I Would Be Lost Without My Agenda
It's true. I would be. My agenda is the glue that holds my entire academic and extracurricular life together. I loved the Prep Avenue Planner I purchased back in July and use that as my blogging agenda for planning out Daily Dose of Prep and Markley Prescott, but when it comes to classes, interviews, homework, meetings, and everything else I just couldn't live without my Erin Condren Hourly agenda. This agenda has seven days in a two page spread and lists out every half hour from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. I purchased mine with the customizable cover and created it myself using Pinterest images and Canva. The coil is the extra cost gold coil and the color scheme is neutral, instead of colorful.
To organize my weekly activities and classes in my agenda, I use custom made stickers. I know it's an extra step that's not needed when it comes to organizing my week, but it really keeps everything neater so I like making them. They're extremely simple to make (I make them on Apple Pages, but you can do it on Microsoft Word too!). You can find my step by step tutorial here. Once you master how to do this, you never have to purchase Erin Condren stickers again and you can make the prints and colors and quotes fit the season. I have ADPi ones for recruitment and Christmas ones for when the holidays roll around.
To start, I stick in my class stickers. My Monday/ Wednesday classes are only 50 minutes long whereas my Tuesday/Thursday classes are 75 minutes long making for slightly larger boxes. I leave all of my classes in the same background so I know which box is class. I add the subject and time to each sticker, but don't bother with classes because after the first day I know where everything is.
Once I have my class stickers in my agenda, I add my work stickers. I work at the library on campus and shifts at work are small, yet often. All the black boxes represent work and I add the time off each shift. Working on campus is so beneficial because I can fit shifts at work in between classes and meetings. I also make sure to add in the stickers with weekly meetings. These meetings are in the same place at the same time and don't change so it's easy to predict them.
After classes, work and weekly meetings are added in, I then add meetings unique to that week and my blogging schedule at the top. These are all blank stickers that get written on depending on the blog schedule and meeting. I also use the boxes and write down what needs to get done that day. So, the blog schedule is what needs to be written that day, not what needs to be posted that day (which is why Friday and Saturday say "no post").
The last things I add in are my weekly quote in the upper left corner and a sticker with a new bible quote on it. I change out the quote depending on the holiday or week. I also write in long events like photoshoots and on this particular week, Mallard Ball because it would take up a lot of ink on the printer! I write in the beginning of a new shopping list on the left and then write in my homework. What I love about this agenda though is that once all the stickers are in, I use the left over lines to write in a to-do list. No, I won't write Thursday's blog post at 7 a.m. but I know it needs to get done because it's a part of the day's to-do list.
