Meeting 3: Notetaking

Let’s put the last few meetings into perspective:

First meeting was about “Capturing “all the tasks that came into our lives –  What we need to do: reading the textbook, solving a problem set, doing the laundry, calling your mother, or whatever it may be.

Last meeting was about taking “Control” of our schedules — When we do these tasks. Here’s the wrap-up of the technique:

1) Use a weekly planner. Mark the regular times you have to be somewhere, doing something. For instance, class. Yes, go to class.

2) Time-block. Block out time for irregularly occurring events — counselor visits, doctor appointments and the like. Now, all that’s left is homework and free time.

3) Run on autopilot. Schedule yourself to do work for certain classes at certain times. For example, you know you have ~50 pages of reading for this anthropology class. Why not make yourself read for one hour before the class on Tuesdays and Thursday? This is key to fighting procrastination!

Tonight will be the first time we really get into the nitty gritty tactics: taking good notes.

Meeting 2: Control

This week’s meeting is tomorrow, Wednesday at 7pm. Meet at Silvergreens, hungry.

Hopefully we all had a good MLK weekend, and are prepared to get on track with ways to Control our schedules so that your tasks don’t own you like a Crackberry owns Busy-Man-Cubicle-Worker.

A review:
Last meeting was all about Capture of everything that might pop up in your head. You never know what assignments, errands, or internship applications you’ll remember when you’re grabbing a sandwich at Ortega or biking to your next class. Having a good capture system, as we’ve discussed, means:

1) Having one (not five!) default place where all brainvomit goes. That does not include a calendar/agenda, which will be discussed this week. Your “default” can be in digital or paper form.

2) Checking your capture place regularly. Just don’t get addicted to it or use it to avoid actual work.

Post-meeting 1: Capture, Question to Ponder

What medium do you currently use for a Capture System? If you’ve tried different formats, what works better: paper or digital?

PAPER USERS Have you tried…
>loose-leaf papers vs. bound notebooks. Depends on how much freedom you can allow yourself without getting even more scatterbrained than before you had a Capture System.

>plain vs. lined vs. graph paper. I would opt for the lined sheets because they are most common. It works for most uses, which is probably why college-ruled paper is so common in the first place. However, it doesn’t hurt to try the alternatives for special purposes, like picture or diagrams on plain, or numbers calculations on graph.

Check out some classy notebooks with options for any of the three formats, here. Or try the reliable Moleskine. Or my favorite, the water resistant Rite in the Rain journal, here.

DIGITAL USERS Have you tried…

>an excel document with categories or contexts, i.e. @school, @work, @email. Try something like this, which will allow you to focus on work when you’re in work mode, and play when you’re at play.

>anything you’ve made up on your own. By all means, please share in the comments below or in a new post above.

The next element we will implement is Control, which involves using a planner/agenda. Particularly, we may like to talk about which are the best formats to use. Until next time…

Weekly Planner Template

CLICK for Planner Template

This is a planner document that can be printed out and folded in half to make your own planner, simple yet more professional to pull out of your daypack than a frumpy to-do list, not to mention more helpful in how it is organized:

It forces you to assign a time to each task. Simply adhering to the schedule through the day would ensure that you get everything done, as opposed to having an ever-expanding and intimidating to-do list.

Each page shows 7 days and provides 24 slots for each hour of the day. Unlike other planners with only hour-slots for the typical business 9-to-5 business day, the template can be fully customized (this sounds like a sales pitch) to your schedule. The slots for your bedtime hours can be widened into a blank box to allow space for writing random to-do’s, for example.

The overachievers among us can also hole punch the middle of the pages and bind them up to our liking. I admit that I took the overachiever route and spent $50 on a special hole puncher and planner cover that allows removal and insertion of pages. I don’t recommend spending $40 on the hole puncher, since you could borrow mine, but consider the $10 cover/spine (pick junior size) a worthy investment as part of a paper Capture System.

First Meeting

We’re kicking off the new quarter in 2010 with a serious look at how we hit the books. Hopefully, we will end up with effective strategies for students to reduce the hours spent outside of class on studying and assignments.

“But I like being busy.”

We don’t. And stop kidding yourself. You only like it because it makes you feel like you’re getting things done. And you probably are, but…

-Are you getting the right things done?

-Do you have to be constantly busy to get good grades and be impressive?

-What’s more impressive: a grinding hard worker or a relaxed smart worker (assuming similar talent/intelligence)?

-Doesn’t being busy just mean being a slave to your endless list of assignments and to-do’s, when any little moment of relaxation comes with nagging guilt that “I should be studying right now”?

When you start questioning your assumptions about schoolwork, this is where the Study Hacks philosophy comes in…

For more info, check the “About” page. If that sounds interesting enough, our first meeting is at the UCEN upstairs food court on Monday the 4th @ 7pm. Post a comment here with any questions.