How to Stay Organized at School with a Homework Planner

For many students at the middle school and high school level, forgetting homework assignments is a fairly common issue that can be easily solved by the effective use of a planner to keep track of homework assignments. This organizational tool will help students to see in advance what big assignments are coming up, along with remembering all the little things assigned at the very end of a class.

Homework Planner: What Planner to Purchase?

Some schools provide their students with free planners every year, but others do not, and sometimes planners provided end up getting lost, so it is important to know what to look for in a planner. This article has much more detail on the topic, but in brief, it should have three characteristics. First, it needs enough space to record all assignments. Second, if assignments are going to be listed in a dedicated space for each class, then it should be laid out with the days as columns. Third, it should be small and easily accessible for last-minute assignments.

Homework Planner: How to Record Assignments

The best way to record homework assignments is to write them in the planner on the day that they are due. Therefore, rather than looking at the current day when using the planner, students will look at the next day and do the assignments listed there that they need to have completed by the time of class the next day.

Homework Planner: Handling Long-Term Assignments

One large advantage of a planner is the ability to see and keep track of long term assignments (such as tests, presentations, and essays or research papers) with due dates coming up. Students can then set deadlines for themselves for getting stages of the assignment done each night.

The best way to record long term assignments and goals for completing parts of them is to have a special space at the bottom of each day for assignments in progress. After entering the big assignment on its due date, students should divide it into smaller chunks and enter them in the special spaces at the bottom of the days, so listing a completed outline of a research paper as being "due" two weeks before the paper, and a rough draft "due" a week before the paper is due.

Keeping personal goals of long-term project progress in a separate area from assignments that are actually due that day allows for easier prioritization and flexibility if that day is already full of things that are due.

Homework Planner: How to Record Completed Assignments

Lastly, in order to keep track of what assignments are done, and which ones still need to be completed, students should have a method for marking an assignment when it is done. It can either be crossed out, have a star or check mark placed next to it, or be highlighted upon completion. This allows for a glance to show what still needs to be done on any given evening, and helps to avoid forgetting to do assignments.