Hi Olivia 👋
🔔 Reminders
Off. Turn these on to get a heads-up 15 minutes before class, and on the day something's due.
This week's study hours
Next deadline
🎯 Level
Check off wins on the Progress tab
🏡 Next trip home
💸 Budget
❓ How to Actually Use This
Everything below, in plain language. Skim it once, then come back to whichever section you need.
🏡 Home
Your daily landing page. Next class, this week's study hours as a ring, your next deadline, your current level, your next trip home, and a quick look at your budget. Before move-in and between terms, extra cards show up here too, a countdown and a nudge toward starting a quiet-time habit early. Nothing to set up, it all pulls from the other tabs automatically.
🗓️ Schedule
Toggle between Fall and Winter at the top. Your real classes are already in, colored pink and locked in place. Above the grid is a Courses & Office Hours table, add office hours there once you actually have them, professors announce those in week one, they're never on the official schedule. In the grid itself, click any empty square to tag it: Study, Work, Club, Social, Sleep, Free, Travel, or Quiet Time. Each term also has its own online-class category since one course each term has no fixed meeting time.
⏳ Planner
Type in an assignment name, pick the course, set the due date. Six checkpoints appear automatically, working backward from that date, topic chosen, research done, outline locked, half draft, full draft, final pass. Works for exams too, just treat the draft checkpoints as review rounds. The course dropdown also includes Co-op Application and RA Application, so those deadlines get the same backward-planning treatment as an essay. There's also an Import box at the top for adding a whole syllabus at once, ask Claude in a chat to list every graded item as COURSE | Name | YYYY-MM-DD, one per line, then paste the result in.
⚖️ Hours
Every week, set a study target and log actual hours as the week goes, social hours too. It tells you flatly whether you hit target, turning "have I studied enough to go out" into a number instead of a guess.
📊 Grades
Not an official GPA, just your own running average. Enter a grade for a course as soon as something's graded, doesn't need to be the final mark. Set a target average if you have one in mind, law school competitiveness or otherwise, and it'll show how far above or below you're sitting.
💸 Budget
Your starting balance and your floor, the number you don't want to go under, both editable. "Things you know are coming" is for planning ahead, concert tickets, a coat, whatever, without it touching your balance until you actually buy it. Books & Supplies works the same way for textbooks. The actual ledger at the bottom is for real money moving, paychecks in, spending out, that's what changes your balance.
🛡️ Safety
Real Campus Safety and SafeWalk numbers, saved right there so you're not searching for them at 11pm. A few habits worth building early, one headphone in, leaving with enough buffer, carrying your Birdie and spray starting now, not just once you're on campus. The Walk Your Route game at the bottom, check off each class building once you've actually walked to it before term starts, all nine gets you a little celebration.
🧳 Packing
Clothes, shoes, hair and makeup, personal care. Not a full shopping list, just what needs to physically go in a suitcase. Check things off as they're packed.
🧺 Routines
Laundry, cleaning, groceries, the weekly stuff, with a reset button for a fresh week. Underneath that, a separate First Few Weeks checklist, office hours, Courselink, your advisor, that kind of thing, reset that one at the start of each new term instead of weekly.
🎯 Progress & Wins and ✨ Life & Social
Wins are milestones, checking one off gets you confetti and moves your level up. Life & Social is a menu of things to actually do, going out, cooking, movie nights, self-care, check one off once you've tried it.
💾 Saving your data
Everything saves automatically in whatever browser you're using. That's per-device though, your Mac and your phone don't know about each other unless live sync has been set up. The Export and Import buttons in the sidebar work regardless, export from one device, send yourself the file, import it on the other, and you're caught up. Worth doing occasionally either way, as a backup.
🗓️ Weekly Schedule
Classes are already plotted in. Click any open square to fill your study holes.
📖 Courses & Office Hours
Office hours aren't on the official schedule, professors set those in week one. Add them here once you know them, from a syllabus or an email.
Whatever's still blank once your classes and sleep are blocked in, that's your real free time. That's where the study holes are hiding.
⏳ Backward Planner
Enter a due date. Every checkpoint between now and then shows up automatically.
📄 Import a whole syllabus at once
Paste your syllabus into a chat with Claude and ask it to list every graded item as one line each, in exactly this form:
Paste whatever Claude gives back into the box below. Every line becomes its own Planner entry, checkpoints included, all at once.
🎓 Thinking about co-op?
Political Science co-op applications go through the Winter term, not fall, so there's no rush right now. The deadline is April 6, the last day of Winter classes, applied through the Experience Guelph portal. Decisions come back by email in early July. Admission is competitive, based on grades and space. If it's a real maybe, add "Co-op Application" as a Planner entry below with that April 6 due date, and let the checkpoints walk you through prepping for it the same way they would for an essay.
Downloads your whole semester, every class, every checkpoint above, and every visit home, as one file. Open it and Apple Calendar (or Google Calendar) will offer to add it all in. Once it's in Calendar, iCloud keeps it synced across your Mac and iPhone automatically, no separate step needed for that part.
🏡 Visits Home
Weekends home, holidays, whatever's planned. Shows up as its own countdown on Home, and gets included when you export to Calendar.
⚖️ Weekly Hours
So "have I studied enough to go out" turns into an actual number, instead of a feeling you have to argue with at 9pm on a Friday.
📊 Grades
Not an official GPA, just your own running estimate, so law school competitiveness is a number you can see instead of something you find out about in April.
Current average
Your target
Enter a grade as soon as you get one back, midterm, essay, whatever's graded so far, not just the final mark. It'll always show your average of what's been entered.
💸 Budget
This one's here whenever you want it, not a chore to keep up with. Plan for what's coming, log your own paychecks and spending when it's useful, and keep an eye on your floor.
Current balance
Starting balance
Your floor
The dark line marks your floor. The bar is how close you are to it.
🔮 Things you know are coming
A place to plan ahead, concert tickets, a winter coat, whatever you can see coming. Doesn't touch your balance until you actually buy it and log it below.
📚 Books & Supplies
A rough cost per class, and whether you've bought it yet. When you actually buy one, log it as an expense below so your balance stays accurate.
💵 Log your own money
Paycheck came in, log it. Spent something, log it. That's the whole system.
📊 Where it's going
This month's spending, broken down by category. Fills in automatically as you log things above.
🧾 Import from a bank statement
Most banking apps let you export or copy your recent transactions. Paste them here, one per line, in this form, and they're all added at once:
🛡️ Safety
Not because anything's wrong, just so the basics are already in place before you need them.
📞 Numbers worth having saved
Campus Safety, real emergency: 519-840-5000, or ext. 52000 from a campus phone, or 911.
Campus Safety, non-emergency: 519-824-4120 ext. 52245.
SafeWalk (free walking escort, anywhere on campus, after dark): dial ext. 53200 from a campus phone, or flag down a SafeWalk team walking around. Runs 8pm to 1am, Monday to Friday, during fall and winter term.
The SafeGryphon app has a one-tap emergency button too, worth downloading in the first week.
Numbers and hours can change. cso.uoguelph.ca is the source if anything here looks off.
A few habits worth having
Request a SafeWalk on the nights you're leaving campus late, that's exactly what it's there for.
One headphone in, not two, when you're walking after dark. Hearing what's around you matters more than the song.
Leave with enough buffer to actually get to class, rushing is when people stop paying attention to where they are.
Carry your Birdie alarm and coyote spray, starting today, not just once you're on campus. Get in the habit now so it's automatic by move-in, not something new to remember on top of everything else. A work shift is a good low-key place to start.
🗺️ Walk your route (a little game)
First chance you get before classes start, walk to every one of these. Knowing the route on a quiet Tuesday beats finding it for the first time at 8:25am on a Monday.
🧳 Packing List
Clothes, shoes, hair and makeup, the personal stuff. Check things off as they go in the suitcase.
🧺 Routines
The stuff nobody teaches you, laundry, a clean room, actual groceries. Do it enough times and it stops being a whole thing.
🗝️ First few weeks of the term
The stuff that actually matters most in week one and two, not week ten. Reuse this list fresh at the start of Fall, then again at the start of Winter.
🎯 Progress & Wins
Check things off. Watch the bar fill up. That's it, that's the game.
✨ Life & Social
Studying's only half the semester. Here's the other half, so try one of these this week. (Ayva might want her own copy of this tab too.)
Your own ideas
Anything not already on the list below, add it here.