Heading up towards the later stages of education, a person does tend to find that he or she has more to deal with than he or she imagined. The A4 academic diary is perfect for doing that dealing. You’ll find a page to day structure, or even a two page to day structure, in the A4 diaries, that allow plenty of appointments to be scheduled (seminars and lectures usually only last for an hour, two if you’re one of those media studies types who watches films all day) and ad hoc notes to be logged under each one. The A4 diary has the scope for listing not only essay titles and due dates, but also logging notes for library research under them: so if you use a whole page spread for each essay in the Notes section at the back, you can list useful reading and viewing as you come across it. Your A4 academic diary becomes a repository for working essay plans, which means by the time you come to actually write the thing your research will already be half organised into the right format.
An equally excellent use for A4 academic diaries: a “stay at home” appointment book, a kind of master copy of your school or university commitments and schedules, from which pertinent daily obligations can be transcribed. Keeping a bigger diary in your room when you’re studying is an extraordinarily effective way to stay on top of your studies – it allows you to have a permanently to-hand record of everything you are supposed to be doing, and everything you have already done, which you ought never to lose. Get into the habit of storing the A4 academic diary in the same place (a desk drawer, or at the end of your shelves) and you’ll never lose sight of what you have to do – even if you lose your bag or your phone.
