Throughout middle school and high school, everyone in my school was given an agenda book. My agenda book always managed to find itself nestled at the bottom of a dirty laundry pile, underneath my bed or shoved in the back of a drawer, until eventually it was lost for good. Fittingly, I occasionally forgot homework assignments, would fail to remember exam dates and miss club meetings. With that being said, I always managed to get by because high school is not nearly as strict as the real world.
Fast forward a few years to when I was a freshman in college, taking five classes, participating in clubs and adapting to my new life at school. I quickly found myself falling behind and forgetting assignments, because unlike high school, college professors do not remind students when assignments are due. College students are expected to be proactive and are held largely more accountable.
After forgetting the first assignment due in my freshman English class, my friend suggested I utilize a planner. She claimed a planner was the best way to stay organized, prioritize tasks and create a consistent schedule. Needless to say, she convinced me to purchase a basic planner from Temple’s bookstore.
Three years later, I can confidently say that purchasing that $10 planner was one of the best investments of my entire life. Upon first buying the planner, I finally felt as though I had control over my life because I was able to visually understand and plan my class schedule, assignment due dates, meetings and other leisure activities.
No longer was I struggling to remember what I should be doing at a particular time. My time management improved profoundly. When I studied abroad in London during my junior year, I purchased the same $10 planner I bought freshman year, and paid $20 for international shipping because I relied heavily on the planner’s format.
Not only is my planner essential to my success, but planners are also essential to most career fields, especially public relations. This past summer I interned for a multimedia communications firm. Employees at the firm had personal planners, along with notebooks, that they utilized and traveled with constantly.
Online calendars are also imperative to the firm’s operations. Employees sync their online calendars, informing everyone of deadlines, meeting times, availability and travel plans. Online calendars are crucial for the firm’s success because the communications industry is a notoriously fast-paced environment, with numerous tasks and events occurring at the same time. Without a communal calendar for sharing information of varying importance, the company would be unorganized and would not operate at maximum efficiently.
Technology has increased the speed and rate at which communication and business occurs. Since everything is evolving more quickly, a variety of obligations are constantly being rescheduled for different dates, times and locations. This makes it difficult to stay organized with a fluctuating schedule, thus having a place to record information is crucial.
Personally, I have bought the same MEAD brand planner for the past four years, which provides me with a monthly and daily calendar. I could not be more satisfied with my inexpensive, yet priceless, planner. Whether a standard physical planner is utilized, or the up-to-minute online calendar, a place to document daily to-do lists is a great way to stay organized and be prepared to tackle any day’s objectives.
This blog post was written by Account Associate Aaron Keeports.
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