Mindful Ink     Life, Living and Productivity

Ever find yourself sitting in a class next to this guy:

On the little scrap of a desk he has a tape recorder, the text book open where he stops to furiously take anything anyone says about anything, and a latop where he desperately tries to capture every word anyone speaks? You’ll recognize him by the strain on his face, like he’s passing a stone, and the desperate fear in his eyes.

I call this note overkill. Don’t get me wrong, if you want to tape record class or take careful notes - that’s your business, we all learn differently and far be it from me to tell you what you must or must not do.

But taking good notes doesn’t mean writing every word down. In fact, I’d say those are terrible notes.

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Last week, in my “Weeks of Hell” post I mentioned meta-notes. This is my own term, I’m sure someone out there has a better one, but “meta” means above or beyond and so it works here. Essentially, meta-notes are much like the study sheets I discussed before as it is a consolidation of the information you need to know.

What’s the difference?

Well, meta-notes are “notes about notes.” They are essentially those bits of information you’ll need for essays and exams picked out of the vast array of notes you take from class and texts. If it sounds a bit complicated (because it’s really not), let me give you an example:

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This is the fifth in a five part series across the blog Student Help Forum and Scholastici.us: Student Productivity Week.

Facebook is a big part of many students’ lives now. When I first came back to college I was astonished by the fact that, for all intents and purposes, I had to setup a Facebook account. (Feel free to add me, I’m the only Gideon Addington about). Almost every party was planned through it, my friends eschewed email or IMs in favor of a message on Facebook, and if I needed to find someone in one of my classes - this is how I did it.

When Russ and I first began discussing “Student Productivity” week, Facebook was a big part of that discussion. Getting students to even think about being productive is hard enough, much less getting them to use a webservice to (heaven forbid) make their lives easier. Facebook, however, students are already using. They’re already there, which is half the battle.

And fortunately, since Facebook allowed outside applications, there has been a lot of work done to accomplish this Herculean task. The best, it seems, has generally came from established web apps (such as Notely.net or Stu.dicio.us.

Russ already covered a lot of the fine examples of scholastically inclined Facebook apps, and here I shall finish the job and end our Student Productivity Week.

Stu.dicio.us - This disappointed me a great deal. Stu. was one of the first social note taking sites I became aware of, and still does a really nice job with the arising competition. However, their Facebook integration seems to be limited to making it easy to invite your friends. Now… don’t get me wrong, this is important - social note-taking only works if your classmates use the service, too. But ick.

I Am Hungry - I admit, this isn’t the most scholarly of applications, but I really like it. So many of the best times I’ve had in college have been random lunch and dinner dates with friends. This helps this along.

Notecentric Courses and Notes - Not a lot distinguishes Notecenter from similar apps (Notely, etc.) but it is an alternative allowing you to share class and note information with others.

MyNoteIt - This is very similar to Notely, but all self-contained within Facebook. The setup allows for class organization, note storage and sharing, groups, assignments with reminders and mobile access. A very nice package, all in all.

Files - The Facebook version of Box.net, this is a great way of sharing files. Box.net allows free accounts to upload files 10mbs or less and either keep them private or archive them, the Facebook app just makes it easier to access these files from the site, and share them. 10mb may not seem like a lot, but most files a student will be moving around is significantly less than this.

Pick-a-Prof - Bane and blessing of students and professors alike, Pick-A-Prof gives you that valuable knowledge about a professor that may help save you a lot of trouble. As much as many like to think, academia is hardly objective most the time, add that to some professors who are simply better researchers than instructors, or whom can barely speak the language or are just plain mean. The problem here is that a few spiteful students can really sour the results. Still, it’s often worth a look if your friends can’t give you first hand knowledge about a professor - but I’ve known it to be wrong occasionally. Some of my best professors have gotten rather bad ranks here.

This is the third in a five part series across the blog Student Help Forum and Scholastici.us: Student Productivity Week. See Part IV tomorrow at Student Help Forum.

I have to admit something.

So far this semester, I’ve been a horrible productivity guru. Really. Just awful. This semester has been a train wreck since day one and I’m totally off the ball right now. Yes, there are reasons but that hardly matters. What matters is I am off the track and it is time to get back on. So, let’s make it a learning experience, shall we?

First… Scheduling

Kind of a core skill here. This is actually pretty under control, I’ve just not been following it well. I’m using GradeFix (a webapp I am totally in love with) and iCal which syncs with my phone nicely. Gradefix also feeds into iCal so everything is in one place.

However, since initially setting GradeFix up a lot has changed, and I need to update it desperately. So, step one. You can, of course, do this with any calendaring program. I use Gradefix because it organizes the time in very manageable blocks which I really like.

Notetaking Okay, now that I know I’m not going to lose track of what I’m going to do, it’s time to setup my study system. I tend to take notes in OmniOutliner, which is a Mac app that every Mac for the past few years has came with free. If using Windows, Onenote would be fine. Oddly enough, however, this semester I do not have a lot of classes where taking notes in class is all that practical - taking notes on books is far more so. This doesn’t really change anything though - just where I’m getting the info.An import part of notes, however, is reviewing them. I like the general setup of the Cornell method myself, but I’m not really all that anal about it. The important part is that you process these notes - you attend them. For me that means:

• noting the important terms (and defining them if necessary)
• noting the main points and possibly re-wording them
• researching the general topic loosely, as well as any attending ideas

I use Wikipedia pretty heavily here, as it generally gives me an excellent breakdown along with other useful links, etc. You can see an example of my notes in this image to the side. At the bottom of the column you can see a “Summary” where I kept keywords, etc. It was simply an embedded text file within my Curio file. Essentially, I keep a template in Curio and then paste my OmniOutliner notes into it. I use Curio (or Onenote) because it is a whiteboard setup - I can stick just about anything into it wherever I want - which appeals greatly to my learning style. The squares on the left are webarchive files, as opposed to links, because that way even without the net I have access to them. If I’m taking notes over an individual, I often find a picture helps and will usually include these in my notes as well as maps, other pictures, etc, when appropriate.

Also, as an aside, for those of you who like to take notes on paper as I often do while reading, as I find moving to a laptop and back too disruptive - you can use this dandy Cornell-esque printable template I made a while back. But afterwards, I still put them back into the computer at the end of the day.

So, now we’re at the second thing I must do. I need to go over and attend my notes. It’s best to do this immediately after class, or at least later in the day, but.. as I said, I’m behind. Still, there is value in this - reviewing notes a second time a few days later is very useful, because holes or obvious problems in your notes may be much more noticible with a bit of time on your side.

StudyingWell, lots of that to do too. I’ve got many, many, many pages to read and a lot of writing I need to get a handle on. As I mentioned earlier, reading is what I have a lot of this semester. A lot of it, unfortunately, quite boring. I mentioned, however, in my post over at Cal’s that the best way to do this is very simple - go to the library, sit down with the pen, the book, and some paper (maybe some tiny post-its) and get to it. I keep my phone handy if I need to look up a definition or need a bit more info, but I don’t let myself get bogged down in research as I’m going. I’ll read it once, see if I get it, and go from there. If I do need to look it over again (particularly problematic when going over academic papers) the second time through I will research as I go.I know, I know.. I even say on my book notes: “Do Not Stop to Look Things Up the First Time Through.” This just shows you not to take such commandments seriously. If it is something difficult like an academic paper, and you will be reading it twice - yes, do not stop to research as you go. But, most of your college reading you will not have the time nor inclination to read twice. Use your judgement here - if the subject keeps coming up and you really have no idea, take a moment to look it up. If you think you’ve a good grasp of the material, wait till afterwards.I know a lot of people suggest skimming heavily. And I’m sure for a lot of people, that’s a good idea. However, I’ve a number of plucky professors who like to drag vague details out of the text that I’d never remember in a million years and test me over it and so I’ve learned to do something else.

I do skim - first. I go over the chapter, reading first and last paragraphs here and there. I generally read the introduction and concluding paragraphs as well and then I go through, reading very carefully. I underline, mark, note and comment as I go. The upside? I can “re-read” an entire book in a few minutes when I’m done. I read the underlined bits, the comments, the notes and I’m generally pretty refreshed on everything I read. The sooner the better, obviously, but I’ve done this with books I’ve read months before quite successfully.

Quick tip - get a brightly colored pen to do this. I like a Pilot G2 - Red (.07) myself and, indeed, G2 .07’s are my pen of choice in general. The bright colors will stand out a lot more, and are easier to review with. You can also use a blue pen, if you must.

Afterwards, I use one of the aforementioned Cornell note sheets to map out what I just read. I’ll later type this up (as above.)

Depending on the class, later on I’ll make a Study Sheet generally to go along with any review they may give us, though for somethings (like languages) I’ll make one at the beginning rather than the end so I don’t have to flip around the book constantly as I work.

ConclusionSo there we have it - this is my “System.” I’m writing this on Sunday, and plan on getting up to speed today. Hopefully, by the time I’m posting this everything will be good to go.What’s your system? Should I change something? Share what you think in the comments!