Tips and Tricks to Staying Organized Online

Through your years in college, something you can do to make your life easier is staying organized. We are fortunate to have the technology to help do that. In this short blog, I’ll talk about some apps that you can use on a daily basis to stay organized.

Google Calendar

I am a huge Google Calendar fan. My calendar has my entire life on it. You can access Google Calendar from any computer since it is web-based. You can also download the app on your phone or tablet. 

I highly encourage you to add the following sets of lists I mention. I understand if it may make your calendar look filled and overwhelming, but you can always remove events after that you don’t have time for or don’t want to attend. 

On LionPath, you can download your schedule with the courses you are enrolled in. You can then import that file into Google Calendar. It will then display all of the information for each course (location, section number, and professor) and account for the holidays and breaks.

You should add any important dates from each of your classes syllabus:

• Exams (include times, location, and any materials you need to bring)
• Labs (include location and write if you have to wear certain clothes/shoes or bring anything)
• Professor and TA office hours

Other things you could add to your Google Calendar:

• Club events 
• Study groups 
• Exam reviews
• Sport events
• Fitness classes

I also suggest filling your blank times with:

• Meals
• Naps
• Homework/study (write which classes)
• Hanging out with friends
• Birthdays 

On Google Calendar, each event you schedule you can add various notifications. These notifications can be sent through emails or via push notifications at various times before the event (minutes, hours, or days before). 

I suggest color coding your events based on category or importance. When friends ask to hang out, it is super easy to screenshot your schedule and text it to them to see when you’re both free.

Google Drive

I suggest keeping a To Do List in either a Google Doc or Google Sheets. Here you can make bullet points/tasks of things you want or need to do after consulting your Google Calendar.

Canvas

Make sure you go into your settings on Canvas and set your preferences to email or text you when certain things occur in your classes. 

Emails

You can keep your Penn State email through Outlook or forward it through Gmail. I suggest checking your emails throughout the day and filtering through them. I like accessing emails through both my phone and laptop. When I would wait for a class to start, I would look through my emails. Anything that I read which requires me to respond or perform an action, I make it unread on the app to remind myself to do it.

Devyn Kirban

Team B Mentor