What’s your “system”: Rahul Gaitonde
The following is the second entry in our What’s Your System? series by Rahual Gaitonde. If you’d like to be featured, send an email, link to your website, and a picture (If you’d like) to scblanda@gmail.com.
The System
The Legal pad and 3 ring binder
I use 1 legal pad for all my notes for every class but I make sure to date and tag the top of every sheet with the class name or abbreviation (The American Constitution/ AMC, Intro to Literature/ Lit). By keeping all my notes in one place it insures that I never bring the wrong notebook to class. Also the legal pad is a very light solution to carry around. The binder on the other hand, allows me to keep any loose papers organized in one location. I also keep a copy of every syllabus in the binder.
File box
Every couple of days I rip out old notes from the legal pad and binder and file them away. I also keep copies of old papers in the file along with bank records and other important papers.
Google Calendar
I make a separate calendar for every class on Google calendar. This allows every class to be a different color when looking at the main calendar also if I am just looking to see when I have work for a specific class I can just look at that specific calendar and not have to read through the rest of the entries. In addition having the calendar online allows me to edit and check the calendar from anywhere on campus and beyond.
1 gig USB Key
The key is mostly used as a backup for any documents or projects I’m working on. It also allows me to bring all my projects with me or be able to save any documents if I am unable to print the document. In addition I can carry any papers I’m working on with me so if I have a free half hour between classes I can hit a computer lab and work.
Whiteboard
I’m too cheap to buy an actual whiteboard so I use a piece of solid clear tile board a piece that is 12″x14″ it cost me a whopping $1.50 at Home Depot. You can also buy the product in white or any other color that you wish, it’s not only magnificently cheap but you can get one in almost any size you wish for a very low price. The whiteboard gets used for my weekly grocery list, and homework to do list.
I really like the white board tip on this one. I envy your organization Rahul. Remember if you would like to featured, send an email, link to your website, and a picture (If you’d like) to scblanda@gmail.com.
September 10th, 2006 at 11:16 pm
Really interesting items to keep your college life organized. I was using mozilla sunbird but I am not liking how much memory it drains and it’s not accessable everywhere. So I might switch to Google Calendar. Also prefer a single notebook divided into 5+ sections with pocket folders instead of seperate ones. By the end of each semester, I have super fat notebook of all my classes that sem. Going to need to upgrade my USB/MP3 thumbdrive though.
September 11th, 2006 at 12:31 am
i used sunbird for a while also but the advantage of google calendar is that i can edit and check my calendar from anywhere. also i can share the calendar with others.
September 12th, 2006 at 1:57 pm
*sigh* Looks like I might be switching over to gcal. I’ve been a user of hipcal for over a year now, but they were acquired by Plaxo a while back and are no longer developing it. The killer feature for Hipcal for me was the email reminder option — which gcal now has, but without the range of settings hipcal had (my default is three days warning for big assignments, one for small, and 12 hours for events). I’ve also got most of my scheduled assignments for the semester dumped into the “tasks” bit of hipcal, which google has trouble understanding. I don’t know — might be kind of a pain in the butt to switch, but at least I know google isn’t going to go and get themselves acquired.