Staying Organized at Purdue

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    One question I get asked quite often is regarding how I manage my time as a college student at Purdue. When I was a freshman, this would have been a challenging question to answer because high school was very regimented with teachers constantly reminding you of due dates for homework and tests. In college, there was a sudden switch where you are in charge of keeping track of your assignments yourself. Juggling both academics, extracurriculars, and working on campus means that I needed to find a reliable system to keep track of everything. Fortunately, there are multiple different platforms and tools that have aided in my time management skills and organization.



Google Calendar

    One of the most common ways of keeping track of your daily schedule, class times, and upcoming meetings is with Google Calendar. Its easy-to-use interface allows you to easily time-block your day so you can keep track of where you need to be and when. I also often keep important due dates in my calendar like deadlines for group projects or completion dates for short-term goals. Other similar software include the iPhone calendar app and the Microsoft Outlook calendar.



Notion

    With the highly customizable templates, Notion is great for tracking day-to-day assignments, to-dos, and long-term deadlines. I also use it for organizing coursework, keeping notes from work meetings, and creating shortcuts to helpful website links. It acts as a smaller digital planner for daily-use. It might take a while to get used to, but it ends up being very helpful for tracking assignments.



GoodNotes

    Whenever I am in class, I take notes on my iPad with the app GoodNotes! I personally love this app because it has a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate. It also has built-in folders that I can organize my class notes with. GoodNotes is also easy to export PDFs for assignments requiring that format for submission. This also works vice versa where PDFs can be imported, which means I can write directly on my class slides. Though there is a fee to be able to use all parts of this app, I believe it was worth the price for its easy notetaking of your classes. However, there is always the free option that contains limited resources, but is still effective for note-taking.



OneDrive

    Microsoft OneDrive is useful for keeping all of your notes and class documents in one location. With easy sharing capabilities to others, you can easily collaborate with other students on projects. This is completely free to use as a Purdue student, as well as every other software in the Microsoft Suite like Excel and Word!


    All-in-all, staying organized is a skill that takes time to learn. I have found that as I go throughout my college career, I have been able to explore different ways to optimize my organizational and time management skills. These software's have been really helpful for keeping me on-track with assignments, tests, and extracurricular activities.


Nicki Gieseke, IE '29



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