NOTEOLOGY

Lots of people, including myself, have included “read more books” on their list of New Year’s Resolutions. So I thought I’d compile some book recommendations to provide you guys with inspiration! In no particular order, here’s a list of 101 books I’ve read and loved.

FICTION

NONFICTION/POETRY

P.S. If you’re trying to read more in 2017, check out my posts about goal-setting and habits!

Thanks for reading! If you have questions, feedback, or post requests, feel free to drop me an ask.

+Click here for the rest of my original reference posts!

—Sophia :)

I’ve been searching for the perfect planner for the past several years. After trying agendas of all shapes and sizes, bullet journals, apps, binders, whiteboards, and notepads, I’ve finally settled on a planning system that’s efficient and convenient without being too time-consuming to maintain. In today’s post, I’ll be sharing my personal planning system, which will hopefully provide inspiration for you to develop or refine your own.

THE CRITERIA

To start off, I made a list of criteria for my planning system by answering the following questions:

What do I need to plan? I needed my planner to keep track of all my homework assignments, quiz/test dates, after-school activities, and miscellaneous activities and events such as parties and doctor’s appointments.

If you have a job, you may need to include your work shifts and paydays in your planner. If you live with other people and/or have kids, you might need a planner that can sync several different people’s schedules.

How precisely do I need to plan? I decided I needed a broad monthly overview so I could see what was coming ahead. (I pretty much never have assignments I need to work on more than a month in advance.) I also needed to break down each day in 15- or 30-minute chunks in order to use my timeboxing method.

Depending on your needs, you may find that a yearly, weekly, daily, and/or minute-by-minute planner works best for you. Some people work best with a strict schedule; others thrive with a little more flexibility.

How much time can I spend planning? The intricately decorated planners in the #studyspo tag are beautiful, but I knew that I wouldn’t have the time to replicate them. I needed a portable, barebones system that I could maintain anywhere and anytime with only a black pen.

Of course, if you love stickers and washi tape, go nuts with the decorating! Do whatever helps you use your planner consistently.

With those criteria in mind, I settled on a two-part planning system composed of a monthly calendar in a regular paper planner and a digital timeboxing tool on a website/app.

MONTHLY CALENDAR

For my monthly calendar, I use this ban.do agenda that I received as a birthday gift. It’s a super cute, fun, and girly planner, but I honestly don’t think it’s worth $28 plus shipping. The paper quality is nothing exceptional, and the boxes for each day on the monthly view are a bit too small for my taste. A standard cheap planner from Target or even a printable monthly calendar would work just as well.

I’ve created a fake calendar to use as an example in this post. Here’s what the monthly spread in my planner looks like at first:

I take my planner with me each day to school. Whenever my teachers assign homework or set a quiz/test date, I write it down on the day it’s due. I write events and appointments on the day they’ll take place. So the days end up looking something like these:

My planner also includes weekly spreads with large boxes for each day:

I don’t write in these too often, but sometimes I use them for adding extra information about my assignments such as specific requirements, hints from my teacher, and reminders to myself. For example, I might add notes about the math test I have on Thursday by writing this under December 1st:

TIMEBOXING

Now that I have a good overview of everything I have to do, I use timeboxing to plan out each day in detail. I recommend you first read about the specific steps that timeboxing encompasses in my time management post, but it’s essentially allocating tasks to certain blocks of time.

I prefer to do timeboxing digitally because it’s easier to adjust the times and move things around. My tool of choice is Plan {Web//iOS}. You could also use Google Calendar, a table, or a spiraldex.

Plan has monthly and weekly views as well, but I tend to stick to the daily view. I consult my monthly calendar to turn my assignments and deadlines into actionable tasks.

(click here for full size)

As you can see in the example above, when I block out a chunk of time to do something, I include specific steps to help me accomplish it. I also schedule time for exercising and relaxing, because I consider those just as important as studying.

Overall, I find that the structure that timeboxing provides really keeps me accountable on a day-to-day basis. I procrastinate and dawdle less when I have a schedule that tells me exactly what my next task should be and when I should do it. And I feel calmer because I know that accomplishing everything on my plate is possible, as long as I simply stick to the schedule.

I hope you’ll be able to use my planning system to create or improve your own. Here’s wishing you an organized, productive, and happy 2017!

Thanks for reading! If you have questions, feedback, or post requests, feel free to drop me an ask.

+Click here for the rest of my original reference posts!

—Sophia :)

THE POWER OF HABITS

Willpower is a limited resource– it’s constantly depleted throughout the day. You use some up each time you have to force yourself to do something. Habits, on the other hand, are automatic actions that don’t require willpower, such as brushing your teeth and biting your nails. By building positive, consistent habits, you can regularly get more done without draining precious willpower and energy.

BUILDING HABITS

Set a trigger. This is the cue that will remind you to perform a habit. Take something you already do (i.e. going to bed) and attach a habit to it (When I go to bed each night, I will take five minutes to write in my journal). Some other examples include:

“Gamify” your tasks. This tip comes from blogger Thomas Frank, who suggests using the reward mechanisms from video games to make sticking to habits more fun. He does this using Habitica {iOS//Android//online}, an app where you play as an RPG character and earn experience, health, and cool items for completing your habits. The app also has a social aspect where your completion of tasks impacts your friends’ characters’ health, providing extra impetus.

Create accountability devices. Set up a system that incentivizes you to stick to your commitments. A famous one is Don’t Break the Chain, which motivates you to continue your habit in order to keep the chain of X’s going. If you’re feeling extreme, sign up for Beeminder, which charges you real money for going off-track with your habits. Another great effective device is peer pressure (the positive kind!). Announce your goals to your friends/family so they can check up on your progress and keep you on track.

Be patient. The popular saying that it takes 21 days to form a new habit has been proven to be untrue. Research has found that it takes anywhere from 18 to 254 days to form a new habit (depending on the difficulty), with the average being 66 days. So start small by focusing on one or two little habits for a couple of months, only take on new habits if your old ones have become automatic, and be gentle with yourself if you slip up.

LITTLE HABIT IDEAS

Here’s a list of small daily habits for you to start with, as well as some specific apps that will help you along the way. Choose a couple and stick to them!

BREAKING HABITS

How do you go about breaking a bad habit, such as nail-biting, stress-eating, or procrastinating?

Reduce triggers. Cut out anything that makes you engage in your bad habit. If you tend to eat too much junk food after school, throw out your unhealthy snacks or keep them out of reach. If you put off doing your homework by playing a game on your phone, delete the app and only re-download it once you’ve finished your work.

Replace them with good habits. Bad habits are usually caused by sadness, stress, or boredom, so find other, healthier ways to relieve those negative emotions. Try going for a walk instead of watching TV, eating fresh fruit instead of ice cream, or reading a book instead of playing on your phone.

Surround yourself with like-minded people. You don’t have to ditch all your friends, but it’s hard to break bad habits when the people around you are participating in things you’re trying to avoid. Even finding one or two buddies who can set a good example or who are trying to break the same habits can be immensely helpful.

TRACKING HABITS

Some apps and tools to help motivate you and record your habit building/breaking progress:

Thanks for reading! If you have questions, feedback, or post requests, feel free to drop me an ask.

+Click here for the rest of my original reference posts!

—Sophia :)