How To Schedule

Normally without online school and a pandemic, my schedule is crazy busy! That was one of the hardest adjustments to college, but even more so when I entered the nursing program and I had classes, labs, and clinicals to juggle. Often, my many busy schedules confused not only everyone looking at them, but it confused me to have so many schedules to keep track of! This is one of the biggest fears, and is one of the biggest adjustment challenges I had to overcome and figure out when I came to college, and then again when my schedule was further complicated when I started nursing.

Many people ask me how we juggle the busy schedule, keep everything straight. On top of that the stakes are high, with you making a scheduling mistake and getting the time wrong on something, sleeping through your alarm, getting caught in traffic and being late to class or missing a class or clinical, often results in a critical incident at my school. If the schedule isn't enough to make you crazy and stressed, the fear of getting into trouble with your professors for scheduling mistakes is even worse.

Therefore, let me help you to save you the time and energy it took me to find a system that kept me organized, informed, and (mostly) put together throughout my four years of college!

So for starters, I use multiple sources. Just in case you were to lose your planner or wherever you write all of your scheduling in, it pays to have multiple sources with the same information so you never forget about anything. I print off these free calendar print-outs at the start of every semester and take the afternoon to write my whole schedule and integrate each of my class/clinical schedules into one place, identical to the same thing I do in my planner, with the two sources being exactly the same.

The second thing I do is color-code everything, as seen above. The calendar above only has my class schedule on it, not any of my clinicals, but I will get to how I color-code those. For each class, I write the times I will be in class (ex: 10:30 -1:00pm or 1030 -1300 if you prefer military time) in black ink. I wait for it to dry and then highlight each class in a designated color, therefore Nursing 423 will all by highlighted in pink, Nursing 404 will all be highlighted in purple, Religion will all be highlighted in blue, with a key at the top of the page. That way at a quick glance, you have an idea of what classes you have, a whole picture to help you keep your schedule straight without much thinking or interpretation needed.

Then each class will have a clinical for nursing, so I take gel pens of whatever color I highlighted the class with, and write in the time I will be at clinical and where it will be if there are multiple sites with the matching color. So for my Nursing 404 clinicals that are highlighted in pink, I write with a pink pen to write in the clinical schedule. This helps me keep everything organized for what classes are which days, which times, which place. It also helps me track how much work I am doing for each class, and how much time I am spending of my day doing what. It helps me stay organized and mentally prepare if I know today might be a 12 hour day, while tomorrow might only be 6 hours of "programming" to help me plan other important things in my life that need to get done, such as making meals, laundry, cleaning my room, time to get my homework done outside of class and clinical, and time to commit to other obligations such as clubs and organizations that I am involved in.

I do this exact same system in my planner, as mentioned before, the two should look identical to each other! I buy the hard-cover Day Designer Planner from Blue Sky, and have never gone back. My 2019-2020 planner is pictured on the left here, and I recommend this kind to anyone! It has full calendars for each month, as previously pictured, while the weekly pages have Monday-Sunday with half open space on the left, half bullet-pointed space on the right to write your daily tasks, a weekly quote on the bottom of the page, and space for the top 3 for each week. I use this

space to write my top 3 goals for the upcoming week every Monday morning as I drink my coffee and prepare for my classes, but in the past I have filled it out at the end of the week with 3 things I accomplished for the week that I am proud of. This simple addition is one of my favorite features of the planner! It kind of keeps me grounded for the week, by identifying 3 goals to accomplish over 7 days makes everything seem more manageable. I also will add notes, in the bottom right, for things I want to remind myself, and I will fill in one thing of gratitude for the week that I am thankful for. This planner is my saving grace, my best friend, and my most precious possession when it comes to organizing and keeping track of my busy weeks and months of school! Everyone needs one of these! I buy mine at Target every September, and for having a planner, simple reflections journal, and a weekly devotional/gratitude practice all in one, it is absolutely reasonably priced.

Now, I do not just rely on paper copies of things to keep my schedule straight. As my backup, I use google calendars. It is so easy to use, with adding and deleting events very user friendly, and you can color-code everything to match your other schedules. Plus you can access it from anywhere you have internet access, as well as the fact that it is free. If you have a google account, you already have this application and don't know it, and if you don't, making a google account is free and easy to do. I also print off my professor's schedules for class for the semester, tape them up on my wall, and cross off each day on the schedule, so that I stay current on what is due, what is ahead, and how far I have come in the semester.

I will be honest, this method takes a full afternoon, and honestly it is quite a headache to get everything perfect and flawless into each calendar, as you have to maintain consistency. But my goodness, it has been the only thing that keeps me sane and on track with my hectic schedule that I have had for the last four, especially the last 3 years.

I hope that if you were struggling on how to format your schedule and keep it all organized, this post helped you and maybe gave you resources or ideas you hadn't thought of.

Go get your Day Designers and color-coded gel pens and highlighters, print off your free printables, and start familiarizing yourself with Google Calendars. Now is the time you start running your schedule instead of it running you! Happy Scheduling & Organizing my friends!

you are blessed. you are gifted. you are loved and appreciated, just as you are.

mindfully, molli