe to the Canvas calendar and that automatically adds all your deadlines and important course dates into your calendar (check out how to do this below). Although, I wouldn’t rely fully on using just this to keep track of my deadlines, it could be a helpful tool to have!
To add your Canvas calendar to Google Calendar:
- Go to your UBC Canvas Dashboard > Click Calendar > Click ‘Calendar Feed’ and copy the link that pops up.
- Go to Google Calendar > Under ‘Other calendars’, click the + icon to add a new calendar > Click ‘From URL’ > paste your Canvas calendar link and it adds all your Canvas deadlines into a separate calendar!
Check out this student guide to learn more about how to use Canvas calendar!
Journals/Day Planners
I like to use journals/physical planners in addition to my digital calendars to track my short term (1 – 5 days) tasks/to-do lists. I also find it helpful to have a space where I can note down things that are important when I am in classes taking notes or just studying in the library. Personally, I prefer using physical journals/planners, but I know some might prefer digital ones. If you prefer using digital planners, check out this post for a guide on how to set up and use Notion.
Time management is a skill that takes time to build and I am constantly learning as well. I hope this post gives you some insights on how you can get started or make changes to your strategies. Feel free to leave a comment to let me know if you have used any of the calendars or features before!
Stay tuned for part two if you want to learn about tools beyond calendars that can help you manage your projects!
