These 3 productivity hacks keep me on track for every class assignment

Ah, September, the temperature begins to drop, and students head back to the classroom. Returning to school often comes with a mixture of dread of vacation ending and the excitement of starting a new chapter and seeing your friends again. Since high school, I’ve been tweaking my digital productivity system to ensure I never miss a class or assignment. Having completed undergraduate and master’s degrees without ever submitting assignments late and often early instead, I can safely say I’m pretty proud of how I’ve leveraged technology to trick my brain into getting schoolwork done.

As I walk into the classroom this year not as a student but as a professor of Business Technology Management, I’m equally excited to share my digital productivity system to help you succeed this school year.

3 Make sure to take advantage of your favorite calendar app

Scheduling is your friend

First, Launch Calendar, Fantastical, or your calendar app of choice. It’s time to create repeating events for every class you need to attend. I recommend inputting the course name and cost code as the event title, like ‘Business Technology Management (BUSI2983)’, and the room number in the location field. For any unique events like presentation days, tests, or exams, customize those events to emphasize the importance of those days. You can even add an alert to notify you a few days or weeks before the impending date.

While you’re in your calendar, it also doesn’t hurt to try block scheduling. Block scheduling, also known as hyper-scheduling, is where you dedicate chunks of time in your calendar to specific tasks. Think of it as making an appointment with yourself. Yes, it’s movable if needed, but having it there helps prompt your brain that this task needs to get done. Plus, if you need to move a block, you’re prompted to look ahead and see where, if any, it can fit before the due date.

I also recommend creating events for work, society meetings, athletics, and time with friends to better manage all the moving parts of your life without neglecting school assignments. Your calendar can serve as a living schedule, showing you how much free time you have available when someone asks if you want to do something.

2 Launch Reminders

Sorting helps you prioritize

Next, launch Reminders, Things, or your task manager of choice. After that, open the syllabi from your various courses. This is important. Go through the syllabus of each course you’re attending and add the assignments to be completed to a list in your task manager. For each assignment, add the due date and a tag indicating the course if you’re taking more than one.

I recommend having a school-specific task list with all your tagged assignments. You can filter the list by due date, with the assignments due the earliest up top and those due later at the bottom. You can then create smart lists to sort based on tags for specific classes. This method aggregates all of your assignments into a chronological list, which you can use to prioritize your workflow and see how much work is coming down the pipeline at any given time.

Optionally, you may also want to create all-day calendar events for due assignments. However, remember that with Fantastical and Apple Calendar in iOS 18 and macOS Sequoia, reminders can show up in your calendar view.

1 Always remember to work ahead

Prioritization is integral to staying on top of things

Framework Computer

Step three is likely the least exciting for most people. Everyone knows they should work ahead, but it’s much easier to procrastinate. Still, the single best tip for success I’ve ever used is to work ahead where possible. Life naturally gets busy, often at the worst times. So, getting assignments done before they’re due during your quiet periods means you can better weather moments of extreme busyness.

Prioritization is most important when it comes to getting assignments done. To avoid being late, you need to tackle what’s due the soonest. Otherwise, I enjoy using the snowball method to complete work. While some may like getting larger assignments done first and leaving smaller ones for later, the snowball method is the inverse. I find completing as many small assignments, like discussion posts, early leaves me less stressed, more focused, and with greater motivation to handle the larger upcoming assignments.

This also tends to work well as larger assignments like presentations and major papers are often due later in the semester. Completing assignments early also gives you a lot of wiggle room if you run into challenges, need to ask questions, or have to adjust your schedule for something that pops up.

Related

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