Diaries

Diary Now = Succeed Later

Your diary is the single most important tool in managing your time and staying out of trouble at school. The golden rule of using a diary is to actually use your diary! Every student has a diary, but that is not the point. The successful students are the ones that use them and use them really well.

Here are some tips on how to use your diaries more effectively.

1. Bring your diary to school every day. Sod's law states that the day that you will forget an important appointment is the day you were given the date and didn't have your diary with you.

2. Enter details straight away. "I'll write it in later" will never EVER happen. Write it now, get it out of the way, and then it is there forever!

3. At the end of every day, check tomorrow and the rest of the week in your diary. If you only look at tomorrow you may have a major assessment coming the day after. You don't want these things sneaking up on you.

4. Highlight all items when completed. As you complete tasks in your diary, highlight them to show that they are completed. This is more of a mental trick because as your diary starts to get full of writing is also gets a bit daunting and we no longer want to look at it anymore.

5. Fold the pages in half diagonally after each day. This helps us to find today's page really easily and stops our minds stressing over work we have already done.

6. Diaries are for appointments and important information as well as dates and times. Don't just enter due dates of assignments/homework in your diary. If a teacher asks you to meet them, write the time and location in your diary. If you are having an excursion, write a reminder about what to wear and what to bring in your diary. Your diary should be an extension of your memory.

Advanced tip

If you have an assignment due in three weeks don't just write the due date on the page that it is due as there is more you can do.

see the example diary entries for a media assignment below. You will notice that the student not only plans to hand the assignment in early but the have written regular reminders. If an assignment is due in three weeks, write a reminder each week leading up to the due date. This way you don't drift in to the day before the assignment and then freak out because it is due tomorrow.

Activity

Get you diary out. What can you write into your diary now?