Tmerno
Gone are the days when your list of study materials was limited to pencils, erasers, pens and notebooks. As the number of subjects at school or college increases, new items are added to this list to make your day-to-day life easier and more organized.
There are many more things happening at the same time, such as tests for different subjects, exercise lists, classes and lectures. To avoid getting lost in the midst of so many commitments, your desk will need reinforcements!
Check out the list below of study materials that will make a difference in organizing your college routine, or even for college entrance exam candidates hoping to get into college.
Study materials you will need
The following list shows which study materials are great investments so that you don’t get lost in the huge amount of classes, lists, study guides and tests. Check it out!
Diaries, notebooks and planners
Let’s start with the obvious! What would your studies be like without paper by your side? Even with so much technology to support you, nothing will replace the pages of a notebook to write down the most important things, or a planner to keep your week organized and not miss the deadlines for assignments and tests.
These may seem like simple materials, but they will be essential for organizing your studies. The notebook is where you will record everything that is most important, do exercises and summaries to make it easier when studying for the test.
A diary and planner will also be great companions, especially for organizing your routine. In them, you will write down the main dates of the week or month and be able to write down all your daily priorities.
Cell phone, tablet, notebook
Paper is a great friend to students, but technology is also an essential tool for organizing studies. Nowadays, there are many apps that can be used to organize priorities and do exercises.
After all, electronic devices have been part of people’s lives for some time now, and it will be no different for students. Office suite and Google Workspace applications, for example, are used both in the academic and professional worlds. In addition to helping with studies, taking advantage of these resources early on will already be a differentiator for the beginning of your career.
Colored Pens and Highlighters
Colors can be more important in learning and organization than you might think. According to neuroscience, colors can help productivity when they create a harmonious environment for students or workers. It’s no different in notebooks, and using colored pens and highlighters to differentiate between subjects will help you.
When taking notes, it is important to use brighter colors, such as red and green, for the topics that you consider most important for your studies. In your diary, the tip is to use colored pens to write down tasks according to their priorities. Here is a suggestion:
- Blue pen: tasks in progress;
- Green pen: tasks completed;
- Yellow pen: tasks with approaching deadline;
- Red pen: urgent or overdue tasks.
Sticky notes
Still taking advantage of colorful materials, the more visual your study space is, the better. Post-it are those tools that seem very basic, but make all the difference in organizing your routine.
The first is as a form of reminder. If you leave a post-it somewhere that you will always see it, you will not forget to do that activity that is written down there or miss an important date during the semester. Spread it in places that you are often, such as your bedroom and bathroom mirror, or even on your study materials, such as your handouts, notebooks and computer.
In addition to reminders, you can build a flowchart of the activities that need to be done, and we’ll explain how in the next item!
Tables and calendars for a more agile routine
Have you ever heard of agile methodology? These are ways that some teams organize themselves within companies to perform their tasks more accurately and quickly, always prioritizing the most urgent demands. The most famous agile methods, such as Scrum and Kanban, can be reproduced using post-its and a bulletin board.
With them, you can create tables and calendars to separate the stages of a pending task. For example, divide the activities for each subject of the semester and complete them one at a time, according to which ones are priorities. It is also important to separate a column for completed activities, so that you can see your progress and feel that sense of accomplishment after completing the exercises.
How to organize your studies on a daily basis?
We have finalized the list of study materials, but it is still very important to keep everything organized so that the environment is suitable for studying, whether in your bedroom, living room or office.
First of all, be minimalist and leave only what is necessary on the table. Notebooks and study notes for today’s material only, and store the rest in the closet. The good old pencil case should not be dispensed with to store pencils, pens and other materials.
Just leave your laptop on the table if you’re going to use it for studying. If you don’t need it today, leave it somewhere else to avoid distractions, just like your smartphone. A whiteboard near your table can be a good idea for planning and sticking post-its!
