Life gets BUSY sometimes: deadlines, appointments, and don’t forget to buy bread on the way home! Personally, I have a terrible memory and will forget anything and everything that I have not written down somewhere. Even if you’re better at than me, it takes a lot of mental capacity to remember all those things – mental capacity that you could use to study more efficiently, work on that project or just enjoy your day (instead of constantly thinking “oh, tomorrow I have to send that email”).
So, without further ado, let’s dive into my favourite tools and apps that help me to stay on top of things (at least most of the time).
Notion
For: Short and long term planning, storing information, goals, lists
Notion allows you to create a digital notebook with a variety of functions: to do lists, sub-pages, calendars, kanban boards, embedded content and so forth. It’s incredibly practical and ✨aesthetic✨ at the same time. You can download it on all your devices and, thus, always have your synchronized notes at hand.
I use Notion for organizing my daily life (e. g. tracking car maintenance appointments), trips, university and my blog (I’m literally drafting this post in Notion right now). It helps me to have an overview, plan projects and keep information and ideas in one place. I also use Notion to write down my goals and reading lists, and many use it for habit tracking, too.
For university I created a slightly more complex setup with serveral gallery views and a calendar for all my subjects, whereas I kept it really low-key for my daily life pages. You can keep it simple or go entirely overboard with designing your pages. You can even download free or paid Notion templates – there’s infinite choice out there.
I use the free version and don’t feel like I’m missing any crucial features.
Trello
For: To Dos
Trello is the real deal when it comes to staying on top of your day-to-day to dos. It’s pretty self-explanatory: You have a board where you can create serveral different lists, and you can add tasks to each list. For example, you can create a list called “to do”, another one called “in progress” and a last one called “done”. Or you can organize them by topic, such as “blog”, “university” and “work”.
Personally, I use Trello both at work and at home/for university so that I always know what’s on my to do list for the day. It also really helps that you can share a board with others, assign tasks to members and colour code them.
Google calendar
For: Appointments and dates
Need I say much? Probably not. I have my private, university and work calendar synced on Google calendar, including a shared calendar with my husband so we always have joint appointments in mind. Having a little calendar widget on my home screen helps me see all appointments of the day at a glance.
For the longest time, I refused to sync all my calendars on my phone because I didn’t want to see work and uni appointments first thing in the morning when checking my phone. But now that I do have them all in one place, I wouldn’t change a thing. This way, I know exactly what my day is going to look like instead of being surprised by long-forgotten meetings the minute I arrive at work, which gives me so much more control over my entire day.
A physical diary
For: Combining it all in one place, having an overviews
This is where I am old-fashioned: I couldn’t do without a physical diary. It allows me to combine everything in one place, it’s basically the masterplan. Every Sunday, I write down my week’s appointments and the most important to dos for each day in my diary. This way, I have a schedule of where to be and what to do for every single day, and I only have to open my diary and get going.
It might seem like a lot of effort to take important to dos from Trello, appointments from Google calendar and information in bigger projects from Notion and add them all to the diary manually. However, once you get used to this, it’ll only take a few minutes each week and you will not longer have to open multiple apps every morning just to know what’s going on.
I have both a work and a private diary to keep things strictly separate, and I use both the same way I just described. It’s helped me so much, especially at work, where it’s easy to get lost in emails and forget that one super important task until about 4 pm. Thanks to my agenda, I see my priorities first thing in the morning and can tackle them asap.
What are your favourite ways to stay on top of things? Let me know in the comments below!
Love,
Carola
