Who'da Thunk it?

At the beginning of this year, I (with considerable help from my parents) invested in all the usual first year college student stuff. You know, textbooks (LOTS of textbooks), tuition, a locker, a new, less relient on hoodies and t-shirts wardrobe. It turns out, though, that a relatively small purchase has turned out to be, by far, the most useful of everything I spent money on last fall.
This little something was a day planner. It cost me about $20 at Indigo, and it was truly worth every penny I spent on it. There were cheaper ones available, but I bought the Pierre Belvedere Green Pixie Agenda, and I must say, it was totally worth the splurge. Not only is is beautiful, but it's got each day subdivided into time slots (which is surprisingly rare, considering how useful a feature it is), and it has an address book section, and even a section for notes (which is really useful when my laptop runs out of batteries unexpectedly).
I later found out that my school gives away agendas as freebies on orientation day, but because I spent the money to buy a pretty agenda, I was more motivated to use it than I otherwise would have been.
What really surprised me, though, was how highlighting the assignments in my agenda as I completed them became in itself a reward for me. In high school, I used to find this practise kind of overkill on the organization, but now I realise why a lot of people do it. Being able to cross something off of your list is a rewarding experience. It's almost like congratulating yourself on a task well done. There were literally times when I would say to myself "just one more page and I'll be able to highlight this chapter in my agenda".
It's pretty common wisdom that it's good to reward yourself for getting stuff done in order to keep motivated in college, but I really think that in the long run, I saved myself a fortune by buying this agenda.  Instead of buying rewards as I went, I would just highlight stuff. And I was shocked at how well that alone did the trick. Last semester, I spent $10 on some expensive creamery ice cream during exam week, but that was the only time I actually had to spend money rewarding myself. I really think that number would have been higher had I not used an agenda. Who would have thought that a little green book could be such a great investment?