Creating a schedule

I commented in my first semester survival post about time management and getting organized. Here are some of the ways I managed my time this semester. 

My weekly planner. In the beginning of the semester I sat down and wrote out all of my due dates for each week. I ended up not using this as much as I thought I would. I ended up using my weekly to do lists and the schedules for each class that I had printed out.

My monthly calendar was more useful. This allowed me to see what was going on each day at a glance. I knew when I was working and when I had clinicals, a test, etc. For the most part I put all of the dates into ical first and then transferred to my planner. This was because pretty much all my stuff came from emails, my online classes, etc so I was already on the computer. Below is a screenshot of my ical from November. I've got days I'm on call, tests, clinicals, study groups, everything that I need to remember and can't seem to keep in my brain.

The time map that I talked about I kept for the first couple of weeks of the semester. This just allowed me to see how much time I was using for what. This can help if you have a super busy schedule and are trying to find times to squeeze in studying around school, work, family, etc.

Here's a copy of my weekly to do list. I would sit down at the beginning of the week and go through each class's syllabus/schedule and write down what was supposed to be completed or was due that week. This helped me prioritize and I got to cross things off so I felt like I was actually accomplishing something. Not everything got done for each week... but at least I could carry it over to the next week's to do list.

Here's another example of my monthly calendar view,  from November (or hell month as I called it.)

So there ya go! What helps you get organized? Do you have a system so that you don't forget things?