Back to School and OmniFocus

Adam Sandler's "Back to School" song from Billy Madison has been stuck in my head all week! Lemme sing it to you now:

"Back to school, back to school, to prove to dad I'm not a fool!"

 Okay, it might only funny if you've seen the movie and can hear me in the right voice. :)

Moving on... I am just starting up my LAST first week of school so I've been working hard all day getting organized for the quarter. In the past I've always meticulously written out every assignment in a small planner and tabbed every single reading in all my books with little green sticky tabs. I was always good about keeping up with assignments (I've made it this far, haven't I??), but the reading tabs always got dirty, bent, lost, and forgotten. The only function the reading tabs served were to make me feel organized at the beginning of the quarter and then I would curse them as I furiously ripped them out of my books right before buybacks! Enter: my beautiful new MacBook.

I was able to pick up my Christmas present early (THANKS, Mom and Dad!!) and it has been so awesome for school. My old lappy had to be on life support at all times (both the charger and internet cords) so taking the behemoth to class was not really an option. Now I am that annoying girl sitting in the front row typing away (sorry classmates!). I can take notes directly into powerpoint documents so I am no longer printing out hundreds of ppt presentations every quarter.

One last awesome improvement in my academic life is a program called OmniFocus. This app was $40 through Apple (I had a gift card), and at first I was really disappointed and thought it was a waste of money. Although I was so utterly confused the first few times I tried to figure it out (even after watching 10 tutorial videos), today something just clicked! I had to just start entering in my coursework before I really started to understand the layout. I am so excited to have finally figured this out, and Adam is probably excited to quit hearing about it. :) The online explanations for this program were really vague, so I just wanted to give a quick overview of how I organized mine for anyone who may be interested.

I can view all my tasks in the order that they are due. Right now all I have are readings to complete, but I am sure this list will be much longer as the quarter goes on. The OmniFocus tab that is always on my bar (the little purple guy) will display how many items I have to complete soon (in yellow) or past due (in red) so I can quickly see how much I have to complete soon! 

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For anyone trying to use OmniFocus for school (the program is initially set up in a work format), the way I have it set up is this:

Projects: Main tasks, regardless of which class they are for. Mine include "Readings" "Exams" and "Assignments"

Contexts: This is where I have my courses separated under the "School" tab. This way I can easily click on whatever class I need to see quickly and focus on that first.

 Like I said, I am pretty pleased with my organization this quarter. Let's hope I can keep it up! :)

A Space to Create

At long last I have a desk to blog from! The last two years I have had a housing-provided desk and never had a reason to buy my own. When I moved into my first unfurnished apartment I have slowly added furniture when I found a piece I loved (mostly from Goodwill). The last item I was in desperate need for was a desk! Having two bookshelves, a bed, night stand, and dresser in one 12X10 room was getting a little tight so I didn't think I would have the space for a worthwhile desk. I also had a very specific criteria (which a store-bought desk could hardly meet in my student's price range). I wanted a ton of storage, enough space to store both my crafting supplies and books, and I was tossing around the idea of a standing-height desk. I was not feeling optimistic about finding all of these details until I saw a Pinterest-ing idea of making a desk out of two bookshelves with a large piece of wood on top. Since I had two bookshelves in my room already, re-purposing one into a desk was the perfect solution to making more space. Luckily I bought that bookshelf at Fred Meyer originally two years ago and not only did they still carry the exact make/color, it was on sale. Destiny, I tell you!

See my farmer's market cat picture on the wall??

It might not look like much- but I LOVE it. Each "leg" has 9 cubbies- perfect. The desk is 36" tall and deep, and 45" wide. The table top is just plywood covered in a cheap vinyl table cloth for now. Someday I'll paint the wood underneath and actually secure it to the shelves (right now there's just grippy shelf liners to hold everything in place, which seems to be going well). This was my first time ordering something from a real, live lumber store. I even gave them dimensions and they cut the giant piece down to size for me. As you can tell, I'm extremely excited about this whole thing! :)

This is what happens to my bed when I break out the Silhouette.

If only you could see the other half of my bedroom. It does not look this clean.

Here is my new space in all it's glory! I love having the option of either standing or sitting on the stool. It makes me feel like I'm burning calories while blogging/pinteresting. :)

Bonus- my Silhouette has a home! I no longer have to balance it on my dresser. I hope this means I will have a reason to use it even more than I already do.

The project I'm hard at work on in these pictures is for a class presentation. We're presenting to a group of "first time mommies" (i.e. good-humored classmates) and those are going to be the table centerpieces. More on that later. I'm off to fully organize my new desk (and, you know, do homework and things of that nature!) I'll upload prettier pictures when I get everything perfectly organized! :)

P.S.- Shout out to Mom for surprising me with a new Silhouette blade. I forgot how that machine is actually supposed to perform! :)