Hey guys!

So I’ve started school again and I have to say, Uni is a very exciting period of time. It’s not a bed of roses, but it’s exciting.

There are so many things going on at every point in time in my life right now, and it is very easy to get overwhelmed. But today, I won’t be telling you about what is going on and what I’m busy with, I’ll be sharing with you my current set up and how it helps me cope with everything.

So let’s get into it. Just remember than I’m condensing a whole lot of information here, so this will be a long post!

1 | Physical Planner

I don’t know if you guys remember, but I’m using a Happy Planner this year. I love it so much I’m already starting to look out for my 2021 Happy Planner.

This year, I’m using a ‘It’s Your Year To Shine’ Vertical Layout Happy Planner. Here’s what it looks like!

Now this planner is awesome because it’s flexible. There’s a ton of writing space, and there is also freedom for you to add in your own pages, or to rip out pages with no permanent consequences.

Other than using it to plan out my days like I would use a regular planner, I also did a lot of tracking earlier in the year. My meal trackers, emotions tracker, daily gratitude, everything was just built in. These days, since starting school, I’ve less time to track these things, but having the space to journal really helps me to cope with everything that is going on.

At the present moment, here are some of the things I do in my planner:

1 | daily schedule – this is pretty self explanatory, I just write down what classes I have each day, which days I have to go to work and what time I have to get there by, project meetings, personal commitments and even my blocked out Me Time (because sis needs her Me Time to recover from everything)

One of the things I tried to do was to make my planner an hourly planner, so I printed grid lines to separate the space into hourly blocks. For me, it works for all my pre-planned and fixed time events, like my school and work schedule, but it left less space for my to do lists and journaling, so that is still a balance I am trying to find.

2 | to do list – by module

The way I list my to do list these days is slightly different. I no longer do it on a daily basis. Because of Covid, school has taken a more flipped classroom approach, so there really is quite a bit of work to do be done before our online lectures these days. Also, since I only have classes 2.5 days a week, I spend most of my time lesson prepping and there isn’t much sense for me spending extra time each week deciding whether I’m going to do this on a Monday or Tuesday.

What I do instead, is to sit down with my planner and laptop every Monday morning, before I start doing anything for the week, and I go through all my modules. The platform NUS uses is called LumiNUS and that is where the profs will list down what we need to do for each week. And I jot that all down in my planner.

I also leave one column for all my ‘Other’ tasks, so everything else that I need to do, whether work reminders, OSAAT plans, other personal tasks, all go under that column.

One other thing I do is to make sure I write down all the quizzes and deadlines I have that week in a separate column, so that it stands out and I don’t forget about it. It also doubles up as a grades tracker for me!

3 | daily journal

This is still a habit I’m trying to develop. I try to sit down every night and do a daily summary of how my day went, what was good, what was bad, and what I can do better. I also write down highlights of each day. And I say trying to build because I sometimes still end up forgetting. But I do want to be able to look back on something when this season of my life is over, so yes! Trying to build this habit!

4 | quotes

How could I not? You guys know how much I love quotes, so of course they will be present somewhere in my planner. They mainly exist as a form of decor of some sort, but also as little forms of encouragement for me when I look back on my weeks. More often than not, these quotes also reflect how the week was like for me, and some learnings that I hope to be able to remember at a glance.

5 | monthly review

This is arguably one of the most interesting things I incorporated into my planner system this year, which is to sit down at the end of every month to do a review and goal setting.

I do this at the end of every month, and this is when I look back at the month and evaluate how the month was, what was good, what can be done better, whether I achieved my short term goals. I also look at the upcoming month, what’s coming up, what can I expect in this upcoming month and how I foresee this month will be. I also set short term goals for the month.

This whole process is part of my reset process, so I start every month a fresh me. What happened last month stays there, so let’s not get too hung up over it and if it didn’t go well, well then new month, new changes.

Not going to lie, this also motivates me to do more during the month so that I have more things to review at the end, so that works:)

2 | Digital Life

Now, more than 90% of my life is happening online, so a digital planning and filing system especially important.

Here, I actually just wanted to share about Notion. My entire life is pretty much on Notion and I’m using it more than I use Google Drive, which considering how many documents and files and plans I have in Google Drive, is saying something.

Notion is where I study basically. All my notes, deadlines, reminders. That’s all on Notion.

I won’t be able to tell you very much in words, because it won’t make much sense, but what I have done is to create a template for you guys to use. It is the exact same system that I am using, minus all my information. And it will be linked right here: https://www.notion.so/Public-Template-Life-Hub-1244d298eeea4212b3f11e061749e949

Here’s a tip: sign up for Notion with your student email, like the one that ends with .edu and you get the Pro Plan for free because it’s under the Education plan.

Pro Tip: when creating tables for your notes, plans, schedule etc, just create a database for EVERYTHING, then sort them on each page using a filter. That way, you get all your data on one database and it helps. It really helps.

My digital filing system is not fancy or special in any way, so I’m not going to talk too much about that. I really just download everything and sort them out by semester > course > week. Because tutorials only happen alternate weeks for me, so on weeks when I do have tutorials, then I create a folder within the week for tutorial materials. And this is all stored on my laptop itself, so nothing fancy. The current plan is to just upload it all to Google Drive at the end of the sem so that I can clear space on my laptop, but that’s really all there is to it.

Update: So a week before finals, my laptop crashed and I basically lost all of my documents. So I’m just taking some time this Winter Break to explore some alternatives and I’ll share more about that soon.

3 | Staying on Campus

Now staying on campus is a whole new experience for many of us. And one of the biggest challenges I faced was figuring out what to bring to my room from home. So in view of having new people moving in soon, I’m setting out my packing list from Sem 1 right here.

Covid Essentials

• Box of Mask (you probably need about 2 boxes of 50 to get you through the semester if you’re using disposable ones)

Electrical Appliances

• Kettle
• Power extension cords (I brought 1, but I might be bringing 2 next semester)
• All your charging cables!

Hygiene

• Your shower essentials
• Towels
• Your clothes and undergarments
• Hand sanitiser (a larger bottle for your room and another travel sized one for your on-the-go use)
• Cleaning supplies
  • Magic Clean mop is your literal best friend
  • then you also need a couple of extra packs of both wet and dry wipes
  • having some wet wipes on hand is also good, I use the Dettol wet wipes
• Detergent, sponges and a cleaning cloth
• Wet Wipes (for your body, I mean you could also just take extra showers but I find this helpful when I need a quick mid class recharge)
• Laundry basket (even if you are not doing laundry in school, which I didn’t, you still need a place to put your dirty laundry until you can bring them home)

School Things

• Textbooks (if any; it took me a while to get used to doing everything online so for my first semester, I printed out all my readings and textbooks)
• Your writing materials
• Memo pads
• Sticky notes and flags
• Highlighters
• Planner
• Journal
• Spare notebooks

For your comfort and sanity

• Snack trolley (I got a trolley from IKEA and stocked it up completely with food supplies, everything from Milo to snacks to my medication, and this trolley might just be one of my best buys in my short 19 year old life thus far)

• Bed Desk (this is for those lazy days when you wanna have breakfast in bed or do some light readings in bed)

• Your fluffy friends (you may not be able to bring pets, but soft toys are a good alternative)
• A whiteboard calendar + markers (makes keeping track of deadlines much more visual in your room)
• A box of chalk (to my knowledge, there is a chalking tradition in most dorms, and this just comes in really handy; its also a good alternative to the whiteboard calendar, with chalk, your door and cupboard are your whiteboard)
• Plants (I suggest fake plants because there is zero maintenance involved, but if you want real plants, by all means. Point being, having some greenery in your room makes the world of a difference)
• Glade Air Fresherner!! OMGG I CANNOT EMPHASISE THIS ENOUGH THIS IS SUCH A GEM
• Laptop stand and/or a monitor setup
  • with the amount of time you’ll be spending looking at your screens, it probably is with it to make sure that your set up is comfortable for you

Extra stuff (so your room is just a little bit more extra)

• A flashlight (for emergency situations or just as extra closet light)
• Extra lights! Most rooms are fitted with yellow light, which I just am not a fan of, so my parents helped me to fit an additional white light in my room using blue tacks and magnets
• Pictures of your favourite people and quotes + thumb tacks (to help you set up your dream board)
  • this helps you to set up your own dream board, something I spoke about pretty extensively on Instagram and will be mentioning in my next post
• Extra stools and cushions (this is really just for extra surfaces to use, and doubles as seats for your friends if they come over to your room; it’s always good to be prepared to host)

So that pretty much sums up everything I can think of now, if there is anything else you guys wanna know, do feel free to let me know, and I’ll be more than happy to share:)

Till then, to those who are moving in for the first time this coming semester, I hope this list provides some sort of direction for you. It may not be exhaustive but I hope that it’s a sufficient guide to get you started. Moving in is daunting, but it is a really exciting new chapter of your life:)

To all those Uni students out there, have a great last couple of weeks of Winter! And to anyone else collecting results, all the best folks!