From the Daily Northwestern, I'm Mika Ellison. This is Digital Diaries, a weekly podcast following the college experience and asking students questions about life in Northwestern. This week, Northwestern students share how their methods of organizing provide a feeling of accomplishment. Yeah, it's very satisfying to, like, click the check mark and then it crosses it out for you.
Fierce loyalty, Live, love, Wounder, and even a source of community. Whenever people, like, discover that I use Notion, they're like, oh, my God, like, you're Notion girl. Idea studying. There's like, somebody community.
Weinberg Software. Esther's Hand is a premed neuroscience major that uses Notion, one of many organizational apps available to remind herself of upcoming assignments and events. She says one of Notion's major draws was the ability to make her schedule a little more aesthetically pleasing. I think I started freshman year of high school because one of my friends recommended it to me.
She's like, oh, it looks really aesthetic. I'm like, a big person for aesthetics and, like, minimalistic kind of looks. So I said, even try. Dang.
Use the template she found online to sort assignments and other responsibilities in the app. That's really fancy, and it's like, green and like, plants, like, whatever just going on in animation, like, that's all like, somebody else designed that. Weinberg sophomore Eva Yang has many responsibilities, ranging from her business development internship to clubs like the Korean American Student Association. Yang had a bullet journal in high school, but she said she had trouble keeping up with it consistently.
She said she had to do more research than Kang to fully take advantage of Notion capabilities. I feel like it took a long time to set up. Like, I had to watch so many videos about it, but now I have, like, a set template. So it's like, no work.
Like, every week I just, like, click a button and it, like, copies the template for me. Started using Ocean after seeing people on social media promote it, and she says she likes it access several different platforms in one, like Google Sheets, Google Docs, and Google Calendar can use it for so many things. Calendar and like, a weekly planner are like the main ones I use, but I also use it to track what books I've read. When I was taking four classes, I also had, like, a big assignment tracker where I would basically combine all of my syllabi and make, like, a huge to do list.
I would check it off throughout the quarter. Besides all of its practical uses, Yang says the real reason she likes Notion is a bit more cosmetic. I'm gonna be honest. I literally just think it's because I can make it pretty.
I think Google Calendar's functionality is actually better than Notion's Calendar. But Yang says that Notion has been helpful in her day to day activities. I think it makes me feel better when I dump everything. Just like the act of doing that, even though I haven't started any of my tasks, makes me feel better.
Now I have a vision, like a goal for what I'm gonna do and it helps me relax a little. Notion requires a certain level of commitment. But. But what about the reliable scheduling app that has everything you need right in front of you?
Google Calendar. My savior. I love Google Calendar. That was Winebrook freshman Sophie Perel, a premed psychology major with a proliferation of clubs and other responsibilities.
Perel says she plans every aspect of her life with gcal, as it's colloquially known, including social engagements. She described what her calendar looks like. A lot of colors are a really different calendar, not for her class, but there's one for all my classes, there's one for office hours, there's one for exams, and there's one for like my social life because I forget like the plans that I make for Eliza's Google Calendar is a reminder function that makes it indispensable. So I never lace anything.
I always put a location and stuff so I know where I'm going and just like has everything for me. She's never filled me. I love having the idea that everyone forgetting. Despi sophomore Darnley Cow takes a literal page out of the previous generation's book.
Everything that I need to do to plan out what I'm gonna do every single day is done in this little blue note. So like Tao says he's been keeping track of tasks like this since his junior year of high school and that he finds it physical to do list more satisfying than a virtual one. It just makes me feel a little bit more productive. I think it's about the psychological thing.
Like, it makes me feel legit. There's a difference for me between checking off something digitally versus just like checking it off in my notebook. I don't think it's actually true, but it feels like less malleable if I have it physically in front of me. Sometimes I have this fear of like, oh, my online stuff's gonna be wiped out.
It just feels a lot more constant. Ultimately, Tao pointed out that each method is very individual. What works for one person might make another person even more stressed. I have a friend who plans everything, days, sometimes even weeks in advance.
He's a notion though. So I'm just like not one of those people. Google Calendar Notion and Physical planners are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of ways to manage a busy life. But what about those students who don't outsource their organization to anything at all?
I free wallet. There's no organization. There's none. I have a picture of my class schedule in my phone and I have a picture of my work schedule on my phone.
Oh, I do have a planner, but I don't really use it like I should. That was communication junior Rivers Leche, who was so busy we had to do our interview over the phone. I'm so busy my alarm is set for 8am which I know to adults doesn't sound very early, but for a college student it's practically gone. Hard to keep up.
One of my friends I wish I was joking. They call me the Princess Diana at Northwestern. I have so many wonderful friends that I want to see them all because I don't even have time. Leche says she's always live life with an external form of organization and she likes it that way.
They always gave us like planners in middle school and they'd be like, use this. And I would say I don't think I need to. So I just remember it. Whether students need notion, schedule their social life or keep it all in their head, they agree that anything goes as long as they get to their next task in time.
From the day Northwestern I'm Mika Ellison. Thanks for listening to the fifth episode of Digital Diary Season 3. This episode was reported by me and produced by Tina Santos Cordova. The audio editor of the Dan Northwestern is myself.
The Digital managing editors are Eva Mendel and Eric Schmidt, and the editor in chief is Alex Perry. Make sure to subscribe to the daily Northwestern Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or SoundCloud to hear more episodes like this.