Using a digital device such as a smartphone or tablet will allow you to get automated alerts and reminders for events in your schedule. This is great because it allows you to spend less time having to continuously write down the same schedule over and over and having to check it again and again to ensure you don't forget anything, which is the case when using a traditional planner. When using a your tablet or smartphone you can actually automate the process fairly easily. With apple devices you can use the "Calendar" app that comes with the device to input your schedule. Once you finish entering an event, you can choose to have it repeat daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly. This allows you to automate the process so that you are alerted automatically and you won't have to check your calendar app each time you want to see the day's schedule. So once you have entered in all the events for what will be your normal weekly schedule, you can have it repeat every week and never have to enter it or check it again unless you decide to alter your schedule for some reason (like exams, or seasonal breaks). It is also very helpful to turn on alerts for each schedule event so that you never forget when it is time to study, and also when it is time to quit for the day! This makes it far easier to stick to your schedule, because you are always reminded when it is time to study, and you have to actually dismiss the alert for it to go away, so it is very hard to just forget, truly you will basically have to consciously not to study.
This can be a great help once you get into the groove of college life, because it can become far too easy to fall into the trappings of parties and social events (which occur nearly all the time, especially near the end of the week and weekends). Another stumbling block can be to follow suit when you see your roommate roll over and go back to sleep when his alarm goes off for class at 8am, or when you decide to end your study early because you see many of your friends stopping their study early. Don't be a follower! Make them follow your example by staying vigilant and always adhering to your schedule. After the first round of exams are over and you are sitting at a high B or even an A and they are just barely passing or even failing, your friends will come to you asking for advice and will look up to you from that point on.
Something you will always see for the first few weeks of classes each semester is the bulk of students walking around with their nose buried in their class schedule trying to remember which class they have next and navigate themselves to the correct room. If you go ahead and enter your class schedule into your smart device as soon as you get your schedule, you won't have the need to take your schedule with you everywhere like most students. As part of any event, you can include the start and end time, location, and for the title you can simply put the name of the class and the professor teaching it.
It is also a great idea to put all your professors' information into your smart device in the "Contacts" app that also comes with the device. You can include their name, office location, office hours, email address, phone numbers, and any other pertinent information. In this way, you will be able to simply go to a professor in your contacts and call them or email them, rather than having to look through the course syllabus to find the information. You will also look very cool and organized when you friends need any of the information and you can immediately give it to them.
These few simple tips may not seem very impressive at first glance, but believe me when I say that making a schedule and sticking to it can be the difference between success and failure. While it can be quite tedious to take the time entering all the information required to create these schedules and events, it is well worth it to ensure that you have success in your endeavors, and keep in mind that once you initially set up the schedule you never have to worry about it again unless you need to change it for som reason. It is not all that time consuming anyway and should only take you an hour or less to create a good solid weekly schedule. Once the information is entered and your alerts are set up, you will always be reminded when it is time to study, time for a break, and time to quit for the day. To ensure you never forget about a quiz or assignment, you can add them in as an event to your calendar app. You can also add a second alert for the event, for instance have the first alert occur 2 days before and the second alert occur 1 day before. For most of your classes, the course syllabus will include a complete schedule for the class including quiz dates and assignment due dates, so when you get the syllabus on the first day of class you can go ahead and create and event for each quiz or assignment before classwork begins to pick up and you have much less time to do this.
I hope this information will help you to create strong solid schedule and also help you to stick to it, because having a schedule is useless unless you actually use it! Later I will include more detailed information on exactly how to access and create a schedule on your device and various other features that you can use to your advantage.
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