Speaker 1: Welcome to Grad Life Grind. If you're new to this channel, thank you for checking it out, and if you're already a subscriber, thanks for being back again. My name is Arielle and I'm a PhD student in clinical psychology, and in this channel I bring you information about the mental health field and talk about my journey as a PhD student. Today I'm going to be talking about how I get organized for a new semester. It's the beginning of September and the fall quarter is about to start. I know that many people I've been seeing on my Instagram account have already started their academic year. Mine's coming up soon, so I'm getting myself together for a new semester, a new academic year. September is my favorite time of year because it's my birthday, I'm a Virgo, and also because it feels like New Year's for me. It's a new year of life, it's a new academic year, and I love school. So I love spending time in September getting myself together for what's to come getting my goals together figuring out how can I make sure that I accomplish the goals that I set at the beginning of the year since it's the last quarter and also figuring out how I can start off strong for a new academic year so it's sort of a beginning and an end in its own way but yeah so I'm gonna go over some of the ways that I stay get and stay organized as best as I can I'm not perfect but this is these are the things I do. So the first thing I do is I start with my planner. I've shared my planner so many times on my story. It's the push journal. I have a discount code. There's a link in my bio, but this is what it looks like. And it works on a 90 day system. So it works out perfectly that it's September because I have some goals that I want to, that I want to hit by the end of the year over the next 90 days. So the beginning, the first few pages of the journal kind of map out your goals for the next 90 days so regardless of what kind of planner you use if you use digital or paper or whether you use the journal I have or your own doesn't matter but I start with my my planner um getting together like for the next month um but the thing so this is my monthly monthly view the thing about the push journal is that it's only 30 days so I also use google calendar like it's my life like google calendar runs my life if I woke up tomorrow and google was down which would never happen I'd be done like I wouldn't know where to go I wouldn't know what to do um so in order for me to look ahead I use google calendar for basically everything and then I have a written planner just because I really need to write to remember things as well so um the first thing I do is kind of set out my month on my planner and then also um on google calendar I'll show you what my google calendar looks like in a minute um the other thing that do to get started for the um for a new semester or new academic year is i print my syllabi i'll go through and like highlight important dates and then i'll manually go into my google calendar and add all the class times um so i have a class that's going to be on fridays from one to four so i'll put that in there and then i'll also put all the important like all the assignments and important dates up on my google calendar um the other thing that i do when i tell this to all first-year students or all students who ask me for organization or time management tips is I don't just schedule when the class is and when the homework is due or when the tests are. I also block out the same number of hours in the week to dedicate to that class. So for example, if a course is going to be four hours per week and you're going to be in class from 12 to 4 p.m., four hours, I also will block four hours somewhere else in my week to dedicate to that course and I am super color coded in my stuff um so I'll just have it as the same color so the way that that looks don't be don't be like scared of my google calendar let me see if I can um okay so I think you can see this so I have a class on Fridays from one to four and it's orange and so I've decided to block out another four hours actually I think it's three hours whatever i've decided to block another same number of hours over here um for the first week of classes and then um i'm also going to be taing a course so that that class is i think four or five hours so i blocked another five hours to dedicate to my grading and other things i have to do so when people are like how do you make sure that you have time to do everything this is how i do it if for one week, this course only gives me an hour worth of work, that's fine. It's still blocked as three hours in my calendar. So if I don't use the full time, then I'll do something else. Um, but that's one way to kind of just like a rule of thumb that I use. If the course is X amount of hours, I'm going to block X amount of hours. And sometimes you have to adjust that. Sometimes there's a lot of reading and you're going to need more than that. And you can go ahead. Your syllabi should say how many hours you should expect to dedicate to the course, but I typically just double it um because my syllabi aren't available I just took an old one so this is like I'll highlight important things and then I'll literally go through the course outline I'll literally go through the course outline and wherever assignments are due I'll enter that in google calendar um but then there's also the readings which is where the work time is is scheduled so um this is where the game changer comes in um it's literally just a sheet um and it has the lines are a little bit like different for what what it's for and then for the tasks and then you can check them off um so this is a template the way that I use this is um there's 10 weeks there's actually 11 weeks in the quarter at my program so I printed 10 of them because the last week is like finals week and um I'll just write at the top like fall 2021 week one week two so I already did that and then the way that I use this is if I this came in serious handy in my first year of the program because I was taking like six seven classes so I would put like um I don't know what courses I was taking cognitive psychology research methods um child development blah blah blah each course name um in the like heading and then what tasks I have for the week so read chapter one read chapter two take a quiz um you know do write do a summary so that's how I stayed accountable week by week it's really up to you if you want to also put that in google calendar for me it was easier to just say like okay I know that every Tuesday is when I sit down and work do the reading and the homework for my research methods course so on Tuesday I'll look at my weekly sheet and be like oh I'm supposed to be doing this so I will usually take the syllabus and fill out these sheets so they tell you in the course outline like okay week one it says overview of major theories of development readings um there's nothing and then week two prenatal development and infancy and then it'll tell you the readings chapters 10 12 1 this is grad school reading for one book chapters 10 11 and 12 for another book chapters 1 2 and 5 and then two scientific articles um in one week so i would i would normally go through the week outline and put it on my own the reason why I do this is because then it's all in one place all my courses in one place as opposed to looking at this at three or four or five different syllabi every single week to figure out what to do that's crazy to replace this you could just put it in your google calendar right and say like oh uh reading like chapter one chapter two whatever and block out the time that you're actually going to get that done this is just what helps me I like to write I like to hand write stuff so if things do change during the semester sometimes your professors are like oh the assignment is is extended oh we didn't get to such-and-such section so don't worry about such-and-such reading no problem instead of doing all of these sheets for week one through ten I'll usually do like the first two or three before school starts when I get the syllabus and then every like Sunday I'll sit down and do my task list. Once I get the syllabi for the courses that I'm going to be taking and teaching this quarter, I'll have, I'm going to take substance abuse. So that's going to be here. I'm going to take, I'm going to be TAing research methods. So that'll be here. And the tasks will be like, um, read chapter, whatever grade assignment one, blah, blah, blah. And then I also have dissertation. I have work. I have grad life grind stuff. Like I, I have different roles that I have as a grad student research work student TA so this is what helps me kind of stay organized so once a week I'll sit down on Sunday or Monday and map out this and then on my google calendar I have the time blocked out where I'm going to dedicate to each thing so I usually color code this I have an old one so I had things to do for my lab things to do for dissertation um what does this even say um i was applying for conferences and grants and funding scholarships and stuff so i had the task for that um i was working on a on a work study thing my work study job that was this um this is my other work study job here and then i had like other other stuff i also will sometimes put like personal stuff on here so the way it'll probably look for the fall quarter is going to be did I already say this I think I did um substance use is the class I'm taking I'm going to be TAing research methods I'm going to be working on dissertation I also I'm a research assistant I'm going to have work study stuff like other I work in admissions um I'm also gonna I'm also now president of the my school's Latino student organization so that'll be there and then over here I might put like personal so it's like check the mail pay your bills my car registration was just due so things like that um these things helped me like run my life yeah so that's kind of how I use the task sheets and like I said because my syllabi are not available yet I haven't figured this out for my dissertation I'm planning to make kind of like my own syllabus of what I'll deliver to my my advisor on a bi-weekly basis because we're going to be having bi-weekly meetings so um yeah so basically once I have my actual syllabi the one for the class that I'm TAing the one that I'm taking once I create my own kind of mini timeline for my dissertation tasks this quarter then I'll be able to kind of fill this out a bit more this is what my calendar looks like when everything is on it and it looks crazy to other people and every like once in a while when there's like a break I just like delete everything like even my morning routine and it's just like empty and it's like ah but the majority of the time I have everything so like my day will start with a workout with getting ready with my morning routine with breakfast and then if I have to commute I put that in there um if I have like meetings or appointments I put that in there it might seem like like a lot for other people because you're like okay I know that I have this meeting I can plan accordingly in my head this just clears my my mental space like there's already so much stuff that I have here that there's absolutely no reason for me to just like clutter my mind with the meetings that I have when I could just write it here or on my planner so if you're somebody who's like how do I even begin to get organized one thing at a time like now that I have this system in place between google calendar my task sheets and my planner now I'm starting to add um other things like focus apps I'm experimenting with a habit tracker that I have on my fridge like things that I want to make sure I do every day um I'm experimenting with a chore chart like I've seen that people like parents will put a chore chart on the fridge for their kids and it's like different colors and stuff adulting is freaking hard like keeping track and having your own place and having a car and having you know bills all this stuff it's a lot to keep track of there's absolutely no shame in having reminders and like helping keep yourself accountable these systems are just to help me be more on autopilot because if I have to hold it all in my mind it's just too overwhelming like there's so much already I think that when you can write things down or have checklists it can ease your mind a little bit and so that's why I create checklists for everything or if I have big projects I'll break it down into small tasks so for my dissertation like I have I'm doing a dissertation series about my process on YouTube but I have a spreadsheet and I'm breaking down like by quarter what my dissertation tasks are and they're small they're like 10 minute tasks okay find articles on this topic find articles on that topic print articles create a folder on this You know, whatever like start your outline email this person reach out to that person Really small tasks. It's just having a list and being able to check things off really really really helps me I think that I started doing that in high school. So It's what helped me be really efficient I think that if I do say so myself I get a lot done and I do a lot of things Aside from small steps like I wouldn't call my schedule strict. I would just call it structured there are a lot like a lot of times where I block in my calendar to do this or that thing and I don't and then I give myself the grace to say like okay I didn't like I didn't get to it today and I'll try again tomorrow and I'll move like I'll drag it in my google calendar to next week or I'll drag it to the next day there are things today that I didn't get done earlier this morning and I drag them to tomorrow like it's okay it's just having the system in place like having the structure can be helpful um for those who find it helpful right so it's not for everybody um so i would give um kind of a caution that if you're wanting to get more organized and you're wanting to add some more structure to your life that you do it with grace and that you do it um aware of the fact that it can be overdone like there is such a thing as being over scheduled overbooked and like that's that's not the goal so when I when I like my page is called grad life grind the grind is not grind all the time work all the time the grind the real grind is figuring out how to work and also maintain balance that's what's a grind for me because I am much more likely to fall into like overworking or doing nothing what's really challenging is finding a balance between the two and as over scheduled as my calendar looks um not all those things are work so literally I think last week or the week before I blocked an hour in the middle of the day from 2 to 3 p.m to garden outside on my balcony your calendar is not going to turn you into a machine you're still a person I'm just going to recap what I do and how oh I missed one thing since I'm recapping so I'll share it at the end so usually the way that I get organized for a new semester is by printing the syllabi getting my planner together mapping out you know my goals for that quarter I don't know if I mentioned that before but my program's on a quarter system whether you're on quarter or semester system I try to set goals like what do I want to achieve this semester this quarter and that's not just for school like I have academic goals but I also have life goals so I have goals in the for the next 90 days just for me as a person and they're mixed some are personal and some are are school related some are grad life grind related etc so planner um printing syllabi and getting my goals together at the beginning of the school year or semester then I once I print the syllabi go through and highlight the important things and I'll add them to my Google Calendar. I also will print my task sheets and start to fill them out based on the different roles and classes and responsibilities that I have in my life. I do not go all the way to week 10 at week zero because things change and that doesn't make sense. And then the other thing that I do is that I didn't mention earlier is that I make folders on my laptop and on google drive for each thing so I'll have um I have my work-study job therapy resources because your girl is a therapist in training um substance abuse is the class I'm going to take research methods is the class I'm going to be TAing this quarter guard life grind folder I also have a folder for per year in my program so I have a year one year two blah blah blah so that at the end of each quarter I'll, I'll grab all the classes that I took and I'll put it in there. Um, I have a dissertation folder. I have a to read folder. Don't just mind your business about that. Um, I have a personal folder. I have a manuscript folder that I'm trying to, that I've been meaning to prepare forever, other things. So I create these folders at the beginning of the semester and at the end of the semester, maybe I'll do another live when that happens. I'll usually take all of the folders and put them into one for the quarter. So I have fall 2019, quarter one, winter 2020, quarter two, quarter three, and in there is where I drop all the classes I was taking. So in winter 2020, I was taking one, two, three, four, five classes. So yeah, so I do the folders. I also put them on my desktop because sometimes I download things to my desktop and I don't have time or feel like putting it to google drive i just do both um and then at the end of the quarter i'll drag everything that was on my desktop onto google drive delete it from my computer um yeah so those are all the things i do to get myself together for a new semester especially in september when there's a new academic year coming it's my favorite favorite time of year don't forget that these task sheets are going to be available for free download in the link in my bio today so if you watch this live to the end i love you thank you so much uh it was really fun actually to walk through what i do and it honestly has so many parts the ways that i stay organized for a new semester in a new academic year i do a lot of things to try to try and stay organized and nevertheless i end up missing things forgetting things not getting to everything because i'm a human but i hope that in some ways uh this live was helpful to you and i hope that i will see you checking back on another live soon thank you