This is the time of the…

This is the time of the semester when I remind students of the usefulness of the calendar. That if they will look ahead in their syllabi, they will likely notice that all of their final papers and exams are due in the same week, sometimes on the same day. And that their lives will be infinitely easier if they plan a little bit, and set some earlier deadlines for themselves, staggering them so the load doesn't all fall down at once, like a mighty academic avalanche.

It seems silly that I have to tell them this, but on the other hand, I don't think I actually figured it out until sometime in graduate school, in my 30s. And that it applies in the outside world as well.

The calendar. It is your friend.

(Google calendar possibly even more so, especially for families trying to coordinate complex schedules. Shared Google calendars (that I can check from home, from work, and from my smartphone) have made our family schedules far easier to manage!)