How To Get Organized for a New Term

Happy Monday everyone! I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday season, I know I did. My break was full of sleeping, eating, and lots of extra doggy time.Since most people are headed back to school/already at school now,  I wanted to share some tips on how I organize myself for a new term/semester. Personally, I am at a school that runs on a quarter system, so my post will be geared towards a 10 week grading period, but I'm sure you can adjust it to your own liking.

Printable Schedule Using Microsoft Word

Okay, so my school gives me the option to look at my scheduled online by week/time and print it out through our online services, which is pretty handy, however it looks absolutely horrid.

NO COLOR COORDINATION?! This is unacceptable. I will commend my school for making it easier to understand than the fall term layout, but still I prefer something a little bit more... cohesive.

Like this! Much easier to understand with the colors and table design (plain table 5). You could get fancy and change your fonts and stuff, but I like to think Microsoft knows that they are doing with the default font. You can modify your times column depending on what times your classes end/start. Some of my classes start/end at a funky time, like Writing 121 at 8:30, so I just wrote in parenthesis next to it the exact time it started (8:30) and ended (9:50). I also like to differentiate whether I'm going to a lab or a lecture, like in my Sustainability class, I wrote LAB next to, obviously, the lab. The only problem with this schedule is that I don't have any of my class locations written down!

 Fixed! For this schedule I just used 4x6 plain table 1 and modified each of the box sizes to what I needed them to be and added some rows in the 2nd ,3rd, and 4th columns. It's okay if it's not perfect at first, just play around with them a little until you get yours to your own liking. I also made the lines in between each day a bit thicker so it was easier to visualize one day at a time. I did not put my classroom numbers on this table because I don't want anyone stalking me around campus, however you should put them in your own schedule for sure! This schedule is my personal favorite, my roommate even made one for herself this term and we both keep them taped above our desks so we know each others whereabouts/schedules.  You can refer to Lauren's post about roommate 101 for further tips on roommate coordination.

Microsoft OneNote

One of the most important tools I used my first term in college. If you have a copy of Microsoft Office 365, I highly recommend taking advantage of this tool. I created a "notebook" for each of my classes (color coordinated to my schedule), and with in each of there notebooks created sections for the syllabus,weeks, and projects, and within each of those sections you can create more pages.This program is perfect for anyone who finds the simple joy in things that are mega-organized (me), or for someone who needs help imporving their organizations skills. I also went bascially paperless after using OneNote!

 I will say that you don't need to make a notebook for every class, I didn't make one for my Physical Activity Course (Ballet) because there was no notes, or online information that was needed. But they were extremely useful in classes that posted a lot their information onto blackboard, for example my Communications course:

Most classes will post a syllabus online, as well as hand one out in class. I always came to class prepared with a copy of the syllabus in my notebook on OneNote on my laptop. I would either directly copy and paste the document from Microsoft Word directly onto a new page, or print the document into OneNote. To print a document into your notebook ,simply go about printing the document like you would on a printer, but when it comes time to choose a printer, select "Send to OneNote" and it should then ask where in OneNote you would like it to be printed.

I would do this for lecture slides as well. This cut my note taking down immensely, allowing my to have access to the information presented without having to scramble to write it down before the slide changed, and instead concentrate on the information being presented and taking notes on the information not written down on the slides. My laptop is the lenovo yoga, so it is a tablet/laptop and I took note with a stylus on top of the slides, but typing them out is just as helpful. You can also use highlighters to mark stuff that is super important. Like here:

Ignore my messy handwriting please.

Et Cetera

Make sure you buy your books (I recommend used if you can get them), find out when all your finals are, and drink lots of water! Oh, yeah and don't forget to mix in a little fun with all of that studying, okay? Hope y'all have a great first few weeks of your term/semester!

XOXO
Natalie

Desk Tour

 Hey Y'all,

Where are you girls at? I know college has gotten pretty busy for me, class, projects, friends, studying, reading mid-terms, homework, social functions, oh yeah and trying to remember to eat at least twice a day. So I understand the lack of activity of here at LTP, but let's try to get some posts up so we can keep in touch :)

I thought it would be fun to do a desk tour, as my desk is where I spend most of my time.

So here is my desk as a whole, if you couldn't tell, I like bright pastel colors, especially pink. I brought most of this stuff from my old desk at home, though I have less space here (big surprise) at college, so I re arranged it a bit.

Starting on the left I have my light blue bookend from Daiso and Koala Beanie Baby from 2003 sitting on top of my flash card holder. Blue owl coin jar look familiar? It's because Lauren got it for me for my 16th birthday, it such a fun and unique little piece that really "quirks" up my space, also it reminds me of my dear friend Nathan Ong. Behind the owl I have my Neon stationary from Target for letter writing. And next to that my nerdy collection of 3DS games that I no longer have time to play. (Although Cameron and I occasionally play Smash from time to time, it's so much fun!)

Next up, I've got a copy of "Lights Out" by Ingrid Michealson, my journals, favorite movies (Frozen & Tangled), favorite books, a Daneryus figurine (wearing Rapunzel's crown lol), all of my pencils and pens, and a french cade lavender scented Voluspa candle (that I can't light, but it smells so good.)

These are the journals on my desk, the two purple are moleskins I got in a bookstore, and the other two are gifts from Lauren.

Here we have my Betta Fish, Atticus Finch, to do list, sticky notes, a mug I made a Color-Me-Mine, a lamp from Target, a clock from Daiso, and two antique rabbit figurines. Oh and a Halloween card from my parents that I couldn't resist hanging, isn't it so cute??

I have my fabric covered shoe box that I made with this tutorial, my PEAS from Disneyland, a tissue box, my Frankie Mags, and a mason jar mug I got from a coffee shop right off campus that was just TOO cute not to buy.

These are my desk drawers with miscellaneous stuff that's most likely either from Target or Daiso.

My Lilly Pulitzer Agenda always brighten up my desk (like it really needs that), my Yoga Laptop ft Rapunzel's Tower, and a kitty cat mouse pad, even though I don't have a mouse yet.

And finally here's my whiteboard calender and cork-board! Which I could talk about for hours, but I'll resist the urge to go all Shabby Chic on you and just leave them here for your visual enjoyment.

I can't believe Halloween is this Friday? What are you guys being? Cam and I are going to be Hans Solo and Princess Leia from Star Wars. I've got to go head to my math lecture, Hope college is treating you well, take care ladies!

XOXO,
Natalie.

How I organized my Lilly Agenda

Hello all, it's Natalie! I'm pretty excited to be uploading the first post to Les Trois Pois.

So recently all three of us ordered Lilly Pulitzer agendas to help us keep organized in college, and they are so gosh darn cute, who could resist?! I ordered the large in Jellies be Jammin'. (Funny story I accidentally ordered two, oops.) You can order one here.

 I absolutely adore it. Lauren already knows about my "unique" obsession with jellies, and I love the light blue and pink colors.

 

This is what the first page looks like. I made a return address on Microsoft Word with my name, phone number, and dorm location, just in case I misplace it and some kind soul finds it and decides to deliver it back to me. I used the fonts Modern No. 20 and Cantoni. I don't have a pencil pouch yet so I just stored my pens here temporarily. If you were curious, I got the pens at my local target for about $10. You can get them online here. They're made by Yoobi, which is a company that for every item you buy they donate one to a classroom in the USA. So not only do I have some cool gel pens, but so does some lucky grade schooler.  

Excuse my bad hand writing, I have been out of school for a while and my penmanship has decreased drastically. However, this is what the pens ink looks like. The light yellow orange, yellow, and yellow green are a bit illegible so I will probably use those as accents colors.Otherwise, I really like the variety of colors! I'm obsessed with color coding, I don't have my schedule for next year yet, but I will probably have a color for each class, a color for sorority events (If I rush), and a color for special events. I'll give you guys a better update of my system once school starts.

 

This is the other side of the first page. As you can see it has a handy little built in folder. I store the stickers came with the agenda and my Disney pass calender in here for safe keeping. I took out some of the pages included in the agenda because I couldn't see them ever being useful to me. So there's supposed to be a page in between the two pages shown here, but eh. I prefer it looking like this. 

The next pages include a 2014-2016 calender. Which is useful if you ever need to look up a date really quickly. I highlighted my birthday for some reason. 

 

After the annual calender there was all the monthly calenders, however, there's also monthly calenders before all the weekly calenders later on in the agenda. I decided there was no use for them for me, so I  carefully removed them and glued the left August 2014 page to the right December 2015 one, and ta-da! no  more useless pages.

See! Two monthly calendars in the same agenda, why? Lauren had the fantastic idea of using the  pages I took out as a desk calender. I wont be able to use August 2014 or December 2015, but I don't start school until late September, and I will hopefully be ordering another agenda next July. 

I decided to pint out picture of the friends and family and put it on their birthdays. I used Microsoft Word again, and resized the picture to approximately 1.5" X 1.25" and recolored them using the "color" function in the "picture tools" tab. I used the Modern No. 20 font again to put what age they are turning in the right hand corner. I created my own "color theme" under the "design" tab to get colors that would coordinate with the monthly themes. 

 

I don't know if you noticed my little bookmark (agenda mark?), but it was super easy to make. I used a paperclip I had on my desk and some satin ribbon I had laying around. I tied the bow around the paperclip and ta-da! perfectl little place keeper.

Lastly, I was looking through handouts and magazines my college had given me through the decision process and I found this perfectly sized campus map and directory! I cut them out and glued them in the last two pages of my agenda for easy access because I know I will be that lost little freshman next year and it will definitely help me out. 

I hope you all enjoyed this post! If you have any questions leave a comment and I will try to get back to you. Thanks.

xoxo,

Natalie