During the first week of every January, I have always had countless lists of New Year’s resolutions popping up in my head. Then, I would write each one of them down on a piece of paper lest they lose a chance to be brought to fruition and permanently forgotten. Making a list of my dreams, regardless of how far I am away from the landing place, has been the principal method for me to launch and materialize the things hovering in my mind. So, this time again, I pulled out a new journal and began the process of forming my own small and big dreams for the year, all legible on the blank pages of my journal. I am sure this has been done by most people around New Years since all of us have a belief that planning out the whole year allows us to receive the welcomed presents at the end. But, ninety-nine percent of the time, many of our yearly goals seem inordinately vague, which in turn make us doubt if we will ever be able to get them accomplished this or even next year.

This should be the moment, however, we obliterate our fears getting in our way, but rather slicing each big goal into smaller pieces, so that we can place them nicely on multiple platters for each month of the year. This allows us to plan things ahead before our lives can get excessively hectic as the semester goes on. Sometimes, we are just too caught up in our study, work, social life, and many additional things happening all together in our lives that there seems to be no option but to leave the most exciting goals behind us. Where should I fit my hobbies into the schedule? What about traveling? Will I ever get breathing space for myself from studying?

While focusing on studying as part and full-time college students should be the priority, it is also essential to remind ourselves that there is a myriad of things in our lives outside of coursework that will help us to learn and become more creative, experienced, and intellectual. Paradoxically, spending some amount of time on our hobbies every day in lieu of having restless studying sessions makes us perform better in classes. That is, spare time is never time that is thrown away to the wastebasket but valuable time we should keep to live with a well balanced schedule. With this, I highly recommend that we pull out the planner now and catch a glimpse of today’s to-do list.

What are the things written down that mostly dominate your day? Remember, we are the ones who create the rules and bounds of our own plans within the planner itself. In order to accomplish this year’s goal, we have a monthly goal, and a weekly goal, and most importantly – a daily goal. Never be anxious looking towards the stack of assignments piled up in front of you. Instead, become a fan of keeping an agenda on a day-to-day basis; break down big projects and the amount of time that needs to be put in studying for exams until their finality arrives.

When having completed goals each day, you’ve already completed a part of your New Year’s resolution. As much as we are enthusiastic about creating a New Year’s resolution, what about we also view each day with a New Day’s resolution? With the effective use of a planner, at the end of this year, we will surely find the improved version of ourselves who have ultimately landed on the destination of our dreams, ready to embark on an unstoppable journey with another New Year’s resolution for 2020.