My Top Study Suggestion for my Daughters

Next month my youngest daughter heads into her second year of University and my oldest into her first year of Graduate Studies, and although I've told both of them my various tips and tricks for studying, a good friend reminded me today I've never written them down, so here goes:

Introductory Time Management (a.k.a. Use a Calendar)
Remember how Junior High (middle school) and High School orientation days always included getting a student calendar/day planner? If you were like me, you'd kind of flip through the book, remove any fast food coupons, then toss it to the bottom of you bag or the back of your locker until it was time to clear everything out at the end of the year.

Here's the funny thing, if you actually use that calendar, it can make your life a whole lot simpler.

Personally, I create my own calendar, which is filled out as soon as I get my various course outlines, so that I can step back and look at all of my upcoming assignments, tests, presentations, etc. and decide where is the best way for me to spend my time for today.

Looking at my sample calendar for the month of October, I can see a couple tight spots, specifically at the beginning of the month where two mid-terms and an assignment fall; this let's me know that I should really make sure the assignment is through the rough stages before the tests, only leaving me with revisions after I write a mid-term on the 3rd.

Another great use of this method, is it let's you know at a glance, where the tightest spots are, so that you can go to your teacher way ahead of time and ask if you can hand in/present your work early. For obvious reasons this doesn't work with tests, but a little wiggle room for one paper can give you that much more time to work on your group presentation over the weekend.

Now there are many different ways of getting this type of work done (I've recently been looking at bullet journals as a possible alternative), but for me, the process of creating a term(or semester)-long calendar gives you a great visualization as to exactly where to do your school work most effectively.