Student Blogger

This article is part of an ongoing series called "Technology Focus".

Situation: Your student life is in disarray. Papers are here and there, deadlines and assignments are floating around in your head. Sure, a notebook could help. But you need something digital. What do you do?

Solution: Use the very flexible Backpack web application from 37signals. Best of all, it is just what you need for the price of zero.

What is it?

Backpack is what I consider a digital notebook. Need a to-do list? No problem, just add a list and name it To-Do. Need to set a reminder for yourself? No problem - it can be sent to your cell phone too. Need to brainstorm a few ideas? No problem. Backpack is a flexible enough application that you use it how YOU need to. The free version allows you to have up to 5 pages + a homepage. It provides lists, notes, whiteboards, dividers, tags, and reminders.

My Set-Up

For my Backpack account, I renamed the homepage Agenda, and I have 4 other pages: one page for a major project that I am working on, one page for all ideas, one page for notes, and one page for an extensive to-do list. Together, these five pages keep me organized.

Agenda

The agenda page is my homepage. On the agenda page, I use it to keep track of what is currently going on - be it a project or a day-to-day schedule. For example, on a very busy date, I’ll add a list of to-dos - quick tasks that need to be done. For bigger tasks, I’ll add a note with the objective as the title and description as the text. When I am working on a project that’s only for few days (like a school project), I’ll add the guidelines at the top, my brainstorming in the middle, and a list of objectives in the end.

Major Projects (development / long-term)

For major projects, I’ll give it their own separate page. At the top, I’ll have important reference notes that need to be accessed through the project. Next, I’ll add a divider named todos. Under “todos”, I have a list for each section of the project. After that, I’ll keep a journal of what I have done each day with the project. The free edition does not allow you to have the actual journal feature but I find that the notes is a suitable replacement (due to the fact that it records the date anyway). Finally, I keep an acknowledgments divider at the end that either serves as my works cited or my credits.

TODO

On the TODO page, I have lists of todos separated by dividers. The dividers are Projects, Personal, Studio, etc. The lists are each named by project or group. For example, SAT Prep, Summer School Work, etc.

NOTES

On the notes page, I simply write a few notes to myself that I may later need to remember.

IDEAS

On the ideas page, I make notes of every idea I have. I do not separate the ideas by project or different parts of my life. I simply put down the idea as soon as I think of it. Later on, I will go back and add it to the correct page or keep it there till an opportunity arises.

Final Tips

• Backpack allows gives you the feature of naming your lists. This is especially useful when combined with dividers. For example, “School Work” can be the divider with a list for “AP Calc 1 Chapter 1″ or even “AP Calc 1″ as the divider and a list called “Chapter 1 Review”.
• Use your homepage as your agenda. Plan out your day.
• Use reminders to keep track of future events.

Note: I am only a happy user of Backpack.