The EVERYTHING Whiteboard: Organization for Students

As a sophomore in high school, I have gone through so many different organizational strategies throughout my education. I've had planners, calendars, to-do lists, and none of them seemed to work for me. I wanted a place where I could put EVERYTHING on it, both my academic to-do list and dates as well as things I want to do for fun. Just a few months ago during online school, it came to me----the EVERYTHING Whiteboard.

As the name suggests, this board has everything: the date, to-do list, hobbies, dates you're looking forward to, and more!

This technique has helped me greatly during online school. I have never turned in an assignment late, never forgot to attend a scheduled meeting, and I have been on top of everything. I love this whiteboard more than any other technique because you are able to customize it and decorate it however you like, and you get the satisfaction of erasing the task from the board when you complete it. Finally, by updating the date at the top of the board each morning when you wake up, it gives you a sense of accomplishment and it's a great start to the day. What I will show you in this Instructable includes things that I do and are important for me to remember, but feel free to customize it however you would like!

Also, I am writing this for students because I know that online school can be very difficult to keep track of. Assignments in all sorts of places, after school meetings to join and extracurriculars to attend to, it's a lot. However, this can be used by people of all ages, so do not feel like you cannot make this if you are an adult as well.

The only materials that you will need for this is a small whiteboard and different colored markers, preferably magnetic. Here is the link to the one that I bought. Let's get started!

The first step is to get your whiteboard. I put the link to the one that I use in the introduction. Lay your board down landscape. Clean your whiteboard and lay out your markers on the bottom right corner. It should look like the picture above.

The first thing we will add to our boards is the date and month. The date and month are the most important parts of the board because by updating the date every day and the month each month, it gives us a sense of accomplishment and gives us a sense of time. During quarantine, it is very easy to lose track of the time and date, so this will help keep us focused.

The date should go in the top middle part of the board, and I like to write mine with the blue marker. I also draw a line underneath it. I like to put my month in the top right, in blue, and cursive, but feel free to put your own creative spin on it! It should now look like the picture above.

"What's the 30-day Challenge??" I'm so glad you asked. This is definitely my favorite part of the board. I like to give myself a 30-day challenge each month. This gives me a sense of goal and ambition all the time. But wait, there's more! I love games, so the way I give myself the challenge is a fun game in itself.

In December of last year, I saw this amazing book called The Big Book of 30-Day Challenges and got it for Christmas. I highly recommend it. It consists of 60 30-day challenges that aim for you to develop healthy habits, and the book includes fun graphics and tips to help you along the way. (see picture above)

The way I choose my challenge is at the start of every 30 day period, I roll a random number generator on google from 1-60 and whatever number I get is the challenge I have to do. It is so fun, and even though I just started in 2021 I feel so much healthier already. For January, I got the challenge to write my goals down 15 times every day. For February, I have the Laughter Challenge and I am on day 27 already!

I like to put the challenge in pink underneath the month. On the opposite corner of the board (bottom left), I put the day number and a box so that I can check it when I complete the challenge that day. Again, this idea of updating the day number for the challenge has similar rationale to updating the date each day. I like to put the day number in blue and the box in pink. Don't worry, the colors will change up soon :) Your whiteboard should now look like the picture above.

I always like to have an Instructables project to make. Right now, it is RadioGlobe. I highly recommend you check it out; it's so cool! I put the project title in the top left corner of the board in green and the progress underneath it in purple.

As a student, it is always nice to have an Instructables project to work on on the side. Sometimes we get exhausted from schoolwork and we just want to take a break and build the next step of our project. My philosophy for an excellent Instructables project consists of three components: a hands-on, physical component (woodworking, 3d printing, etc.), a digital component (coding, using a computer or website, etc.), and an application in my life (I don't want to build something and leave it sitting in a corner forever; I want to use it). However, that is just my preference so feel free to choose any project you are interested in.

After that, your board should look similar to the picture above.

This is a very important part of the board: the to-do list. As a student, I write out my assignments that I have to do for the next couple of days, so that I can get a feel for what is coming and I can do something on the next day's schedule if I have extra time. I like to write each day's to-do list in a different color, as shown above (just not blue or pink).

NOTE: You can see that I write both the academic and fun things that I have to do each day. History homework and making this Instructable are both in the same place, which is what I would say is one of the big differences between the EVERYTHING Whiteboard and a regular school planner.

Also, I would like to mention that Geocaching is on my schedule for Saturday. This is an amazing activity that I feel many do not know about so I would like to talk a bit about it. Geocaching is like a world-wide treasure hunt. You download the app, and navigate to various hidden containers that have been placed by people all around the world. It is an excellent way to get out of the house, go for a walk, and have fun finding things as well. I have made so many memories and had so many fun experiences Geocaching, so I highly recommend it for anyone.

The next section includes dates that you are looking forward to. You write the event and the number of days that are left until that event. This will also be updated every day, and it is quite fun to see how fast the number of days go down each week. I also put the number of days left until the monthly 30-day challenge ends so that I can get an idea of where I am at. Holidays and breaks should also go under this section. I like to write the "Days until..." in pink and the actual dates in blue. Your board should now look like the picture above.

As a student, I have a good number of meetings and appointments to attend to outside of school. I have coachings for speech and debate, and meetings to study for the AP Test in May. We all have medical appointments as well. As a result, I made a section with important meetings, their days of the week, and their times so that I do not forget, because it can be hard to keep track of when they pile up. This goes in orange underneath the "Days until..." section. For the sake of space, there is no title for this section on the board. Your board should now look like the image above.

Personally, I know that I tend to push many things from the school week off to the weekend, when I will have more time. Thus, I made a section in the bottom left corner where I compile a list of everything that I should do the upcoming weekend and add to it throughout the week. Oftentimes, there are things that pop into our minds that we should do but we usually forget them by the time it is the weekend so this section helps greatly in reminding us of things that we should do.

NOTE: Leave a space in the very bottom corner to attach the magnetic markers. It should now look like the picture above.

This last section on the right side is miscellaneous. Find something that you like to do, the progress for something else you are working on, or a list of things that you need to do all related to one category. Maybe add a quote of the day! Draw a picture! Anything that you want!!

For holidays, I like to draw a festive picture in that spot but as of right now, I have a few things that I have to do related to speech and debate so I made a list as shown above.

Congratulations!! Your board is now complete!

Now that your board is all complete, it's time to find a place to put it. I like to put mine right next to my bed, so that every morning when I wake up I can update the appropriate days and get an overview of what my day is going to look like (see picture above).

I hope you benefit as much as I did from my board, and hopefully you learned something helpful today. Leave a comment if you have any questions, and let me know if it's working for you. Thanks!