Student Blog: Post-It Fix-It: Managing Courses Approaching Finals

Coming out of midterms, one typically expects a break. Some get it. I have a friend whose homework became near nonexistent after midterms, but then there’s also situations like mine where right after midterms it’s finals season. Because I do not have many exams, if at all, my work is primarily papers, video essays,  and projects which is nice in some ways. I can work with others, talk out my ideas, get feedback from professors, etc. However, there’s something to be said of the long haul all of these assignments are. We’re given weeks to months to complete these assignments, but often with benchmarks scattered throughout. I have a rotating series of in-progress work due, proposals, and rough drafts for various assignments all in different stages of completion. It is hard to keep track of and if you forget a due date, good luck, because this is not the kind of work you can just jot down the night before.

My first year, this all hit me rather hard. I struggled to keep everything straight and when I did, I found myself exhausted from either last-minute panic or the ever-present anxiety of falling behind. Going into second semester, I bit the bullet and tried to find a way to organize my time. I both bought and created several weekly planners and notebooks, even learned Google Calendar and the iPhone calendar app (years too late, I know, but I’ve always been more analog when it comes to scheduling). None of it was helping and honestly for no recognizable reason. Sometimes they got lost, sometimes I forgot about them, or sometimes I’d get so anxious just looking at them that I would refuse to open the book, app, or tab for days. Honestly, the fact that nothing was working was starting to cause more anxiety than the homework itself, but then I had perhaps one of my dumbest thoughts ever. 

I’m incredibly forgetful, to the point where once I called my father and he picked up, saying he would call back in 5 minutes. Over thirty minutes went by before I remembered and opened my phone to three missed calls and several confused texts. And technically, I didn’t remember, I just encountered the same problem that prompted the original call and went: I should ask Dad… oh wait. Because of this, my life is plastered on endless sticky notes. Doctor’s appointment? Sticky note. Story idea? Sticky note. New episode drop? Sticky note. My desk is essentially a mosaic of pink, blue, and green. I like it though. It’s cute. They brighten up my room even if their content isn’t terribly uplifting. 

It’s gotten to the point of obsession and I’d genuinely do everything with them if I could, but they’re too small. I love my bright little stickies, but a full semester of homework takes more than ten lines on a 3x3 square. Still, part of me wondered if everything would be easier if I just made one massive sticky note.

So, I did. I opened a Google Doc and made a chain of sticky notes long enough to cover over three months worth of homework, meetings, and due dates. It’s a graph with 6 columns and probably hundreds of rows. Each column has its own color and contains a class with the far left one being reserved for dates and the odd non-school related responsibility. Every time something is completed, I cross it out and each task seamlessly flows into the next, creating one big to-do just like my sticky notes. 

I guess, in the end, it didn’t really look like a sticky note, more like a wall of sticky notes, but it functions much the same. Would I recommend this system? Absolutely not. Once everything is inputted it’s fine, but switching over the dates and logging all the assignments at the start of every semester makes me question why I can’t just use a normal planner. Also, while it’s helpful for me to have just one big list with no obvious breaks, every friend I show it to says it overwhelms them. However, maybe this will click with other Post-It note enthusiasts.

While I can only suspect why this method works for me, I do think it is important to find the organizer that works for you whether that be Google calendar, a paper planner, or a multicolored graph in Google Docs. At the end of the day, it’s there to serve you and your time, so it’s best to just find what works for you.

Since I created this, I have never had to worry about missing anything, well, due to forgetfulness anyway. There will always be the issue of not wanting or not being able to do the work, but having this tool has alleviated a whole dimension of stress and anxiety from my school life and anything that does that is worth the time. So, yeah, that’s how I’m staying on top of everything this semester and likely for the remainder of my academic and professional career.