How To School

19 y/o, student, photographer, trying to study harder

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Weekly planner

^So, the first planner I would like to discuss is my ‘Planning 2017′. I made this one out of a simple notebook, so a tip for you guys: don’t spend too much money on those expensive ready-to-use planners. You can make a planner way more personal by designing one yourself.  

This is the planner I use to keep track of the bigger lines in my week, such as lectures, rowing practices, birthdays and trips.^

^As you can see, I used washi tape, sticky notes and highlighters to arrange my planner. On every left page are all the days of the week. I made saturday and sunday smaller because I normally don’t have much to do in the weekend, but if you do have a lot of plans for the weekend, you can always make them bigger or put them on the next page.^

^For wednesday and thursday I already filled in some activities I have to do. On wednesday I have to go to the university and in the evening I have rowing practice. Thursday I have a meeting at the university and again rowing practice in the evening (just so you know, I have to practice six times per week). I always highlight every activity to label them as ‘fun’ of ‘no fun’. Activities like going to the university, going to the doctor or having my bike fixed are no fun according to myself, so I highlight them yellow. Activities I do like such as rowing, meeting my boyfriend or going on a trip are highlighted pink. This way, you can get an impression of how your activities are spread out over the week by only a quick glance.^

^At the top of the right page I pasted and wrote different things. On the left, in the blue bar, you can see the dates of the week. In the middle is room for notes, but I mostly use it as a to do list for the week. The things in this list have no specific deadline, but do have to be done. Whenever I have a bit of spare time, I look at this list and decide what I will do depending on the amount of time I have. Whenever I finished something, I highlight it blue. On the right you can see ‘week 9′ and ‘week 4′. The upper week, week 9, refers to the week of the year we are in. The week below, week 3, refers to the week of the semester I am in. One semester consists of eight weeks of lectures and two weeks of tests. This way I can keep track of where we are in the current semester.^

^I divided the bottom of the page in two parts. The left part, which says ‘Uitgaven’ (expenses in English), keeps track of all the money I spent that week. Those are mostly costs I made next to the expected ones such as groceries. The right part is for the next week, as you can see. If I have any important things to do the next week, I know that I can’t plan anything on these days. For example, this next week I have a rowing competition, but I am not sure yet if I will compete and if so, what day and what time I have to compete.^

So, this was the first planner I wanted to discuss. The nice thing about designing one yourself is that you can be as creative as you want to. I use different washi tapes and sticky notes every week, but my overall arrangement will stay the same. However, you can also change that every week.

For now I will close this blog, but tomorrow I’ll be back with a post about my study planner. If you have any questions you would like to have answered or anything you would like to share, you’re more than welcome!

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So the first topic will be about planners. As you can see, I have three different planners, for different purposes. For me it’s very important to keep track of all my plans, because otherwise my head becomes one big mess and I just don’t want to forget anything important. Curious about the purposes of these different planners? The next few days I will discuss all of them, so I’ll keep you updated!

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Where does this blog come from?

Every semester, I have to follow three courses which are all worth 5 studypoints. With four semesters a year, I can collect up to 60 points at the end of the year and recieve my propedeuse, or first-year transcript/diploma. Luckily, the board of the university realizes that not all students are that motivated and pass every exam the first or second time. Therefore, they came up with a BSA (Bindend Studie Advies in Dutch). This BSA means that you have to collect at least 45 points in  your first year to proceed to the second year. If you have less than 45 points, you have to quit your study and you may not start again on that university for the next three years.

So, as you could guess, this BSA is pretty important. Since I passed high school with two fingers in my nose (Dutch saying to express that something was quite easy), I had some trouble starting-up at the university. That resulted in having collected only 5 points after the first two semesters and failing three courses (I have to retake them next year). There is still one course that I don’t know my results of, so I’m hoping I passed that one. But, with only two semesters to go, I have to pass every course for the rest of the year and pass the one resit I have to do from last semester. Luckily I can resit every course the next semester or the interim period, but of course that’s just procastinating so I will try to pass every course the first time.

And thats where the beginning of this blog is coming from. Since I am easily distracted and lack a bit of motivation, I started to watch study-related videos and pictures on YouTube and Instagram. I realized that watching these videos and pictures made me quite motivated to start studying myself and that brings me to the purpose(s) of my blog.

The main purpose of this blog is to keep myself motivated. Let me explain the line of thought that occured inside my head: If I want post picture of, for example, my desk, I will have to clean it and organize it. I will have to collect my study materials, such as pens, highlighters, notebooks and the book that belongs to the course. And then I thought, if it is all ready laying there, perfectly placed on my desk, why not just start studying? So that’s how I hope to motivate myself.

The second purpose would be to motivate you to start studying as well. :)

The content will be as following: starting today, I will post a sequence of pictures that belong to some sort of topic. The first post is about the topic and the following post are more specific.  

Well, that’s enough talking for today. Let’s get started!

Ps. Happy Valentine’s Day! <3