Instead, a giant pool of hours was released each week and we all had to fight over them like piranhas fighting over a cow – except with less blood and more elderly professors who couldn’t figure out how to center a title in PowerPoint. In addition, my first part-time job (working at the campus tech support center) didn’t have fixed hours. Every day, I had classes, hours at my part-time job, clubs, and other events. I’ll have to split this explanation into two parts, as I used it in a pretty different manner as a student than I do today. With that being said, let’s get into how I use my calendar. The principle is that there must be some external force or reason for doing something at a specific date and time in order for it to go on the calendar. Most tasks go into their own system now (currently Todoist), and the calendar is reserved only for events or tasks that must be done at a certain time. Today, I’ve stopped doing that almost entirely. However, I realized that I was just covering up the problem by shoving tasks over to the calendar instead of shoring up my own ineffectiveness with to-do systems, I was weakening the one system that did work. I’d let to-do apps get crowded with old and irrelevant tasks, making them all but useless until I’d force myself to do a reset. The reason for this is, historically, I’ve always trusted my calendar more than my other systems. Once upon a time, I used to try to shove literally everything onto my calendar. So why mention this? Well, it’s the reason why… My Calendar Isn’t for Tasks
What if you wrote everything that went through your brain – story ideas, phone numbers, homework, sensitive government secrets, arcane gibberish psychically channeled through you by ominous forces from a different dimension – on sticky notes and threw them all in one big trunk? How likely would you be to see the note about your math test on Friday? Not very. One of the most important facets of any app in a quick capture system is context – that is, an app needs to exclude lots of information in order to make the information it does store easy to find and use. So you want to put the tasks, events, and other pieces of information your brain generates into systems that will either notify you later, or that you trust you’ll check later.
Your brain is for generating ideas, not trying to store them. The purpose of a quick capture system is to get things out of your head and into a reliable external system as quickly as possible. However, they all serve one very important purpose. Are you from Tennessee? Cuz you’re the only ten I see ?īut no… it’s just a bunch of apps I use.
Well, it could be a backpack in my closet full of butterfly nets and ultra-slick pickup lines. Quick Captureīefore we get into the details, I want to mention that Google Calendar is part of my quick capture system. If you’re using a different calendar app, most of this will still work for you (calendar apps aren’t too terribly unique). In this post, I’ll show you how I used Google Calendar as a student, as well as how I use it today.
To avoid repeating that fate, I had to figure out how to use Google Calendar – my calendar app of choice and an integral part of my life.
And my high-school tactic, which was simply saying,Ĭome to think of it, that tactic didn’t always work out in high school either – which is why I showed up completely out of breath and wearing cargo shorts to an honors society ceremony during my senior year. In addition to classes, I also needed to keep tabs on my part-time jobs, clubs, events, meetings. When I started college, I quickly discovered that my calendar would be one of the most important tools aiding me in my quest to not completely fail at life.