Harnessing the lessons from last semester, I realized that my organization strategy could be greatly improved. In a completely virtual semester, using a physical planner because cumbersome and didn’t aide me in my organization. If anything, having an extra thing to carry around became annoying. Coming into my second virtual semester of college, I decided to employ a new organizational tactic to keep me aligned with my personal and academic goals.

Notion, a digital organizational platform, is free for all Penn State students. Appearing complex at first, I eventually learned how to craft my homepage to be aesthetically appealing and packed with relevant information for my upcoming semester.

Emotional Wellness

To keep my mental health in check this semester, I make a section that motivates me to achieve my daily goals. During pandemic learning, I felt that it was important to set achievable goals so that I could feel productive on boring days. Notion motivates me to accomplish tasks that encourage good mental and physical health. On top of these checklists, I made it my goal to have a visually appealing page setup with some inspiring quotes and images of places I love! In summary, some of the features that I use on Notion to keep me mentally organized are:

• daily goals
• daily to-do list
• spotify link
• positive imagery

Academic Goals

With a calendar that also acts as a checklist, I can separate my academic tasks from my personal wellness tasks. With Notion, I can easily categorize these assignments for their given class or activity. With the ability to insert a date and time, Notion automatically puts these tasks in chronological order, making it easier for me to manage upcoming due dates. Once the week is over, I take the time to lay out my weekly plans and reset my weekly plan.With all of my classes and clubs meeting virtually, it is so difficult to manage all of the different links. Notion allows me to hyperlink these clubs so that I’m not opening hundreds of tabs within Canvas.  In short, these are the ways that Notion lets me create a workspace that prioritizes my academic goals:

• links to classes
• links to important websites ( canvas, outlook, lionpath)