Start the Year Right: Free Resources to Keep Grad Students Organized

Hey all, 

Long time no see! My last blog post was at the end of August, and hopefully it can be a New Year's Resolution for me to post more. As the new year normally brings about resolutions and goals, I figured it would be beneficial for me to share how I keep organized during my PhD. As seen in this blog post, I use(d) Smartsheet to keep track of my tasks for my PhD. The downside about Smartsheet is that it costs money. Over the Christmas break, I decided to try some other ways out, and here’s what I found out below. All of these resources are free and therefore should be accessible to all! 

WHY should you want to stay organized?

I believe that one of the best ways to be motivated and encouraged during grad school is to have some methodology that keeps you in line and organized. I find that the days that I get most overwhelmed are the ones in which everything that I need to do is in my mind, and not on paper. Let the following be inspiration to try a new methodology to keep you organized.

 
1. Microsoft To-do

Not too crazy about apps that require a bit of background work beforehand? Well, you could just use a good ole to-do list! Since the University of Saskatchewan uses Microsoft, the go-to would be the Microsoft To-Do app. I’m sure there are so many different apps out there for to-do lists, but I’ll just stick with this one. Here’s what mine looks like.

Some things that I like:

• You can set reminders for tasks to notify you a few days before a task is due. 

• You can create mini step tasks below the actual task. This is GOLD for when you have a big task but need to break it into smaller categories. 

• If something is due, it will show up under your “My Day”. But, if it’s a big task…this isn’t too helpful as I’m sure you would benefit from a few day’s notice!

As you can see, this is quite a simple way of keep tracking of tasks. I personally love looking at graphs and figures for my tasks, which Microsoft To-Do lacks.

2. Notion

Notion (see here) is great because if it’s just you using it, it’s free! Notion was created to be a place where you can store everything you need - task lists, trip planning, money tracking, etc. There’s plenty of templates for keeping organized with habitat trackers, student planners, project trackers, and more, which can be helpful for those that potentially lack a bit of creativity. I tried this out for a bit, but it wasn’t for me. I felt like the templates weren’t as customizable and I struggled trying to get my work integrated nicely. Here’s some examples of why Notion might work for you. 

This is a template I added to my notion. You can see that I did start changing things (but not much). Here, you can see all your tasks for each project you have. You can easily change due dates, who it’s assigned to (which you can’t remove!), and how important the tasks are. 

There’s also a variety of ways to display this data. Instead of clicking “by project”, I clicked “Board. I really like how this one is displayed. You can move tasks around with just the click of your mouse. I got excited when I saw that you can add more views (like a calendar using the plus button), but unfortunately if you want to add a chart, you would have to upgrade to the paid version. 

In conclusion, I think Notion could be a good option, although you’d need to find a template that works very well or you’d have to create your own.

3. Zenkit

Zenkit (link here) seems very similar to Notion, although more focused on project management. I started an account to check it out, and immediately there was a whole tutorial to get you started. It wasn’t much, but I appreciate them not just letting you go without a bit of instruction. The website seemed extremely easy to work your way around (much easier than Notion), and had plenty of different viewing modes to view your tasks in. They also have automations as well for free. You can also create graphs (or they create them for you), integrate into a dashboard, and even add a page that shows what tasks need to be done today. 

In all honesty, I’m going to switch to organizing my to-do list with Zenkit! I currently use a paid version of Smartsheet, and while I would say that Smartsheet has more flexibility, I definitely don’t need some of the advanced features. Secondly, I like that Zenkit is a bit more user friendly; Smartsheet has a big learning curve.

Here’s a bit of an exploration of what I’ve done with Zenkit so far…all for free. 

This is my home page. Zenkit automatically made this dashboard for me. While this is quite nice, I made myself a new dashboard and picked a variety of graphs that I liked. Here, I have all my tasks organized by due date, a pie chart showing me how many tasks I need to do, and some completion circles that show how many tasks I’ve finished in a day or week. Something about Zenkit that I really like is you can assign hours to tasks (as seen below in the Projects widget). 

I can then zoom into my specific projects, and see what I need to do, in a variety of different formats, just like Notion. You can sort by due date, workload, created by, and more.

Want all your tasks on one calendar? That’s also possible. If you go up to the create function in the top left, there’s an option to add a full calendar with all your tasks. 

I absolutely love the flexibility of this program, while also keeping me pretty structured. It’s a perfect balance of customization, but also doing a lot of things for you. I can’t wait to contiune exploring this program and seeing how it helps me during graduate school this semester.

Whether or not you use a program or app to keep track of your to-do list, I highly recommend having some sort of system. Sit down for an hour or two in the next week and create something that works for you. I personally am now obsessed with ZenKit and how it’s completely free, yet has everything I need! Maybe in a few months I’ll update on this and explain more tips and tricks!

Enjoy the new year and best of luck in your organization!