keeping up with school assignments and project deadlines

Managing Deadlines: Stress-Free Approaches to Meeting Assignment Goals

Navigating academic life involves mastering the art of juggling multiple assignments, each with its own set of deadlines. Effective deadline management strategies are essential for students aiming to achieve academic success while maintaining their well-being. This comprehensive guide introduces a variety of stress-free deadline approaches for students, designed to streamline your study process and help you meet your academic deadlines with ease.

The Importance of Effective Deadline Management

Effective deadline management transcends mere schedule adherence; it’s about optimizing your academic performance and minimizing stress. Let’s explore why mastering strategies for managing assignment deadlines is pivotal:

Academic Success

Timely submission of assignments is a cornerstone of academic achievement. Adopting organizational techniques for academic success ensures you consistently produce quality work, contributing positively to your grades and academic standing.

Stress Reduction

Proper deadline management is a powerful antidote to academic stress. By implementing deadline management tips for stress reduction, you can alleviate the anxiety associated with looming deadlines, fostering a healthier study environment .

Improved Time Management

Efficient handling of deadlines enhances overall time management skills, equipping you with the ability to allocate your resources wisely. Time management solutions for deadline success are integral for balancing study, work, and leisure, paving the way for a more organized and productive academic journey.

Consistent Progress

Staying on top of deadlines promotes steady progress in your coursework. Strategies for managing assignment deadlines effectively prevent the last-minute rush, allowing for a smoother academic experience.

Quality Work

When deadlines are managed well, you’re more likely to submit work that reflects your true potential. Effective deadline management strategies enable you to dedicate ample time to research, drafting, and refining your assignments, resulting in higher-quality outcomes.

Stress-Free Approaches to Meeting Assignment Goals

To navigate the challenges of academic deadlines without the stress, consider incorporating these effective strategies into your routine:

Calendar and Planner Utilization

Embrace the use of calendars and planners, both digital and physical, to keep track of your deadlines. This organizational technique for academic success provides a visual overview of your commitments, helping you plan your study schedule more effectively.

Break Down Assignments

Tackle large projects by breaking them down into smaller, more manageable tasks. This approach, a cornerstone of stress-free deadline management, makes daunting assignments feel more approachable and achievable.

Set Realistic Goals

Establishing realistic goals for each study session can significantly enhance your productivity. How to handle academic deadlines efficiently often involves setting clear, attainable objectives for what you aim to accomplish, ensuring steady progress toward your deadlines.

Prioritize Tasks

Understanding how to prioritize your assignments based on urgency and importance is crucial. Strategies for managing assignment deadlines effectively often employ prioritization techniques to ensure critical tasks are addressed first, optimizing your study efforts.

Time Blocking

Dedicate specific blocks of time to work on your assignments. This productivity hack for meeting study deadlines helps create a structured approach to study, minimizing procrastination and maximizing focus.

Eliminate Distractions

Identify and eliminate potential distractions in your study environment. Achieving academic goals without the stress often requires a distraction-free zone, enabling you to concentrate fully on the task at hand.

Seek Clarification Early

If you’re unsure about an assignment’s requirements, seek clarification from your instructor as soon as possible. This proactive approach prevents confusion and ensures you’re on the right track from the start.

Utilize Technology

Leverage technology to enhance your study efficiency. From task management apps to digital calendars, technology offers a myriad of ways to streamline your study process and keep your deadlines in check.

By embracing these effective deadline management strategies and related techniques, you can transform your study habits, reduce stress, and achieve your academic goals with confidence. Remember, the key to managing deadlines effectively lies in planning, prioritization, and taking proactive steps to ensure you’re always prepared for what lies ahead in your academic journey.

Practice Self-Care

Incorporating self-care into your routine is not just beneficial; it’s essential for maintaining focus and energy. Strategies like “balancing deadlines and well-being in academics” emphasize the importance of regular exercise, adequate sleep, and healthy eating habits. These practices ensure that you’re not only academically productive but also physically and mentally well.

Flexibility and Adaptability

Being flexible and adaptable in your approach allows you to adjust to unexpected changes or challenges. “Productivity hacks for meeting study deadlines” often include having contingency plans and being ready to shift priorities as needed. This adaptability can significantly reduce stress when facing tight deadlines or unforeseen academic demands.

Use Time Management Techniques

Effective time management is critical for deadline success. Techniques such as the Pomodoro Technique or the Eisenhower Box can help you organize your study sessions more efficiently, allowing for dedicated focus periods interspersed with short breaks . “Time management solutions for deadline success” provide structured approaches to tackling tasks, enhancing your ability to meet deadlines without undue pressure.

Review and Reflect

Regularly reviewing and reflecting on your progress is key to continuous improvement. “Achieving academic goals without the stress” involves assessing what strategies are working and which areas need adjustment. This reflective practice can help you fine-tune your approach to managing deadlines, ensuring ongoing development of your organizational and time management skills.

Conclusion: Meeting Academic Deadlines with Ease

Mastering the art of deadline management is a dynamic process that involves a combination of planning, organization, and self-care. By employing “effective deadline management strategies” and staying adaptable, you can navigate academic challenges with greater ease and less stress. Remember, the goal is to achieve a balance that allows for academic success while also maintaining your well-being. With these strategies, you’re well-equipped to manage your deadlines efficiently, paving the way for a fulfilling and successful academic experience.

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How to keep track of homework assignments

Katie Azevedo December 29, 2016 good habits , homework , productivity , study skills , time management

The first step to getting a good grade on an assignment is to … wait for it … do the assignment!

Simple, right?

Maybe, but only if you remember to do the assignment. For some students, knowing how to keep track of assignments and their due dates is a huge challenge. Here, I’m going to explain how to keep track of assignments and projects, and give you some tips for staying organized. A cool angle to this is that what I’m going to be talking about is completely applicable outside of school. So if you’re not a student, but you still have due dates and project deadlines – pretty much like any human – then this system is for you, too.

1.  Find a planner system and use it multiple times every day.

The KEY step for keeping track of homework, which I’ll get to next , is to write everything down. But before that happens, you need a place to write it all. You have three options here. 1) paper 2) digital 3) a combination of both. Personally, I use a combination of both. While I am a pen and paper person at heart, I do use Google calendar in addition to my paper calendar. I have a family and a business to run, so I need the digital aspect to be able to share calendars with other people. For my paper calendar I use the Staples Arc system . It’s cheap, simple, and super customizable.

I advise you to pick a system based on what’s convenient and easy, and not on what is cool. There are a gazillion list apps out there with fancy features — some of you may have heard of Evernote , the king of task management apps — but the goal is to keep it simple and use a system that you don’t have to stress about. If it’s too complicated, you won’t want to be bothered to even take it out when you need it. Whatever you pick, be sure it includes a monthly calendar and a daily calendar/agenda. Here’s why:

A monthly calendar allows you to see, at a glance, what assignments and appointments are coming up over the next few days or weeks or months. It’s key for long-term planning.

A daily calendar/agenda allows you to see and plan for what’s coming up tomorrow and in the very near future.

Whether you go for a dated calendar or an undated one (one you have to date yourself) is up to you. What size is up to you. (I use a half-sized one and a full-sized one!) Here’s a picture:

The cover and paper inside your planner is up to you. Whether you color-code your entries is up to you. (I do!) Make it something you’re excited to use, while keeping it simple.

It’s important to use your system multiple times a day because the more you use it, the more you trust it. And the more you trust it, the more it will work.

I’ve heard so many students say “I’ve tried using an assignment notebook and calendar, but it doesn’t work.” But when I ask them if they write everything down, they say no. And that’s why. So you’ve got to commit to your system. Use it multiple times every day. Get in the habit of checking it every morning or every night before bed so you know what’s on your agenda.

2.  Write everything down. And the operative word here is EVERYTHING.

I have a theory that I’ve lived by for the longest time: Our brains weren’t made for storing information, but are instead made for creating and processing information. (Lol … it turns out that I’m not a genius and that I didn’t invent this theory.) Several scientific studies actually support the idea that to a degree we have a maximum brain capacity. And if we use up all that capacity for storing information and trying to remember everything … then there will be no brain energy left to create, think and process. So by writing things down, we get them out of our heads, which frees up space for us to be smarter and more creative.

Plus, there is just no way on earth that we can remember every little detail of what’s due when, as well as the time and date of your next doctor’s appointment. If something comes up and you’re not sure whether to write it down, write it down!

Here’s what you should be keeping track of:

• Daily homework assignments (short-term)
• Project due dates (long-term)
• Upcoming tests/quizzes
• Books that have to be read by a certain point
• Appointments (doctor, dentist, guidance counselor, coach, etc.)
• Things you’re supposed to remember to do (ie: talk to math teacher)
• After-school activities, sports (even if you have practice every day from 2:30-5, block out that time on your calendar)
• Weekend activities

Here’s another important tip: write assignments down the moment their assigned, and write appointments down the moment their scheduled. Do NOT tell yourself that you’ll remember to write it down later. Doesn’t work! Plus – that defeats the purpose: you don’t want to use your brain to remember . If you don’t have your paper agenda with you when something comes up, then set a reminder in your phone to write it down later, or write the assignment down on a sticky note and put it somewhere you won’t forget. Then, transfer the information into your planner the moment you get home.

3.  Set up reminders.

Let’s say you have a project due in one week, so you write down “biology project due” on your calendar on the date it’s due. Sound good? No! No, because you don’t want to end up checking your calendar on the project’s due date and realizing “Oh crap! It’s due today!” So the hack for remembering to do the assignments you write down is this: remind yourself along the way.

You can do this several ways, depending on your system. If you’re using digital, like a phone, use the default reminder app to remind yourself of the project at least a few days before it’s due. You can even set up several reminders throughout the week. If you’re using a good old paper calendar, then in addition to writing down “project due” on the actual due date, write in several reminders to work on the project on the days leading up to the due date.

A reminder system also helps you manage your time for long-term assignments because it encourages you to work a little bit each day towards the larger goal.

4.  Keep your planner/calendar accurate and up-to-date.

Your homework management system is only going to work if it’s accurate. So you’ve got to be sure that you update your calendar and your agenda as things change. So if your teacher gives an extension or changes the due date of a project, or if your band concert or meeting is rescheduled, make those edits in your calendar. (Try to keep it neat if you’re using a paper system, so that might mean using whiteout. Messy on paper equals messy in the head.) And remember the rule: make these changes immediately if possible.

If you end up using a combination of a digital system and a paper system, make sure you sync the two systems daily. I have run into the problem where I’ve added an appointment in my phone, but then forgot to add it to my paper calendar, and then I totally forgot about it. Oops! So I make it a habit to review both calendars/agendas every night to make sure they both contain the same information.

How to keep track of homework assignments: Extra tip

There are going to be times when you fall off the bandwagon and let your system slip. You might go a few days or even a week without writing things down – either because you forget or you keep telling yourself that you’ll do it later. But don’t give up on your system. Just pick up where you left off and get back to writing down every little detail. Whenever you wander away from your system, bring yourself back to it, and don’t judge yourself.

Also, these moments can be learning opportunities! Whenever you stop using your agenda or calendar, ask yourself why? Why did you stop? What part of the system wasn’t working? If the system was easy enough to use, you wouldn’t have stopped. Is your notebook so big that it’s annoying to bring with you? Then get a smaller one. Are you not writing assignments down because you don’t have enough space in the “Daily Agenda” part of your notebook? Then get a notebook that gives you more room to write down your daily tasks. Did you think you were a techie, but find the app stuff too complicated? Or vice versa? Then switch systems. Modify as you go. You won’t come up with the perfect system right away, but you will instead figure out what works for you as you go. Be open to change.

So those are my 4 strategies for how to keep track of homework assignments. If you have some strategies of your own, then please share them in the comments below!

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Meeting Deadlines and Keeping Schedules: Impact of Temporal-Sequential Thinking

For many students, time is their most precious resource. Making the most of the time they have enables students to be as efficient and successful as possible, leading a balanced life of work and play. A clear understanding of time is required for students to manage their own time effectively, e.g., plan long term projects, organize schedules, etc. As such, time management skills are an important component of a student’s success – in school and beyond.

In order to meet assignment deadlines and to keep up with schedules related to school and schoolwork, students must engage their temporal-sequential thinking abilities. These skills help us interpret, retain, or create information that is in a serial order. Students with strong temporal-sequential thinking skills are able to manage their schedules, organize their work, and make efficient use of their time. Such students are also able to avoid procrastination (putting off a task that must be done). For students with weak time management skills, procrastination can have painful consequences, affecting both academic and personal success.

Here are some strategies to help students meet deadlines and adhere to school schedules.

Managing Time

• Examine students’ management skills to identify poor management techniques. For example, help students see the ineffectiveness of “to do” lists which do not include objectives, are not prioritized, or whose schedules are not met. In addition, help students understand how compulsive over-planning, e.g., including too much detail or requiring too much time, may also be an ineffective time management technique.
• Talk with students about procrastination. Encourage them to think about why they or others may procrastinate. Do they fail to manage time wisely, are they uncertain of priorities, goals and objectives, or perhaps, are they overwhelmed by the size or complexity of tasks?
• Have students practice estimating and managing their time. For example, have students keep track of activities in a log, first recording the estimated time they think the activity will take, and then documenting the actual time it took to complete the activity.
• Help students come up with strategies for adjusting their work schedule, if time estimations were off target, or if work is ahead of – or behind schedule.
• Teach students how to budget time to create long term schedules, such as when managing a schedule of work and recreation, or planning the timeline of a school project.
• Allow students to practice being “time managers,” having the responsibility for working out and monitoring schedules for activities. In essence, this requires students to become project managers, making sure activities lead to products on schedule. Incorporate time management practice into cooperative learning activities in which one student sets and manages the schedule for the group.

Keeping Assignment Books

• To improve students’ abilities to “follow through” on directions, have them keep assignment books that help them stay organized and keep up with work demands. (Many schools or PTA’s will provide these books.)
• Many students, even early adolescents, will need direct instruction in effectively maintaining assignment books based on the expectations of the school and individual teachers. Create a simple system for keeping track of short and long term assignments, tests, and quizzes where students record, check off, etc.
• Discuss different ways to organize assignment books. Suggest that these books may be most effective if students break each day or even individual assignments into a series of “to do” lists.
• Incorporate time management skills into assignment books. For example, have students include areas for notes specifying “things to do the week before the exam”, “things to do during the week of the exam,” etc.
• Be sure that assignment books are checked regularly by a parent, teacher or peer partner.

Breaking Activities Into Steps (Staging)

• Help students efficiently stage or break down long term activities. For example, a history report may be broken down into the following steps: Monday: Go to the library to collect sources, Tuesday: Write first draft, Wednesday: Proofread, Thursday: Revise to final copy, Friday: Take to school.
• Create a large classroom wall calendar that shows an outline of the stages and time frame for completing long-term projects. Note important steps and dates with color cues. Review the calendar regularly.
• Provide students with a written schedule of daily and weekly deadlines, such as reminders of tests and important long-term due dates, that they can keep in their notebooks or at home.
• Assign long-term projects one step at a time, and check students’ progress before moving them on to the next step. Emphasize the use of checklists for students to keep track of multi-step assignments and activities. Teach students how to set their own landmarks, or goal points, that will mark their progress towards finishing an assignment.
• Encourage students to write down long term goals (related to class requirements) on a calendar, short term goals (related to weekly assignments, immediate tests and projects) on a schedule or “goals” sheet, and daily goals (related to homework, study related tasks) on a “to do” list.

Creating Schedules

• Help students understand the place and importance of schedules in daily activities and with regard to long term success. Help students learn how to work within schedules both at home and at school.
• Do scheduling activities with students. For example, plan the day, the week, or even the year together.
• Keep daily schedules on the board, and announce transitions or activity changes in advance.
• Use your own experiences as models for students. Discuss ways you schedule your daily activities, how long you allow for certain tasks, etc. Provide concrete examples, such as your schedule book, a peer’s activity book, etc., and examples using specific academic tasks, e.g. taking a timed test, etc.
• Have students practice budgeting time and planning ahead, particularly when they must prioritize, or fit several tasks into a certain time period. For example, have students come up with a plan for one or more scheduling scenarios, e.g., “How should I plan to study for next week’s test, when I have a book report due the day before the exam?”
• To aid students in their own time management, have them create personal schedules for study time, after school activities, etc. Help students learn to set goals that emphasize the important tasks they need to accomplish.

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Fact Check: Are Flexible Student Deadlines at Odds With Real Life?

Will flexibility around due dates deliver a reprieve for stressed-out students—or ruin them for real-world work? A high school teacher examines the practice.

One Sunday evening last spring, I opened my work email to see a request from a student: He was very sorry, but he had underestimated how much work he needed to do for an important oral presentation. Could he receive an extension?

Teachers are familiar with these emails that arrive the day—or night—before a project is due. I considered writing back that the deadline had been set a month ago and that since we’d met to discuss his plan already, he should just do his best. But the student, Alex (a pseudonym), had been sick the prior week with Covid-19 and had missed work in all classes. Alex also noted that he had worked through multiple revisions of the presentation, but he felt stuck. His request could be seen as an example of honest self-assessment and critical reflection.

Deadlines set by teachers are a source of student stress but can have clear value. Check-in dates help students break complex processes into manageable chunks as they plan and progress through course goals, and final deadlines can help them organize and prioritize work, complete tasks that are required to move to the next sequential skills, and avoid the anxiety of missed work piling up at the end of the term. (Having a due date for this article, for instance, helped me decide which of my many tasks to tackle when.) Teachers benefit too: Managing moving due dates for 150 students can quickly turn into chaos.

For many educators, strict adherence to deadlines is just one of many important skills they expect students to master before entering college and the world of work. “There is a camp that believes that setting deadlines and meeting deadlines is a life skill, and if we don’t hold kids accountable in K–12, then they won’t know how to perform in jobs,” says Denise Clark Pope, senior lecturer at Stanford Graduate School of Education and cofounder of Challenge Success. “But a lot of us who teach have realized flexibility is key.”

It’s almost certainly not a zero-sum game in life, or in classrooms, and the challenge for teachers such as me, and for leaders in business for that matter, is to judge when flexibility can improve work outcomes and lessen stress—and when it’s important to firmly enforce deadlines.

What Is Flexible and What Isn’t?

Middle and high school-aged students are stressed —and that’s been going on since before the pandemic . Research points to excessive homework loads , pressure to compete for coveted spots at competitive colleges, and lives increasingly shaped by smartphones and social media use . Even the word deadline is stress-inducing, with roots in a Civil War–era line drawn around a prison that an inmate crossed “at the risk of being shot,” according to Merriam-Webster . Some teachers are almost that deadly serious about grades, opting to mark zeros for late work or docking 10 percent each day, making completion after four days nearly pointless.

In the much-cited “real world,” however, when a challenge to an anticipated timeline arises, colleagues often meet to discuss how to work with it, whether more people will need to join the task, or which due dates need to be revised. (Plus, few adult workers have as many as eight people they must report to, with separate policies, as students do with their teachers.)

When Ashley Whillans, an assistant professor at the Harvard Business School, and her colleagues surveyed working adults in 2021 about their willingness to ask for deadline extensions, they discovered that 53 percent of respondents’ task deadlines were in fact adjustable. In the same study, Whillans and her team found that, based on survey responses from 10,000 working professionals, asking for deadline extensions is generally viewed favorably by managers—and it decreases employee stress while improving performance.

Yet employees, especially women, rarely asked for extensions, even when it was clear that due dates were flexible. They worried that managers “would think they were incompetent and unmotivated,” the researchers wrote , even though “in contrast to employees’ predictions, managers judged both male and female employees who asked for an extension as more motivated than those who did not,” the researchers concluded.

If emulating real work conditions is an end goal, then perhaps holding your ground on all student extension requests doesn’t make sense, given the Harvard workplace findings. To figure out which due dates are fixed and which are mutable, teachers might consider whether students are asking for extensions too frequently, whether adjusting the due date impacts any other student work, whether the completion date of the particular assignment is inherently difficult to gauge, or whether providing a little breathing space might allow the student to do better work.

Especially for students dealing with organizational issues, unilaterally inflexible deadlines without opportunity to revise contribute to high levels of anxiety around work completion. New Jersey parent Maureen Gallagher has found that homework zeros can accumulate very quickly for her child who has ADHD. Even though he tests well, his grades reflect attentiveness to tasks outside the classroom rather than mastery of material. To add to the frustration, teachers often are strict with students but then late themselves to enter grades, so students don’t realize how many zeros they have until it’s too late.

When Flexibility Is Baked In

A Universal Design for Learning framework acknowledges these contradictions and frustrations by emphasizing student choice and participation in task designs and goal-setting and helps support all learners , according to advocates. Students encounter goals, timetables, planning resources, and check-ins, as well as tasks with strong inherent interest, through collaborative planning and strong scaffolding.

Some schools have this process of continuous revision to one’s thinking built in through standards-based or mastery-based grading. “The question of ‘Did you turn it in on time’ becomes even more arbitrary if you are operating under the notion that students have multiple opportunities to do the work and try again throughout the term or year,” says Nataliya Braginsky, a social studies teacher and 2021 National History Teacher of the Year. At Metropolitan Business Academy, the magnet high school in New Haven, Connecticut, where Braginsky teaches, students receive benchmarks and guidelines but are not penalized for late work unless the work never comes.

Research backs up the effectiveness of offering regrading or multiple opportunities to submit drafts, in both humanities and STEM fields. Two different studies show that allowing students to be late without question by one to two days increased both turned-in work and student engagement and learning . That’s the flexibility sweet spot: According to a 2019 research paper , stretching due dates by a week or more resulted in a steep drop in the rate of students turning in work. Students also tend to appreciate and feel they learned more when given the opportunity to get a revised grade on a draft effort, according to a 2022 study .

Deadlines, of course, can help students prioritize, and some students do well with fixed due dates. But even fixed due dates can be generated collaboratively and revised as longer projects and papers wind on—a common practice in the professional world, where deadlines are initially agreed upon, and then often extended as the complexities of a project become clearer. Braginsky, for instance, checks in with her classes throughout a project, especially during new units or work outside the classroom, and revises due dates if students need more time to do good work.

Finding the Right Degree of Flexibility

If extensions are common in the work world, then finding your own sweet spot—the point at which both you and the student are able to function at a reasonably high level—is the sanest way to manage the question of flexibility around deadlines. There are many places to start.

Allow extensions selectively: Teacher approaches to due dates can range from limited to near-total flexibility. Limited flexibility might include giving passes for late work—with two to three passes a semester, no explanation required. Stanford’s Pope says that “just having that lowers the tension; even if they don’t end up using it, it is a way to lower the stress.” A second approach is to allow extensions as long as the student asks 24 to 48 hours before the due date, although this approach does not account for sudden emergencies. A third option is to allow any assignment to be handed in two days late without penalty.

Grade completion and quality separately: I often input two separate grades, one for completion and one for the academic quality of the work submitted. The completion grade is not worth a lot—in fact, I make it a binary of 0–1 in most cases—but it cannot be changed. This separates critical thinking and academic work from compliance or work habits, as Jennifer Gonzalez suggests , without entirely conceding the issue of deadlines. It can also be part of a standards-based grading approach , where students and teachers are clearly and continuously communicating goals and how to reach them, and therefore feel safer taking risks.

Take a mastery approach: Greater flexibility by necessity invokes mastery-based approaches, in which students have an array of tasks throughout the semester where they may set the due dates or check-ins collaboratively. Kathy Gentle, a chemistry teacher in Stamford, Connecticut, says her deadline is really the end of the marking period. Work in chemistry does build on prior work, and she reviews the sequence at the beginning of the year. But turning in something on time doesn’t mean the work is good, she notes, and having a strict deadline doesn’t mean students observe it. “I know that kids have other things going on in their lives,” she says. “I let them be a little more responsible for deciding what they need to get done when.”

With all of this in mind, I considered my response to Alex. Yes, I wrote, you can present at a later date. But, I added, come in at your originally scheduled time to discuss your ideas. In the end, Alex was learning how to manage due dates, stress, and his sense of what was possible both in his analysis and in his relationship to authority. This was as important an insight as one he might have about Hamlet or any other text we studied.

As teachers, we have to evaluate how much the deadline is part of the progression of student learning and how much it is for our own convenience (important too!) or sense of power and order. In the end-of-year class survey, Alex wrote that he felt “immense relief” when he received my email granting the extension. With extra time to discuss and revise, he decided to fully change a text he was discussing. He had a breakthrough, he wrote, and actually enjoyed the work.

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Assignment calendars help students avoid deadline anxiety

The start of an academic year can seem daunting, particularly if it’s your first. You may feel weighed down by the amount of material you have to study before working on and submitting assignments by due dates. A well-designed assignment calendar is an effective time-management tool. It can help you stay organized and on track with your tasks throughout each semester and the entire academic year.

This article explains how an assignment calendar is essential for students and how you can save time by personalizing a Work OS template . It will show you how monday.com can make it easy for you to keep track of your progress, and through strong visuals and seamless integration with other Work OS templates, help you productively manage your learning journey and hit each assignment deadline on time.

What is an assignment calendar?

Assignment calendars make it easy to organize and track tasks, freeing the student’s time to concentrate on learning.

An assignment calendar, sometimes known as an assignment organizer, is a structured method of monitoring the discharge of multiple tasks within the same assignment to ensure all are completed before the due date. Students can also use it to set their personal goals for the semester or academic year, as well as to record and plan communications with members of the faculty. A student can create their own assignment tracker from scratch, but for many, the best solution is to personalize an existing template.

What should an assignment calendar include?

An assignment calendar should include methods of recording every facet of your learning journey. Typically, these will include the following:

• Flexible calendar:  For adding all your study and assignment dates, including dates for tuition fees
• Note-taking feature:  For recording raw information that’s linked to specific subjects
• Project management tools:  For breaking tasks down into manageable chunks
• Filtering features:  For minimizing clutter by filtering content
• Document management:  For storing important documents that can be linked to a specific point of study or a test/assignment
• Contacts:  For storing essential contact information such as the phone numbers and emails of other students, professors, and research assistants

Why use a monday.com assignment calendar?

A monday.com assignment calendar will help you organize your day, week, month, semester, and academic year. You’ll be able to view your progress through every task related to your assignment and integrate the calendar with other useful Work OS templates, ensuring a seamless workflow throughout. You can quickly build a unique, lean, and cloud-based dynamic calendar that is always at your fingertips.

monday.com templates for students

monday.com templates are easily customizable programs that work effectively in isolation and are even more effective when teamed with other Work OS tools. An online assignment calendar can be accessed from any device, and as it’s cloud-based, the student needn’t worry about losing vital information. Being part of monday.com’s network of programs means students can integrate it with other useful programs, building a small and personal suite of tools that help them manage their learning journeys.

Academic requirements tracker

The Academic Requirements Tracker template  can help you observe the progress of your degree. You’ll see your accomplishments and what you still have to do for your major, minor, and certificate requirements. The assignment tracker separates activities and color-codes the current status of each as red, amber, and green, so you can easily monitor your progress. You can include due dates for all activities, including communications, and add links to quickly access important content. You’ll always know how many credits you need at every stage of your learning schedule.

Managing student life

The Managing Student Life template  lets you organize and easily monitor every aspect of your academic year. This includes planning each semester’s learning tasks, setting monthly goals, and controlling your budget. There are more than 30 customizable columns you can drag and drop to quickly personalize the template, creating a workflow that reflects your individual needs. You can also use the template to manage your self-care, ensuring you plan healthy breaks into your schedule.

Research power tools

The Research Power Tools template  provides a high-level monitoring system for research projects. It lets you collaborate easily with others in the project, including fellow students, faculty, and research assistants. You can alter views of your data immediately and use various options to visualize content, including timeline, Kanban, Gantt, and workload. The template also lets you develop automated behaviors for repetitive tasks, such as sending due date warning emails and real-time notifications.

Frequently asked questions

Are students who use assignment planners more successful.

Although many factors determine a student’s level of success, assignment calendars also help:

• Improve grades : A 2007 study  by Hugh Kearns and Maria Gardiner found that students who organize their calendars typically achieve better grades than those that don’t. The study also found that those students experienced less stress and anxiety.
• Enhance concentration:  An assignment organizer makes it easier to focus on the job at hand, allowing you to put aside non-critical projects for another time.
• Develop time-management skills:  Benjamin Franklin once famously said, “By failing to plan, you are preparing to fail.” Assignment organizers help you plan, and as a consequence, develop your time-management skills, which will be critical to your future success in whatever field you later enter.

Can an assignment calendar help with procrastination?

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you have enough time to put off studying or homework until later. A carefully maintained assignment calendar will keep you focused on internal deadlines you’ve created for yourself, but more importantly, external ones imposed by your learning institution. Procrastination is an emotional response  to something you fear, such as failing a major project. An assignment organizer will help you break down formidable tasks into more manageable pieces that don’t appear as difficult. The frequent result is the project becomes less daunting, reducing the likelihood of procrastination.

Is a monday.com assignment calendar better than alternatives?

Online assignment tracker templates from monday.com help students improve their efficiency and increase their productivity. They help the student avoid duplicating content, allow the flow of work from other assignment organizers, and ensure data isn’t accidentally lost. As Work OS assignment planners are cloud-based, the student needn’t worry about losing data or access, which is a real possibility with paper-based alternatives.

Never miss a key deadline with an online assignment calendar

An assignment calendar is a vital part of every student’s toolbox. It can help you manage your learning process, focus on the here and now, and keep one eye on what you need to do next. Properly managed, it will help you avoid missing important deadlines, reduce your anxiety, and ensure you’re always aware of the stage you’re at, whether it’s for that week, month, semester, or the entire academic year. Attaining an academic qualification takes commitment, discipline, stamina, and an ability to learn skills that make learning possible. Our Work OS Assignment Calendar Template and associated education-linked templates make it easier for you to focus on your goals and succeed in your ambitions.

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Student Hacks: How to Prioritize Assignments and Projects Based on Importance and Deadline

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As a student, you are bombarded with assignments and projects from various courses. These tasks can add up quickly, leaving you feeling overwhelmed and unsure of where to start. That's where prioritization comes in - by sorting your assignments and projects based on their importance and deadline, you can manage your time more efficiently and reduce stress. In this article, we'll explore the importance of prioritization in academic success, how to identify key factors in prioritizing tasks, effective strategies for prioritizing, and tips for staying organized and managing deadlines.

Understanding the Importance of Prioritization in Academic Success

Prioritization is a critical skill that every student needs to master to achieve academic success. It is a process of identifying and organizing tasks based on their importance and deadline, which enables you to manage your time more efficiently and reduce stress levels. Effective prioritization can help you stay on top of your workload, complete tasks on time, and produce high-quality work.

One of the biggest challenges that students face is managing their time effectively. With so many demands on their time, it can be easy to get overwhelmed and lose focus. Time management is, therefore, crucial to academic success. It involves planning, scheduling, and organizing your time effectively to get the most out of your day. By managing your time effectively, you can reduce procrastination, improve focus and concentration, and ensure that you meet all deadlines for assignments and projects.

The Role of Time Management in Student Life

Time management is not only essential for academic success but also for personal growth and development. It enables you to balance your academic and personal responsibilities effectively. By managing your time effectively, you can create more time for leisure activities, hobbies, and socializing with friends and family.

Effective time management involves setting goals, prioritizing tasks, and creating a schedule that works for you. It's essential to identify your most productive times of the day and schedule your most important tasks during those times. This will help you maximize your productivity and achieve your goals more efficiently.

Balancing Academic and Personal Responsibilities

Student life involves juggling academic and personal responsibilities. It can be challenging to find the right balance between the two, especially when trying to prioritize your tasks. To manage this effectively, it's crucial to set realistic goals for yourself, break down your tasks into smaller, more manageable steps, and revisit your priorities regularly to ensure that you are on track.

It's also essential to create a support system that can help you manage your responsibilities effectively. This can include family members, friends, or academic advisors who can offer guidance and support when you need it. Additionally, taking care of your physical and mental health is crucial to managing your responsibilities effectively. Make sure to get enough sleep, exercise regularly, and eat a healthy diet to maintain your energy levels and reduce stress.

In conclusion, prioritization and time management are critical skills that every student needs to master to achieve academic success. By managing your time effectively, you can balance your academic and personal responsibilities, reduce stress levels, and achieve your goals more efficiently.

Identifying the Key Factors in Prioritizing Assignments and Projects

Effective prioritization involves identifying and organizing your tasks based on their importance and deadline. Here are three key factors to consider when prioritizing your assignments and projects:

Assessing the Importance of Each Task

Firstly, assess the importance of each task by considering how they contribute to your academic goals, and the impact they will have on your overall performance. This requires a critical evaluation of how each assignment or project fits into the context of your course and the overall objectives you aim to achieve.

Estimating the Time Required for Completion

Secondly, estimate the time required for completion of each task. This involves breaking down your assignments and projects into smaller, manageable steps and allocating the necessary time to each step. You can use tools such as productivity apps and timers to assist you in estimating the time required for each task.

Considering the Consequences of Not Completing Tasks on Time

Thirdly, consider the consequences of not completing your tasks on time. This includes the penalties for late submission, the negative impact on your grades, and the additional workload that may arise as a result. By assessing the consequences of not completing each task on time, you can better prioritize your workload and ensure that you meet all deadlines.

Strategies for Prioritizing Assignments and Projects

The eisenhower matrix method.

The Eisenhower Matrix method is a popular productivity tool that involves categorizing your tasks based on their importance and urgency. Here's how you can use it to prioritize your assignments and projects:

Important and Urgent: These are tasks that require immediate attention and should be completed as soon as possible. Examples include assignments due within the next few days, exams, and urgent projects.

Important but not Urgent: These are tasks that have a high priority but do not require immediate attention. Examples include long-term projects and assignments due in a few weeks or months' time.

Urgent but not Important: These are tasks that require immediate attention, but their actual importance is relatively low. Examples include responding to non-urgent emails and phone calls, and minor administrative tasks.

Not Important or Urgent: These are tasks that are low-priority and do not contribute significantly to your academic goals. Examples include social media, leisure activities, and non-academic tasks.

By categorizing your tasks using the Eisenhower Matrix, you can focus on completing those tasks that are most important and urgent while reserving time for those that are important but not urgent.

The ABCDE Method

The ABCDE method is another strategy for prioritizing tasks. Here's how it works:

A: Assign a "A" priority to tasks that are important and require immediate attention, such as assignments due within a few days.

B: Assign a "B" priority to tasks that are important but not urgent, such as long-term projects and assignments due in a few weeks or months' time.

C: Assign a "C" priority to tasks that are nice to do but not crucial to your academic goals, such as non-academic tasks and leisure activities.

D: Delegate tasks that can be done by someone else or outsourced, such as research and data entry.

E: Eliminate tasks that are not necessary or do not contribute significantly to your academic goals, such as social media and other distractions.

By following this method, you can prioritize your tasks effectively and ensure that you are working on those that have the most significant impact on your academic success.

The Ivy Lee Method

The Ivy Lee Method is a simple and effective strategy for prioritizing your tasks. Here's how you can use it:

Identify the six most important tasks for the following day.

Rank each task in order of priority.

Begin working on the first task in the morning and continue until it is completed.

Move on to the next task on the list and repeat the process until all six tasks are completed.

By following this method, you can ensure that you are working on your most critical tasks and completing them in an organized and effective manner.

The Pomodoro Technique for Time Management

The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method that involves breaking your work into 25-minute intervals separated by short breaks. Here's how you can use it to prioritize your tasks:

Choose a task to complete.

Set a timer for 25 minutes and work on the task until the timer rings.

Take a five-minute break.

Repeat the process until the task is completed.

By using this technique, you can remain focused and motivated while working on important tasks, which ensures that you meet all deadlines for your assignments and projects.

Tips for Staying Organized and Managing Deadlines

Creating a master calendar for assignments and projects.

The first step to staying organized and managing deadlines is creating a master calendar. This involves compiling all your assignments and projects into one centralized place, which makes it easier to track your progress and ensure that you meet all deadlines. You can use tools such as Google Calendar or a physical planner to create your master calendar.

Breaking Down Tasks into Smaller, Manageable Steps

Breaking down your tasks into smaller, manageable steps is an effective way to avoid feeling overwhelmed and ensure that you stay on track to meet all deadlines. You can use tools such as mind maps or to-do lists to visualize your tasks and break them down into smaller steps.

Using Productivity Apps and Tools to Stay on Track

There are several productivity apps and tools available that can help you stay on track and manage your time more efficiently. Examples include Trello, Evernote, and Forest - an app that incentivizes you to complete your tasks by planting trees in a virtual forest.

Prioritization is essential for academic success. By sorting your assignments and projects based on their importance and deadline, you can manage your time more efficiently and reduce stress levels. In this article, we explored the importance of prioritization in academic success, how to identify key factors in prioritizing tasks, effective strategies for prioritizing, and tips for staying organized and managing deadlines. By following these guidelines, you can maximize your productivity and achieve your academic goals.

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Clean theme, 7 tips to meet your deadlines and finish tasks on time.

Deadlines aren't always the most pleasant aspects of projects or tasks, particularly as they get closer. Nobody is excited about that conversation with your manager, client, or professor as the deadline gets nearer and you need an extension.

Even if it's your personal goals, we're hit with an aching sense of dread if we won't be able to meet them by the deadlines.

Failing to meet deadlines can have a long-lasting impact on our reputation, affect our future business prospects and career growth, and keep us from fulfilling our personal goals.

But as much as most people dislike them, deadlines are an essential and powerful tool for project management. This blog post explores the importance of deadlines and how you can meet them easily.

What Are Deadlines, and Why Do They Matter?

Deadlines are the time or date by which the responsible person or team has to complete a task or achieve a goal. They're commonly used for everything from large-scale project management to submitting a high-school assignment.

Deadlines are a powerful communication tool.

They make it clear among team members, clients, and stakeholders when they should have the results or deliverables. It removes any ambiguity among the personnel involved in a project or task.

Picture a client telling a graphic designer they need a design ASAP. The designer may deliver the work as soon as possible after covering all of their commitments, or they may prioritize them over others. Or if an HR tells managers there's no rush on conducting employee evaluations, they may put it off indefinitely or do it whenever they're free.

There's no clarity among the involved parties in both of the above situations. It may go perfectly well for all of them, but there's a high likelihood of miscommunication.

They play a huge role in ensuring projects are delivered on time.

Large-scale projects have a lot of people working on them and will be made of many interdependent tasks. If a few of them are delayed, it will create a bottleneck that holds back the rest of the project.

But setting deadlines for each task will keep the complete project on track. It makes it easy to plan the next steps when project managers are sure they'll have the rest of the tasks completed and deliverables prepared on time.

They make our goals SMART.

Deadlines help us track where we're with our goals and tell us whether to keep the pace steady or step it up. Deadlines give us more visibility and control over our goals.

It helps teams plan well.

Deadlines offer more flexibility for team members and help them prioritize their tasks. With deadlines, team members can decide what they need to tackle on a particular day instead of asking their managers for specific instructions. It gives more freedom to the team members and avoids micromanagement from the team leaders.

They keep us accountable.

Deadlines help us push ourselves to reach our goals. Even if it's for our personal goals or ambitions, without deadlines, they are just dreams. We may achieve them at some point and call it a win. Deadlines help us avoid procrastinating and push for our goals.

7 Best Tips on How to Meet Your Deadlines

here are the 7 best tips for meeting deadlines and getting things done. From setting clear goals to using the right task management tools, you'll find practical strategies to help you stay on track and achieve your goals.

1. Set realistic deadlines

The first step to meeting your deadlines on time is to set realistic timelines. Setting impossible deadlines are setting yourself up for failure. Short deadlines will also significantly affect the quality of work.

For instance, if you're tasked with completing evaluations of 100 employees within a week, you'll either miss the deadline or the evaluations will be useless.

When setting your goals, consider your existing projects and responsibilities and the time you'll have to dedicate to the new task. It's also important to consider the time and resources the new task will take before you set the deadlines.

If your manager is setting your deadlines, ensure they're aware of your responsibilities and the effort it will take you to complete the new task. If your manager is unaware of your processes or abilities, they may give you a very extended deadline or a short one.

A simple rule of thumb will help you set realistic deadlines:

'Cheap, good, and quick: pick two and forget about the third.'

If you want something done quickly with minimal resources, you won't get the best results. If you want something done well with minimal resources, it will take a lot of time; if you want something done well and quickly, you'll need a lot of resources.

It's also important to keep in mind that a bit of extra time will give you or your time to polish the results, but too much spare time and it becomes inefficient.

2. Break down goals into smaller tasks

Large goals tend to be intimidating, and it may be tough to get started on them. They may also not be actionable; to reach your goals, you need a detailed step-by-step approach.

When you set long-term goals, break them down into small individual steps. For instance, if you're planning to build a million-dollar business within ten years, decide where you have to be at the end of every year. Break them down into what you must achieve at the end of every month and what you must do daily.

Large long-term goals often don't give us enough clarity. It isn't easy to track where we are and if our efforts are in the right direction or at the right pace. If we set goals for the end of the year, we may keep procrastinating till the deadline and then try to do all of it in one month or less.

But by breaking the larger tasks into small ones and setting individual deadlines, it becomes easier to keep track of them. You can quickly figure out if you're on top of it or need to up the pace a bit.

3. Use a task management tool.

Task management tools offer a single platform to store all your task-related information and easily track them. It provides complete visibility into all of your tasks, their status, and their deadlines and helps you organize and prioritize better.

Task management solutions like MagicTask allow you to collaborate easily with your teammates and share regular updates. You can also set clear deadlines and get reminders as they approach.

Task management tools help you stay on top of your deadlines. It helps you quickly figure out what you need to tackle in a day and focus on them easily. They allow you to prioritize and handle multiple tasks and projects easily. With a task management tool, you can easily break down your long-term goals and projects into small daily tasks and see if you're on track.

In the case of MagicTask, it is also highly gamified and has lots of themes to keep you excited. The platform also gives you points when you complete tasks with which you can compete with your teammates or MagicTask users across the globe.

4. Use a productivity technique that works for you.

Over the last two decades, many productivity techniques have gained much popularity. These productivity techniques are built on different philosophies or perspectives and are often designed to help you resolve specific issues with your work style.

There's no hard rule that dictates which technique will work for you; in fact, your productivity may take a dip if you spend too much time trying to learn all of them. Just pick one, stick with it for a while, and see if its works for you.

If you struggle to focus on your tasks and find yourself getting distracted, the Pomodoro technique may work for you. Work for 25 minutes, take a five-minute break; do this four times. Then take a more extended 30-minute break.

If you find yourself procrastinating on large or complex tasks, try the Eat The Frog method ; in fact, you can combine this with other techniques as well. It's simple; do the most difficult or intimidating task the moment you start your day.

The Getting Things Done method may work for you if you work all day long but do not reach your goals.

5. Delegate, delegate, delegate

You don't necessarily have to take on all the tasks yourself; you just have to get them done. If someone else can do it cheaper and in a shorter time without compromising the quality of the work, delegate it to them.

Delegating the tasks will give you more room to breathe and do well what you can do best. When you have little time and are rushing to check every box, the quality of deliverables will decrease. You'll also have less time to focus on the bigger picture.

If you're building a business, you don't necessarily have to design the logo and put up the billboards by yourself.

Delegating the tasks will help you build a better team and understand their capabilities. You can get more work done in a shorter time. You'll also have more energy and better clarity in your mind.

6. Communicate well

Clear communication is essential to meet deadlines. Everyone involved with the task or project needs a clear picture of the deliverables and the deadline.

If you're working with a client or your manager, ensure everyone is on the same page about the goals and expectations. It may be a good idea to communicate regularly and share updates on the status of complex projects or tasks to ensure you're on the right track.

It's also essential to build a culture of clear communication within your team. When multiple people are collaborating on a project or task, it's vital that everyone keeps up with the pace.

It's important to communicate if you're unable to meet the deadline or if there will be any delays. Early updates can help the team tweak its plan and look for alternatives. More time you give them, the more options they have.

7. Make sure you have the resources you need

Before you start working on a project or commit to it, ensure you have all the necessary resources. You want to avoid running around looking for the tools or personnel to help you as the time runs out. You also must ensure that you have the proper training and qualifications to execute the tasks before you start.

Even if you don't, you can still commit to the project; just as long as you can acquire the resources and tools for the task. In these situations, consider these factors when setting deadlines.

Get Things Done With MagicTask

MagicTask is a task management platform that can supercharge your project management capabilities. The platform helps you stay focused and get things done on time without compromising quality. MagicTask's gamification features will help you stay motivated throughout your projects and avoid procrastinating.

The MagicTask platform is also designed to help you collaborate seamlessly with your teammates. You can assign tasks, set deadlines, and get constant updates through the app.

Check out MagicTask and hit your deadlines right on the head.

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3 tips to staying organized this semester

The end of the semester is near… and you know what that means. It is time to de-clutter your email, submit grades, keep up with the end-of-the-semester assignments, grade projects, etc.

In this blog, we will cover how you can use a virtual planner to meet deadlines without sacrificing many hours inside the office while effectively communicating with students, team members, and colleagues. A planner can help with the organization of the week while maximizing tasks during this busy time of the semester.

There are many positive  psychological benefits to keeping up with a planner, whether that is online or a physical planner you carry around. Here is how you can use the CampusKnot planner to make your semester go smoother.

1. Share your calendar 

Creating and sharing -already created- planner event with students, colleagues, or team members can decrease the time and stress of keeping up with deadlines in your head.

Sharing upcoming events can give team members and colleagues a clear vision of a project’s timeline, due dates, and last-minute meetings. Inside CampusKnot, you can seamlessly sync your events from Google or Outlook calendars while having the ability to share events with an entire class or individual members. 

2. Create events

Last-minute meetings or projects? Don’t panic! Create events to better keep up with your schedule.

Calendar events inside CampusKnot can have quick descriptions and reminders. You can even set RSVPs to keep track of who is planning to attend your virtual or face-to-face event.

Here are also a few tips to better schedule your day-to-day .

3. Set time slots 

Are you hearing crickets during your office hours or project sessions at the beginning of the semester? Or perhaps you have too many students show up at once at the end of the semester? Inside CampusKnot you can create time slots for your office hours while also using your favorite web conferencing tool.  Our Zoom integration , Cisco Webex , and Microsoft Teams allow you to record, share, and whiteboard during a meeting with your students.

Remember, deadlines should be helpful, without so much stress, and with a little help, your semester should run smoothly. While you de-cluttered  listen to some music , relax, and breathe. The end of the semester is near, Good Luck!

Ana Gonzalez

Ana Gonzalez was born and raised in Panamá. She is a student, turned educator. She loves learning new languages and writing about how education can be innovative and dynamic when implementing the right teaching methods.

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6 ways to keep up with college deadlines.

BY ALLIE SHAW

We all know that familiar feeling of dread: a rapidly approaching deadline can be extremely panic-inducing, especially when you’ve left a big assignment to the last minute. Procrastination is an issue that almost everyone has to conquer. Luckily, you have lots of ways to circumvent your tendency to push off a deadline.

The Procrastination Problem

Missing a deadline is often linked to procrastination, and the roots of procrastination can show you how to avoid the cycle of delaying your work on a project. Procrastination can stem from depression, anxiety, and a lack of self-compassion. In other words, our fear of failure drives us to try to feel better temporarily by seeking a distraction or working on another task. Missing a deadline can reinforce these anxieties by introducing shame and guilt, making it even harder to meet your next one.

Being kind to yourself and avoiding feelings of blame or self-doubt is a good first step for any procrastinator, but breaking the chain of missed deadlines requires a conscious and organized effort to work smarter. Follow these six steps on your next big project, and you can skip the panic and stress of a missed deadline completely.

• Deadlines Are Our Friends

If your deadline is stressing you out, it may help to reframe it as a tool to finish your work and achieve your goals. Deadlines give us the opportunity to plan our work schedule and space out projects over time. Thinking about your deadline as a planning tool can help put you feel in control of the associated anxiety.

• Write Out a Schedule

A single large deadline at the end of a project can make it difficult to space out your workload and track your progress. Building a schedule of smaller deadlines for distinct parts of the project helps structure your time and prevents a last-minute crunch.

You can build in time for other activities, like going to the gym or cleaning your space, to help contribute to the positive feeling of control. Once you have your schedule written down, don’t forget to cross off tasks as you go along – the satisfaction of another completed part of your assignment will help motivate you as you go along.

• Break Down the Assignment

Breaking a large project down into smaller individual tasks can make your deadline feel much more manageable. For instance, you can separate a big paper like a research project into basic tasks, such as conducting research, working on an outline, developing a first draft, and revising or editing. Don’t fall victim to the planning fallacy; many tasks take longer than expected, so build in lots of extra time for unexpected delays.

• Set Smaller Benchmarks

Working toward smaller goals can help satisfy your craving for gratification and accomplishment. When pursuing a smaller task like writing an outline, set a goal for yourself that is quickly achievable to keep yourself moving. A simple goal, like “Write down five topic sentences,” can spur progress that keeps you on track toward completing the larger project.

It’s also helpful to articulate your goals as specifically as possible. Vague goals like “revise the paper” can still seem pretty scary – an even more specific benchmark like “look for spelling errors in the first two pages” can simplify your writing process.

• Have the Right Workspace and Tools

When you’re sitting down to work on a task, a cluttered desk and an open browser tab can pull your focus away from your work. Avoiding distractions takes a bit of mental discipline, but you can make things easier for yourself by turning off your smartphone, clearing your workspace, and using an add-on that blocks distracting sites like Facebook.

Also, make sure you have all the materials and tools you need to work effectively. Invest in a reliable internet connection so you can hit that 11:55 p.m. deadline without a worry, and look for student discounts for things like Microsoft Office applications rather than struggle with third-party alternatives.

• Go Easy on Yourself

Like anything else, beating procrastination takes practice. Don’t let a single missed goal derail your entire project. Remind yourself that any minor issues along the way aren’t insurmountable; you can always start fresh and keep working toward your goal. Don’t expect perfection from your work, either. A first draft should be rough and imperfect, and having a foundation for revision helps set you on a path toward completion.

Successfully managing deadlines is as much about your mindset as it is about your process. Through positive reinforcement and the accomplishment of small goals, you can find the energy and willpower you need to persevere. The next time a big deadline looms on your horizon, you’ll have the confidence you need to work productively and meet your objective.

By Allie Shaw

Allie Shaw graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in communications and public relations. She is an expert in all things technology and lifestyle and is a freelance writer for multiple publications.

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Academic Planner 101: How to Use a Planner for School

What Is a Planner for School?

A school planner, or academic planner, is an organizer book designed to help students stay organized, track projects and exams, follow class schedules, meet deadlines, take notes, and more.

Why Use a Planner for School?

There are many reasons why you should use a planner for school:

A school planner makes organization easier all academic year long. In school, it's easy to get behind or forget about important items on your to-do list because there's so much going on every day. You need something that will remind you of all the things that need doing — and make sure they get done!

With an organizer for school, you'll see everything in one place: class assignments, homework due dates, and meeting times with teachers. You can also schedule study sessions into your planner so that nothing slips through the cracks!

An academic planner helps you manage your time effectively. Students often feel like they don't have enough time in the day — especially when they're juggling academics with other obligations (work, family commitments). By writing down all their assignments in one place, students can plan how much time they need for each task, and put a stop to the feeling of being overwhelmed.

A school agenda can help you stay on track and reduce stress. If you have a busy schedule, it's easy to get frazzled, forget things, or lose track of assignments that are due soon, which can cause student stress and anxiety to spike. When everything is written down in your planner, you'll know exactly what needs doing and when — so you can avoid any unnecessary stress!

How to Organize Your Planner for School

Organizing a school planner is the best way to stay on top of your busy schedule and one of the 11 habits of organized students . This handy tool can help you organize all of your assignments, tests, and exams, as well as all of your personal commitments and appointments.

School planner organization doesn't have to be difficult, but setting up your organizer does require a bit of preparation. First, you want to determine what information you to include in it.

Include Your Class Schedules and Breaks

The first thing that you should do when organizing your planner includes all of the important dates for school events, such as when classes start and end, when vacations are scheduled, and any breaks between semesters or quarters. This will help you plan out when it is convenient for you to take exams, attend study sessions or meet with teachers about upcoming assignments.

Assignments and Due Dates

Another important aspect of organizing your planner for school is including any upcoming assignments or projects that will be due in the near future. You may want to include both short-term assignments such as essays or reports as well as longer-term projects such as term papers or lab reports. Also, consider whether there are any special instructions related to these tasks that need highlighting in order for you to complete them properly.

Upcoming Exams and Study Sessions

There will likely be some tests scheduled throughout the year that you will need to study for, as well as exams to take at the end of each semester. Use your planner's projects and exams trackers to organize it all. Organizing your planner in this way can help you better prepare for these tests and ensure that they aren’t unexpected surprises.

Teacher Contact Information

If you need to contact your teachers, put their contact information into your planner so it's easy to find when they're needed. This could include phone numbers, email addresses, office hours, and more.

Personal Commitments and Appointments

Put all of your personal commitments into the planner so you can keep track of them throughout the semester or school year. These could include meetings with professors, meetings with clients at work, or family obligations like birthdays and anniversaries. These are things that shouldn't be forgotten about because they're important to both yourself and others around you.

Free Time and Hobbies

Next up is free time — this is where you can plan out what activities will be done during your free time. This could include watching movies, hanging out with friends, or anything else that's planned for the day. If you plan to do something outside of a school setting, be sure to note it down in your planner so you don't forget about it!

How to Use a School Planner

Use your academic planner to stay organized. Your planner should be a place where you can jot down everything that has to do with school. This can include deadlines, exams, projects, and even things like tests and quizzes. Here are some tips to help you make the most of yours:

Use the monthly calendars for big-picture academic planning.

Start off strong by filling the academic year calendars with important school dates like school breaks, exams and standardized testing, extracurricular events, and more. Then, go ahead and add in any other dates that have personal significance, such as birthdays and other special occasions, important appointments, and so on. If there are any holidays during the month that are not already on your calendar, add them there as well.

Use the planning pages for weekly tasks.

Use the weekly calendars for to-dos like homework and other class assignments. Add as much weekly information as you have to the planning pages. It could be anything from classwork to due dates to reminders and to-do lists. You can even use the weekly pages to break up study sessions and big projects into smaller, more manageable tasks. You can also use this section to write down any appointments that need to be made with professors outside of class time.

If you don't have a lot of your weekly tasks available more than a week in advance, don't worry! The weekly calendars are designed to help you plan at least one week in advance; so you can still set up each weekly spread the weekend before and be prepared for an organized, productive week come Monday morning.

Review your school agenda regularly.

You should also set aside some time each day (or week) to review what needs doing and when — this will help prevent any missed assignments or deadlines from sneaking up on you!

Write down the most important tasks first.

When it comes to actually getting things done, try writing down on your planner to-do list the tasks that are most important first — then work down the list until everything is complete. This will help you stay productive and manage your time efficiently.

Keep important class notes in your organizer.

The best planners for school also function as a notebook in addition to a homework planner , exam tracker, and school year calendar. Utilize the note pages in your agenda book for class notes. You'll learn more and recall the information better when you write your notes by hand versus typing or recording them on a laptop or digital planner .

Use additional school trackers, if needed.

A good academic planner will have a built-in tracker for projects and exams. But if you need additional school trackers, add on a reusable, wet-erase snap-in dashboard to track more assignments, due dates for papers, presentations, and more. This way, you can track everything in one place instead of having to search through multiple files on your computer, phone, or in other notebooks .

For more planning tips, for school, work, and life, check out How to Start Planning .

How to Use a Planner for College

If you're in college, or collegebound, it's a good idea to use your college planner to organize your full college life. A top-notch college planner will accommodate your academic tasks and goals, your personal information, and even your work schedule (if this applies to you). This way, you can keep track of homework assignments and other school-related tasks while also keeping up with your social life, extracurriculars, and career path.

Some college students, trade school students, and post-grads prefer to use multiple planners to organize each area of their life separately. From daily planners to weekly LifePlanners to monthly planners , there are so many ways you can create your own organization system that fits your schedule, style, and planning needs. Visit Best Planners to explore the top agendas this year for organizing everything from A to Z.

Take college organization to the next level with 8 Proven College Organization Tips to Maximize Productivity and How To Organize & Decorate Your Dorm Room .

Choosing the Best Academic Planner

Students and educators alike prefer the Erin Condren Academic Planner because it has proven layouts that help students with scheduling, time management, weekly and monthly planning, project management, productivity, stress reduction, and makes organization easier.

What should be in an academic planner?

An academic planner should have monthly and weekly planning pages, trackers for projects and exams, productivity pages, class schedule section, note pages, and more. An excellent student planner will also include extras that keep students motivated and make planning fun like customization and personalization options, beautiful design elements, included stickers, and even inspirational quotes!

As a leader in the student planner space, the Erin Condren Academic Planner includes key fun and functional features honed over years of customer research, input from educators, and feedback from students, including:

• Dated 12-month school year calendar
• Monthly motivational quotes
• Monthly notes and productivity pages
• Class schedule pages
• Detailed pages for projects and exams
• Dated monthly and weekly spreads
• Option to add on additional 40 lined note pages
• Durable and personalizable covers
• Coiled-in sticker sheets
• Enhanced holiday & heritage celebrations sticker sheet
• 2 binding options: coiled or softbound
• 3 layout options: colorful (coiled or softbound), minimal (softbound), or Star Wars (special edition)

How Does the Academic Planner Help Students?

The Erin Condren Academic Planner was featured on NBCNews.com as one of the "best planners to keep you organized in 2024." And here's what students shared in our 2023 Academic Planner Survey:

• 98% said it helps them stay organized.
• 96% said it helps them manage their workload.
• 96% said it helps them meet deadlines and due dates.
• 93% said it helps them manage their time.
• 93% said it helps them reduce stress.
• 92% said it helps them develop good habits.

Shop the full Academic Planner collection to customize and personalize the perfect student planner for you!

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Top 7 Homework Planner Apps for Students

Whether you are attending classes, completing your assignments, studying for a quiz, project work, extra-curricular activities, or squeezing some time for friends and family. You’d agree that organizing and planning goes a long way. That’s why a homework organizer or a homework planner app can be a lifesaver to keep track of all your assignments, tests, submission deadlines, and exams. I did the research and shortlisted the perfect homework planner apps for Android and iOS. Let’s check those out.

Read:  Best Notes App for Windows to Increase Productivity

Homework Planner Apps for Students

1. student planner- homework agenda & notes.

The first app on the list is a simple homework and notes management app. It keeps track of homework, assignments, projects, and to-do lists. The layout is minimal, all the tasks are neatly organized with a colored bookmark for easy identification. You can mark a task complete and remove it from the pending list.

Courses can be added easily and color-coded as well. The calendar shows any upcoming deadlines so you can prioritize accordingly. The tasks have a progress bar that you can adjust as you make progress which enables you to get a quick summary without actually opening every task.

You can also break your assignments in small chunks as subtasks that would make finishing a task much easier and the progress bar will fill automatically. It also allows you to attach media files to your assignments or projects for easy access to the important information in one place.

• Progress bar
• Deadline Reminders
• Calendar View
• No option to sync data to the cloud

Student Planner is a great app for all the students, it has all the necessary features like Deadline reminders, subtasks, progress bar, color-coded tasks, and courses. It can significantly increase your productivity when used regularly. You can get this app for free in the Play Store.

Install Student Planner- Homework Agenda ( Android )

2. Student Planner

Student Planner is another fast and simple homework management app which is wrapped by a beautiful and intuitive material designed UI. What Student Planner adds to the table is the inclusion of a schedule or time table which you can use to either store your class schedule or it might even be a study schedule for your exams.

You first start by adding your subject and the schedule then you can add an assignment or set a reminder. The due assignments are arranged as separate cards and can be swiped away once done with.

•  Simple and easy to get started with
•  Fast and small in size
•  Beautiful Minimal UI
•  Option for Schedule
• No sync/backup
• Timetable implementation not perfect

I would recommend this app to anyone who is looking for a simple homework management app with timetable support and a minimal UI.

Install Student Planner ( Android )

Egenda is simple. Open the app, add all the classes or subjects to the app, and once that is set up, you have the option of adding a new Homework, Quiz, Project, or Test and choose the respective subject deadlines. The app also arranges the due work in cards that can be swiped away when done. But what I love the most about this app is that the fact it allows you to go subject-wise and view all your upcoming tests, projects, or pending assignments which is a huge convenience for planning your schedule ahead of time instead of the previous day.

Unfortunately, the app doesn’t have a timetable option, but in its latest update, it added a  Calendar View  where you can see your whole month at a glance with your assignments, tests, and projects.

•  Subject-wise sorting
•  Calendar View
• No timetable support

Egenda provides some great tools for Homework and Test planning and I am sure anyone would find them extremely convenient and useful. But keeping its single con in mind, go for this app if you are not too keen on having a schedule or timetable.

Install  Egenda  ( Android  |  iOS )

4. ChalkBoard

The next app on our list is ChalkBoard, which I found out to be a pretty smart homework planner app. Chalkboard strikes a perfect balance between simplicity and features.

Although the setup process is a little longer than the previous three apps, as you have to feed meticulous details about the classes, teacher, and schedule. It is worth the effort.

On the home screen, you are shown upcoming classes, events tab, and upcoming tests. ChalkBoard fetches the dates for every subject from the Timetable for your future classes. Little features like these make the app stand out from the rest and give an overall great experience. You can also view classes and assignments subject wise.

• Proper Timetable
• Ability to add teachers for subjects
• View tomorrow’s classes as well as assignments/tests/quizzes
• Smart features
• Little longer to set up
• No calendar view

If you are looking for a homework planner as well as a school planner, Chalkboard is the app as it strikes a great ground with almost all the features one might need while not being too bulky.

Install ChalkBoard ( Android )

5. School Planner

School Planner is a full-fledged planning application designed for students to manage their career as a student. Along with your homework and timetables, School Planner offers you to keep track of your grades and attendance, add contacts for teachers, add recorded lectures, and even multiple planners.

The app supports backing up of all your data via Google Drive, Calendar View along with a weekly report, attaching snapshots to your assignment reminders, student accounts from ClassViva, and a lot more. In spite of so many features, the app doesn’t feel slow at all and delivers a powerful performance with its beautiful design.

• Full-fledged student companion
• Feature-packed and free
• Supports sync and backup
• Widget Support
• Tedious setup procedure
• Big in size
• Complex, not so smooth learning curve

While it is not for someone who is looking for a fast and easy way into homework management, School Planner is a great student companion app and serious students will surely get the most out of hit.

Install School Planner ( Android )

6. My Study Life

My Study Life comes with its own web app and syncs with the Android app, essentially making your data accessible from any device as long as it has a browser.

It implements a goal-centric circular tracker that shows your progress. The Calendar view combines your timetable, deadlines, and shows all your classes and assignments, projects in a single place.

• Refreshingly new UI
• Access from anywhere through its web app
• Sync and Backup
• Lengthy setup process

If you study from your computer or laptop, My Study Life makes it easy to access your homework planner on your phone from your computer, while not compromising on features and being completely free. What more can you ask for?

Install My Study Life ( Android  |  iOS )

7. iStudiez Pro

Like School Planner, iStudiez Pro includes grading and subject wise organization of tasks. iStudiez Pro takes it further with the integration of Google Calendar that allows you to directly get all your holidays, exam schedule, routine from Google Calendar itself.

It also offers separate apps on all platforms including iOS, Mac, and Windows. All the apps sync seamlessly between themselves, so studying on your computer consulting your planner won’t be an issue.

• Google Calendar Integration
• Cross-Platform
• Cumulative Price

If Google Calendar integration and cross-platform support is a must for you, iStudiez Pro is definitely the app you want.

Install iStudiez Pro ( Android   |  iOS )

So this was our roundup of the best homework planner apps for Android. We genuinely think that there is an app for every need and we hope that you found a Homework Planner that suits your need whether you are a high school student or a college senior. So which one was your favorite or did we forget to add yours? Let us know in the comments below.

Also Read:  Take a Picture of Handwriting And Convert to Text – Android Apps

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How to complete when you have lots of assignments ?

Assignment Juggling Mastery: Strategies to Efficiently Navigate and Excel When Facing a Pile-Up of Academic Tasks.

Managing multiple assignments can be overwhelming. However, with effective strategies and time management, you can complete them successfully. Here's a step-by-step guide on how to manage and complete multiple assignments on or before the given deadlines:

1. Prioritize Your Assignments:

- Start by identifying which assignments are due. Prioritize them based on deadlines. Consider factors like the complexity of the assignment, the amount of research required, and your familiarity with the topic.

2. Break Down Each Assignment:

- Divide each assignment into smaller, manageable tasks. It could include researching, outlining, writing, revising, and proofreading. Breaking down assignments into smaller steps makes them less intimidating.

3. Create a Schedule:

- Develop a detailed schedule or to-do list that outlines when you'll work on each assignment. Allocate specific time slots for research, writing, and editing. Be realistic about the time needed for each task.

4. Set Goals:

- Establish daily or weekly goals for completing portions of your assignments. Setting achievable milestones will help you stay on track and motivated.

5. Minimize Distractions:

- Find a quiet and focused workspace to minimize distractions. Turn off social media notifications and other distractions while working on assignments.

6. Use Time Management Techniques:

- Techniques like the Pomodoro Technique (working in focused intervals with short breaks) can improve productivity and prevent burnout.

7. Start Early:

- Begin working on assignments as soon as they are assigned. Procrastination can lead to stress and lower-quality work.

8. Utilize Resources:

- If you encounter challenges with a particular assignment, seek help from professors, or you can opt for platforms offering Assignment Help USA . Don't hesitate to ask questions when you're unsure about a task.

9. Stay Organized:

- Keep all your assignment-related materials well-organized, including research notes, outlines, and drafts. Use digital tools or physical folders to manage your resources.

10. Avoid Multitasking:

- Focus on one assignment at a time. Multitasking can reduce the quality of your work and increase stress levels.

11. Take Breaks:

- Allocate short breaks between tasks to recharge your mind. Use this time to stretch, walk, or do something enjoyable to prevent burnout.

12. Stay Healthy:

- Maintain a balanced diet, exercise regularly, and get enough sleep. Physical and mental well-being are crucial for effective time management and productivity.

13. Review and Revise:

- After completing an assignment, take the time to review and revise your work. Check for errors and improve the overall quality of your assignment.

14. Seek Extensions if Necessary:

- If you encounter unexpected challenges or circumstances that hinder your ability to complete an assignment on time, consider requesting an extension from your professor. Be sure to provide valid reason/reasons and request it before the deadlines mentioned in the instructions.

15. Celebrate Your Achievements:

- Acknowledge your accomplishments along the way. Reward yourself for meeting milestones and completing assignments. Positive reinforcement can boost motivation.

You must remember that effective time management and organization are crucial to completing multiple assignments successfully. Following these steps and maintaining a proactive approach to your coursework can reduce stress and produce high-quality work within your deadlines.

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How To Keep Up With College Assignments (Ultimate Guide)

Keeping up with college assignments can feel like trying to swim upstream with your hands tied behind your back. Even though this can feel impossible sometimes, there are many things you can do to make your semester go as smoothly and successfully as possible.

Here’s how to keep up with college assignments:

• Keep a weekly planner.
• Take notes by hand.
• Form an accountability group.
• Avoid burnout at all costs.

This article is meant to guide you through your college courses and to help you keep up with your college assignments. You will learn how to keep up with your studies, and how to avoid burnout at the same time. So let’s keep going.

1. Keep a Weekly Planner

If you’re always unsure of what you need to complete in a given week or what’s coming up in your classes, then you’re setting yourself up for failure. Get yourself a weekly planner and organize your thoughts and schedule for the week. 

People who use planners are usually much more organized and are able to tackle the events of a week efficiently and effectively. Take an hour at the start of the week, such as Sunday or Monday, and write out everything that you are responsible for that week.

Plan out the best days to complete each so that you’re not crunched for time.

Most weekly planners also have monthly pages, so you can also plan ahead for assignments that may require more than a week’s work. A larger project or final paper might need two or more weeks, so keeping up with the monthly portion will set you up to plan these types of assignments accordingly.

My favorite undated planner is the Clever Fox Undated Weekly and Monthly Planner (link to Amazon). This planner is great because you can pick it up and start whenever since there are no set dates on the pages. 

It helps break down large tasks into smaller, more doable ones and helps keep your priorities for the week in order. 

I usually recommend this planner for people who are new to using a planner because if you miss a week or struggle to get into the habit of filling it out, you aren’t left with a bunch of blank pages killing your motivation. 

Just pick up where you left off.

If you prefer a dated planner, then the Moleskine 12 Month Weekly Planner (link to Amazon) is my go-to, which is what I use for everything. The pages are clean, simple, and easy to keep up with. 

There are a few different sizes and colors, but I find that the pocket size in plain black is classic and fits everywhere I need it to. 

Things To Avoid in a Weekly Planner

It’s both a blessing and a curse that planners have absolutely skyrocketed in popularity. There are so many to choose from, with a million different sorts of goals in mind. Planners for fitness, water consumption, beer-drinking, inspirational quotes, or knitting progress all exist now. 

Being able to pick a planner that fits you best is great. However, these planners are bloated with useless pages and sections. Okay, maybe not useless but not incredibly useful either.

If your planner is meant to help you keep your assignments straight and limit your time procrastinating, then a planner with pages to list all of your favorite moments from the previous day, month, and year won’t help you. 

If you want a planner to help practice positivity and gratitude, that’s great. Just keep them separate, and put on one on your nightstand for pleasure and one in your backpack for work.

Schedule a Weekly Catch-Up Day

It can be very helpful to have a day or half-day schedule that’s always reserved for just catching up on work that you have fallen a bit behind on. This isn’t to be scheduled for anything else so that you can always count on some time to just sit and catch up before things get out of hand.

If you’ve been able to keep up that week, having that day completely free is something to look forward to. You can use that time to do whatever you love most.

2. Take Notes by Hand

Your classes are probably full of students typing out their notes on their laptops. This trend has been such a detriment to students being able to retain what they heard in their classes.

One widely cited study concluded that those who take notes on their laptops were much less likely to comprehend the content they were typing. Instead, they were unable to form the concepts that would help them understand the material ( source ).

In addition to laptops inviting a whole host of distractions into the classroom, typed notes are usually more like shallow transcriptions of the lecture. The hand-written notes would help them process the information that was communicated instead. 

Students who wrote out their notes with pen and paper were more likely to write out the lectures in their own words . When you take the lecture and translate it into a language that makes the most sense to you, then you’ll have a deeper understanding of the material and the ability to recall the concepts you learned. 

If you’re working through your assignments and are able to easily recall the lectures, you’ll be much faster than if you’re staring blankly at the script you wrote out on a laptop. 

Leave the technology at home. You’ll have less distraction and will find that you actually need less time to complete your assignments since you’ll have actually learned the material you’re working on.

3. Form an Accountability Group

Something that students report as being a huge help with keeping up on college assignments is having a group of other students keeping them accountable. Some of the different ways that students have formed accountability groups are with group messaging, tackling assignments together, and weekly work meetings.

The best way to form an accountability group will depend on who you have that would be interested in joining. If there’s enough interest in a particular class, then you might find that getting together and working on the weekly assignments together is very helpful. 

However, it can be just as helpful to form a weekly group even if the members are in different classes. 

In my own undergraduate years, I would form a group of a handful of other students, and we would meet up twice a week to work. Everyone was in different classes and had different work to do, but working together made it much more enjoyable.

4. Avoid Burnout at All Costs

The most important thing you can do to keep up with your college assignments, by far, is to avoid burnout. It doesn’t matter how on top of things you are the first few months if everything falls apart in the last weeks when assignments tend to be worth much more. 

Many other articles and academic advisors will stress that you must always put your college classes and their assignments first before anything. However, that’s bad advice. 

That’s the advice that led to a generation of burnt-out students and young adults. 

Burnout results from long exposure to stress, when you’re under the impression that you’re failing to keep up with your responsibilities or are just barely making it. It’s made up of physical, psychological, and relationship effects on the person ( source ).

Thankfully, the prevalence of burnout is becoming recognized as a serious problem, and universities are beginning to take notice of the effects it has on their student population.

Ultimately, before anything, the thing that should always come first is your own health and well-being. If you’re taking good care of yourself, then getting your work done throughout the whole semester will be much less stressful than if you’re overworking, undersleeping, and at your wits’ end on most days. 

The best way to get through the college semester and keep up with your assignments is to prevent burnout from happening in the first place. However, if you do feel as though you’re beginning to have some symptoms, then tackling that and getting your health in order should become the top priority. 

Once you’ve recognized that you’re experiencing burnout, if you ignore it and try to keep on trudging through the semester, then you can end up much worse off, both in your health and in your college classes.

Recognizing Warning Signs of Burnout

If you’re worried about whether or not you’re experiencing burnout, look back on the last few weeks of your life and make an honest assessment of how you felt on those days ( source ).

Additionally, begin to keep a journal where you can just quickly write down how you’re feeling physically and mentally. This can be a great tool for reference when looking for symptoms of burnout since memory isn’t always the most reliable guide. 

If you’re feeling some of these early signs, then you should seek some help before things begin to snowball:

• You’re feeling drained and exhausted most days.
• Having consistent body and headaches.
• Loss of appetite.
• Problems sleeping.
• Problems with feeling motivated.
• Easily feeling overwhelmed.
• Becoming apathetic towards school, work, and other pastimes.

If you’re experiencing some or all of these signs, then it’s time to seek some outside help. Most colleges provide free counseling services and support groups specifically for burnout since it has become such a burden on students. 

Additionally, it might not hurt to reach out to the professors of your classes. 

More often than not, they’ll be very empathetic and be willing to create a timetable for you to get back on track in a way that also allows you to recover from the effects of burnout at the same time. 

Ways To Combat Burnout

The best offense against burnout is a super strong defense. Taking care of yourself throughout the semester before things get out of hand will be incredibly helpful in keeping your stress levels at a manageable level. 

Taking a holistic approach to your life has been shown to do a lot of good when it comes to combating burnout in chronically stressful settings, such as college. 

Some of the best things you can do to stave off burnout are:

• Adopting a consistent exercise routine.
• Taking the time to eat well every day.
• Avoid alcohol and other drugs.
• Maintain your friendships and other relationships.
• Give yourself time to relax.

These are just some of the things you can do to try and keep up with your health and well-being. This is super important and will directly translate into further success in college as well ( source ).

Habits To Help Keep Up With College Assignments

Once the semester really begins to pick up, it can feel like you’re drowning in assignments, papers, and studying for exams. Once you start to fall behind, catching backup can be very difficult and exhausting. 

Keeping up with college assignments is a lot of hard work. 

Everyone struggles to keep up sometimes, so it’s not just you. Many college students feel alone in the struggle, so a good place to start is with the knowledge that this is something that all people at college struggle with from time to time, even the professors.

With this in mind, the difference between students who manage to keep up and those who don’t are usually the implementation of good habits. They have learned how or were taught how to study and work efficiently and have used that knowledge to make good habits to help succeed in college and later in their career too.

By learning what these habits are and practicing them in your own life, you’ll also start to see results in your success at college. 

Even when you stumble one week and find yourself procrastinating on an assignment, it’ll be much easier to get back on track if you’ve been practicing the following nine habits for keeping up with college assignments.

Final Thoughts

College is often talked about as some of the best and most exciting times of a person’s life. However, there’s a lot of stress and responsibility in college that isn’t talked about near enough.

Hopefully, with the habits I have discussed in the article, you’ll be able to have all of the fun the college experience has to offer while still keeping up with your college assignments and being successful in your classes!

Recommended Reading:

• Passing Grades in College: Understanding the Impact of a D
• Curved Grades – A Complete College Student’s Guide
• Unweighted vs. Weighted GPA Explained

Emily is an engineer at a Fortune 100 company. Her degree is in Chemical Engineering with minors in Mathematics and Chemistry. She completed 4 internships in college and graduated Summa Cum Laude in 2020. She is from Texas and currently lives in Seattle, WA. Emily loves hiking, traveling, and playing guitar. She is a very proud dog mom to her fur baby, Oliver.

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5 apps to keep track of homework assignments

The new school year is almost upon us, and there's no time like today to get ready.

Whether you are the student or it's someone else in your family, it's important to keep things organized and on track from day one.

While these apps can be useful for a wide age group, be sure and check with your local school district to ensure you're not breaking any rules by sending your child or teen to school with a smartphone.

1. Evernote Price: Free Download: Evernote for iPhone / iPod Touch / iPad , Android , Window Phone 7 , BlackBerry , Palm Pre / Palm Pixi , Mac , Windows , web .

While it's not an actual planner or calendar app, if you take notes to stay organized, then Evernote is for you. Take photos, copy web pages, save PDF files or just take notes and organize them all into folders. Search for your notes via tags or keywords in the notes themselves. Evernote can even search for words located in pictures you've taken — a pretty cool feature.

You'll never lose another sticky note or forget a reading assignment when you jot it down in Evernote. Just pull up your notes on whatever device you have, wherever you are. Free accounts are allowed up to 60MB of upload (or synchronized) data per month, which can be upgraded for $5 per month or $45 per year.

2. FC Tasks Price : $5.99 Download : FC Tasks for iPhone .

FranklinCovey is one of the best-known names when it comes to pencil and paper (even digital stand-alone) day planners. You would expect this company to have a mobile app to help make our lives more organized, and you would be right.

The FC Tasks app is a great stand-alone mobile product for anyone who's used to using the FranklinCovey system of productivity and time management. You'll see the familiar ABC-123 ranking method for all the task lists, but that's only the beginning. With this app, you can create recurring tasks, create multimedia tasks, delegate tasks via email and more. This is a top-of-the-line app from a top-of-the-line company.

3. Remember the Milk Price: Free to download; requires Remember the Milk Pro for Android and BlackBerry users. Download: Remember the Milk for iPhone / iPad , Android , BlackBerry .

Remember the Milk is a great to-do list service. The basic service is available online and can be integrated with web apps such as Gmail, desktop apps such as Outlook and the mobile app platforms listed above. Set your tasks, prioritize and get email alerts when they are due. It's everything you want in a to-do list.

While the web app is great, taking Remember the Milk on the road is the key to making this app work for you. Browser add-ons and widgets for other apps such as Gmail make this service seamless with other apps that you're already using. Read more in our Remember the Milk review .

4. ToDoMatrix Price : Free Download : ToDoMatrix for iPhone , BlackBerry .

The free version of the ToDoMatrix app is limited to six folders and 30 tasks, which is probably enough for you if you're a casual user. If you're looking for something more than just a homework tracking app, you'll want to look at in-app upgrades to remove these limits.

What started as a productivity app designed for business-minded BlackBerry users has made the transition to mainstream with the debut of its iOS app. Organize tasks, set flexible reminders, delegate and view just what you want with multiple display options. Your data is encrypted and backed up wirelessly to the cloud. If you're a BlackBerry user, you probably already know about this one; if not, it's definitely worth checking out the free version to see if it meets your needs.

5. Google Calendar Price : Free Download : Google Calendar for web , iPhone Sync , Windows Mobile Sync , BlackBerry Sync .

We've saved the best for last, despite the non-app status of this service. We think you'll agree once you see how seamlessly this free service from Google integrates with literally all of your devices. Start out on the web app and set up your calendars. From there, you can sync your calendar to all of the major mobile operating systems out there.

Google Calendar doesn't miss a beat with Google's own Android OS , as would be expected. Once you set up your Android device, it's an automatic sync with the Google apps on your mobile device. If you're on another operating system, syncing the built-in calendars on these mobile devices to your Google Calendar account is simple. There are few limitations, flexible reminders, multiple calendars, share features and more.

Getting your time back It takes a little practice to see which planner or homework tracking app is going to work best for you. Don't wait until the last minute. Start now, before school kicks off, and try them all (or at least the free ones). Once you've settled on which app design works for you, don't look back. There's no point in second guessing your choice, and once school starts, you will want to feel confident in your ability to use your app to organize your time so you don't miss any important deadlines.

More from Tecca:

• The best apps for taking notes in class
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Five ways to keep track of your deadlines

By now most of us have start­ed work­ing and for many peo­ple the fall will be filled with activ­i­ties, tasks and dead­lines all the way until summer.

When life gets hec­tic it is even more cru­cial to work on the right thing at the right time than when the tem­po is slow­er. Time is short and many things need to be com­plet­ed dur­ing the months to come. If we make sure we have enough fore­sight, we also enable our­selves to allo­cate our time across all the projects and tasks we are respon­si­ble for com­plet­ing in a more bal­anced way.

For you who pre­fer lis­ten­ing to read­ing, this post is also avail­able as an episode of the ​ “ Done!” pod­cast :

It is my guess that you also have a hand­ful of dead­lines to meet dur­ing the months ahead; dead­lines which indi­cate when what you are respon­si­ble for needs to be com­plet­ed, report­ed, sub­mit­ted, deliv­ered, done, or produced.

Get an overview

Clar­i­fy what dead­lines you have to meet in the next while ahead in a way that pro­vides you with an excel­lent overview of when what needs to be done, and when you will work on com­plet­ing it until the due date arrives.

This way you will not have to wake up one morn­ing and pan­ic when you real­ize it was this Thurs­day you had to deliv­er some­thing. Instead of get­ting a fright you will be able to plan your work I such a way that you get the most work done when it suits you the best in terms of both your sched­ule and your energy.

But, how and when can we get such an excel­lent overview of our deadlines?

Here are five examples:

• Pur­chase an annu­al cal­en­dar and high­light the dead­lines-dates in an appro­pri­ate color.
• Hang it on the wall and make a plan of how you should sched­ule your work in order to fin­ish on time.
• In a cal­en­dar like this the dates already have their own pre-print­ed squares and you will not have to spend time and ener­gy on design­ing the lay­out of the cal­en­dar. On the oth­er hand you have to live with the lay­out as it is instead of putting your own touch to the visu­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion of your plan.
• Go to a well-assort­ed sup­ply-store and pur­chase rolled up drawing-paper.
• Back at the office, roll out as many meters as you want to rep­re­sent the entire year with and draw a time­line from now until the same time next year. Divide the line into months and mark out your dead­lines with a highlighter.
• For the weeks reach­ing from now until the dead­line you draw thin box­es which rep­re­sent an hour of work every week and much thick­er box­es when you wish to depict full-time engage­ment in the project. This way it will be easy to deter­mine how much time you need to allo­cate to com­plet­ing tasks with dead­lines every week, and how much time you can afford spend­ing on tasks which emerge ad hoc.
• Attach a stick to each end of the roll so that it is easy to roll up or roll out the time­line when­ev­er you need to, or alter­na­tive­ly put the entire map on your wall, which will mean that there is no escap­ing get­ting remind­ed of it.
• Draw the year as a wheel divid­ed into twelve sec­tions, one for each month. High­light your dead­lines in an appro­pri­ate col­or and cre­ate some kind of point­er or nee­dle to indi­cate where you cur­rent­ly are on the wheel.
• Use a dig­i­tal sys­tem to keep track of your dead­lines, such as the open source-tool Time­Flow , where it is easy to get a visu­al overview of due-dates in calendar‑, diagram‑, or time­line-for­mat with­out hav­ing to draw much yourself.
• Allow book­ings in your dig­i­tal cal­en­dar with­out set times to rep­re­sent your deadlines.
• Include a tag in what you name the book­ing, for instance “[Dead­line]” so that they stick out from all the oth­er book­ings. You can also cre­ate a sep­a­rate cat­e­go­ry in a loud col­or which you cat­e­go­rize the dead­line-book­ing with. This way they are clear­ly vis­i­ble in the calendar’s month­ly overview.
• If you keep your dead­lines in your dig­i­tal cal­en­dar they will always be with you regard­less if you are using your com­put­er, your phone or are online using some oth­er device. But, depend­ing on how your par­tic­u­lar cal­en­dar-appli­ca­tion is able to dis­play the book­ings in dif­fer­ent win­dows or views, the pos­si­bil­i­ty to get an excel­lent overview might vary.

Go through your overview once a week

Regard­less what type of tool you choose to work with to eas­i­ly get an overview of your upcom­ing dead­lines, make sure to include going though it in your week­ly run-through. You should hence skim through the overview at least once a week and remind your­self of when what needs to be com­plet­ed, and there­after book time in your cal­en­dar for work­ing on these tasks or projects so that you are able to meet the deadline.

Be ahead rather than behind

If you cre­ate a clear overview of what your dead­lines for the com­ing year are, you will feel much sur­er that you are doing the right thing at the right time since it will be much eas­i­er to make sure none of your com­mit­ments gets neglect­ed (if you keep the overview up to date, that is). You will be able to work more pro-active­ly since you have more fore­sight and remind your­self more often of what dead­lines you have and when they are due.

What is your way?

What does your dead­line-overview look like? Tell me!

If you want more tips on how to create good structure at work, there are many ways to get that from me - in podcasts, videos, books, talks and other formats.

Yes, I want more tips!