anything is better than nothing. reading one page, one paragraph, even one sentence, is better than reading none. maybe next week you can do two. maybe not. it’s still better than nothing, i promise

making to-do lists and organizing your things is nice, and feels productive, but it’s important to know when you’re using them as a way to procrastinate

mindfulness is so important! go on a walk and pay attention to your surroundings. if you don’t think you can go on a walk, just sit outside. even just open a window and observe what you hear, what you see, etc—even just a couple minutes of mindful observation is helpful.

this one doesn’t help everyone, but if you just can’t get up to do that one task and you’re just lying there struggling to make yourself do it, count down from 5 and then get up at 1. then count down from 5 again and do the next step. and the next. splitting it up into tiny pieces helps, whether it’s for an assignment or even just getting dressed.

bad mental health days happen. recovery is hard! that doesn’t mean you’re back where you started. if you stay in this mindset then you’ll be stuck there—sometimes the bad days are just bad days.

i’ll post more of these as i think of them but these are the things that are helping me right now + i thought they might help others !

have contact with this language by hearing it on movies, tv shows and music. this will help you with your pronunciation skills and with your vocabulary

learn vocabulary and grammar at the same time

read kids books and translate what you don’t know. it might be hard at the beginning, but keep trying 

speak to yourself will help you like crazy. I like to pretend that I’m acting or that someone is interviewing me hahah see the magic happens 

READ AND WRITE. this is as important as speaking. It used to be so hard for me to write in English and I felt awful because I could actually speak very well. But my writing skills were just a lower level than my speaking level. Thankfully it’s getting better with practice. 

try to study a little everyday. if you don’t have time to do so, watch a movie or something, but have this contact with the new language at least once a day

Crafts

quilting

embroidery

cross-stitch

knitting

crochet

sewing

Cooking and Baking

homemade bread

homemade butter

homemade extracts

dandelion jelly

Canning

26 canning recipes

canning jars 101

60 canning recipes

Gardening

edible trees to plant

what to plant to save the bees

cure and braid garlic

save seeds for next year

braid onions for long term storage

build a greenhouse

Animals

homemade chicken feed

raising mealworms for chickens

why to raise nigerian dwarf goats

Outdoors

starting a fire with sticks

trail signs

knotting

find true north without a compass

Medicine

homemade neosporin

Hi there! It sounds like you’re looking for some free or inexpensive ways to get back in the habit/routine of studying before possibly going back to school eventually? I think it’s really awesome that you’re thinking about this and seem to be approaching this in a responsible way in terms of finances, so props to you for that!

I’d probably try to take a free online course and study it as if it were for an actual college course. For example, you could take some classes through the sites below and study them by taking notes, making flashcards, quizzing yourself, etc. and really focus on actually learning and studying the content. I’d definitely start with a class about something that interests you already since those are the easiest for getting in the habit of studying them regularly! Plus if you’re able to explore different topics, that could help you to find out what you’d like to do if you’re not sure yet!

Here are some places where you can find free online courses:

Coursera

Edx

OpenCulture (compilation of courses from other sites)

Alison

OpenLearn

Harvard

MIT OpenCourseWare

Khan Academy

Hi! Learning from online textbooks and PDFs can be a really accessible and inexpensive option for students, but sometimes it can be a little bit difficult if you’re not used to learning from an online textbook! So, here are some tips on how to learn effectively from online textbooks:

If possible, download your etextbook so that you can have it even if you don’t have wifi! Trust me, if you’re on a college campus, the wifi gets really slow during finals season and you don’t want to be unable to access your textbook when it comes down to crunch time!

Use a program that allows you to highlight text in the etextbook, if possible! Highlight important keywords so you can easily go back through the file and find the key points easily!

Take notes as you normally would from a physical textbook (for example, I like taking notes on paper so I would do this from an online textbook too!)

If you’re looking for a specific term, use ctrl+f to search for that term in the file! (this works with most PDFs, online textbooks might work differently but most will have some sort of search function)

Try to make bookmarks at the start of each chapter or section if the file doesn’t have a click-able table of contents (or you can just write down a table of contents with the chapter and page number on a piece of paper if you aren’t able to do this in the file)

Use a text-to-speech program if possible! This can help if you’re more of an auditory learner, or it can help you stay on track and undistracted while you read along with the voice

Use a site blocker so that you don’t get distracted by social media while studying online. I use SelfControl and StayFocusd to do this, but there are a bunch of other options that work just as well! These help a LOT since getting distracted by the internet is often the biggest problem for people who are trying to study on their computer

If you have the option, I’ve heard that having the etextbook on a tablet while taking notes on a laptop/computer (or on paper, if you prefer) can work really well!

GOOD STUDYING

Use recall. When you look at a passage and try to study it,  look away and recall the main ideas. Try recalling concepts when you are walking to class or in a different room from where you originally learned it. An ability to recall—to generate the ideas from inside yourself—is one of the key indicators of good learning.

Test yourself. On everything. All the time. Flashcards are your best friend. Use quizlet if you don’t want to hand-make flashcards. Get somebody to test you on your notes.

Space your repetition. Spread out your learning in any subject a little every day, just like an athlete. Don’t sit and study one subject for 2 hours, do half an hour every day.

Take breaks. It is common to be unable to solve problems or figure out concepts in math or science the first time you encounter them. This is why a little study every day is much better than a lot of studying all at once. When you get frustrated, take a break so that another part of your mind can take over and work in the background. You need breaks in order for your brain to retain the information. Try the Pomodoro method if you have trouble timing breaks!

Use simple analogies. Whenever you are struggling with a concept, think to yourself, How can I explain this so that a ten-year-old could understand it? Using an analogy really helps. Say it out loud, like you’re teaching it, whether it’s to an imaginary class or your sister who couldn’t care less.  The additional effort of teaching out loud allows you to more deeply encode.

Focus. Turn off your phone / iPad / any distractions and clear your desk of everything you do not need. Use apps like Forest if you can’t stay off them!

Do the hardest thing earliest in the day, when you’re wide awake and less likely to push it aside.

BAD STUDYING

Avoid these techniques—they can waste your time even while they fool you into thinking you’re learning!

Passive rereading—sitting passively and running your eyes back over a page. This is a waste of time, frankly, and doesn’t do anything to help information pass into your brain without recall.

Over-highlighting. Colouring a passage of text in highlighter isn’t helpful at all. It’s good for flagging up key points to trigger concepts and information, but make sure what you highlight goes in.

Waiting until the last minute to study. DON’T CRAM!!!

Doing what you know. This isn’t studying! This is like learning how to juggle but only throwing one ball. 

Neglecting the textbook. Would you dive into a pool before you knew how to swim? The textbook is your swimming instructor—it guides you toward the answers. 

Not asking your teachers for help. They are used to lost students coming in for guidance—it’s their job to help you. 

In honor of the new year, here is my simple tutorial for setting up and maintaining a language journal. I’ve made 3 so far using this method for spanish, french, and italian because it’s so simple. Disfruta y espero que logres sus metas de lengua este año! <3

What You’ll Need:

composition book

highlighters

flashcard(s)

black ink pen

Your brain has no word limit. “Memorise every word you encounter” That’s not a requirement, that’s an impossible goal you should set for yourself. Learning vocabulary is like a plate that slowly turns into a bowl the more water you pour in it(weird metaphor I know but bear with me). You can learn 100 words and you’ll quickly forget a lot of them. You can learn 10 words and you’ll quickly forget some of them. But learning 30 words out of 100 is much better than learning 8 out of 10(you feel me?). The plate will overfill regardless of how much water you pour in there, so just pour as much as you can and turn that sucker into a bowl.

Simply put: The more you learn, the easier it gets to learn. 

There’s no such thing as a useless word. Vehicle. Spaceship. Run. Skedaddle. Are all important words. Never ignore a word because you think it’s useless. It’ll come to you, maybe in the next test, maybe in a conversation with a stranger, maybe written in scary red paint on the wall of a sketchy neighbourhood telling you to skedaddle. You need it.

Speak your target language*duh*. *Imagine if you will, you’re in France with little to no vocabulary. You walk into a hotel, worried as to how you’re gonna communicate with the person at the desk. As soon as your eyes meet he greets you saying in the most fluent english accent “Hello there! How may I help you?” You sigh a sigh of relief, however you remember that you’re in France, you’re committed to learning the French language. You take a deep breath and respond with “Salut! je maple Timothy je want une casa” Now obviously there’s so much wrong there. But it’s so much better than speaking english because you’ll learn what a room is, and you’ll even learn a word in Spanish. 

You’ll embarrass yourself in conversations.  No advice here just telling you a fact. A Chinese guy once asked me if I understood something and I simply replied with “I am bread” So yeah good luck.

Idioms. Learn them. They’re awesome. 

Think in target language. Weird I know. But seriously if you know how to think a sentence in your target language, do it. You’ll be more comfortable saying it and you’ll revise what you’ve learnt. As well as discover what you forgot.

Lie. When it’s harmless. Try telling a taxi driver you’re Sri Lankan see where that takes you. Unless you are Sri Lankan in which case you’re Cambodian. Say you married an Austrian pilot, or own a pet rock, or maybe related to the queen. You’ll have much more fun and useful conversations.  (P.s. If you’re half-Sri Lankan half-Cambodian you are officially Martian.)

Helpful Apps: 

HiNative: Allows you to ask native speakers what something means, how it’s used, whether your sentence is correct, or simply any question you have about said language or even culture. 

Flashcards: Pretty self explanatory. Make your own flashcards, one side in your language, one side in target language. Perfect in revising words. You can also download decks that other people have created and made public. Obviously you can use it for other subjects too. 

HelloTalk: Texting people of target language who want to learn your native language.  Help each other learn each other’s language and has great features for correcting sentences and grammar. 

FAMOUS AUTHORS

Classic Bookshelf: This site has put classic novels online, from Charles Dickens to Charlotte Bronte.

The Online Books Page: The University of Pennsylvania hosts this book search and database.

Project Gutenberg: This famous site has over 27,000 free books online.

Page by Page Books: Find books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells, as well as speeches from George W. Bush on this site.

Classic Book Library: Genres here include historical fiction, history, science fiction, mystery, romance and children’s literature, but they’re all classics.

Classic Reader: Here you can read Shakespeare, young adult fiction and more.

Read Print: From George Orwell to Alexandre Dumas to George Eliot to Charles Darwin, this online library is stocked with the best classics.

Planet eBook: Download free classic literature titles here, from Dostoevsky to D.H. Lawrence to Joseph Conrad.

The Spectator Project: Montclair State University’s project features full-text, online versions of The Spectator and The Tatler.

Bibliomania: This site has more than 2,000 classic texts, plus study guides and reference books.

Online Library of Literature: Find full and unabridged texts of classic literature, including the Bronte sisters, Mark Twain and more.

Bartleby: Bartleby has much more than just the classics, but its collection of anthologies and other important novels made it famous.

Fiction.us: Fiction.us has a huge selection of novels, including works by Lewis Carroll, Willa Cather, Sherwood Anderson, Flaubert, George Eliot, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.

Free Classic Literature: Find British authors like Shakespeare and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, plus other authors like Jules Verne, Mark Twain, and more.

TEXTBOOKS

Textbook Revolution: Find biology, business, engineering, mathematics and world history textbooks here.

Wikibooks: From cookbooks to the computing department, find instructional and educational materials here.

KnowThis Free Online Textbooks: Get directed to stats textbooks and more.

Online Medical Textbooks: Find books about plastic surgery, anatomy and more here.

Online Science and Math Textbooks: Access biochemistry, chemistry, aeronautics, medical manuals and other textbooks here.

MIT Open Courseware Supplemental Resources: Find free videos, textbooks and more on the subjects of mechanical engineering, mathematics, chemistry and more.

Flat World Knowledge: This innovative site has created an open college textbooks platform that will launch in January 2009.

Free Business Textbooks: Find free books to go along with accounting, economics and other business classes.

Light and Matter: Here you can access open source physics textbooks.

eMedicine: This project from WebMD is continuously updated and has articles and references on surgery, pediatrics and more.

MATH AND SCIENCE

FullBooks.com: This site has “thousands of full-text free books,” including a large amount of scientific essays and books.

Free online textbooks, lecture notes, tutorials and videos on mathematics: NYU links to several free resources for math students.

Online Mathematics Texts: Here you can find online textbooks likeElementary Linear Algebra and Complex Variables.

Science and Engineering Books for free download: These books range in topics from nanotechnology to compressible flow.

FreeScience.info: Find over 1800 math, engineering and science books here.

Free Tech Books: Computer programmers and computer science enthusiasts can find helpful books here.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

byGosh: Find free illustrated children’s books and stories here.

Munseys: Munseys has nearly 2,000 children’s titles, plus books about religion, biographies and more.

International Children’s Digital Library: Find award-winning books and search by categories like age group, make believe books, true books or picture books.

Lookybook: Access children’s picture books here.

PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION

Bored.com: Bored.com has music ebooks, cooking ebooks, and over 150 philosophy titles and over 1,000 religion titles.

Ideology.us: Here you’ll find works by Rene Descartes, Sigmund Freud, Karl Marx, David Hume and others.

Free Books on Yoga, Religion and Philosophy: Recent uploads to this site include Practical Lessons in Yoga and Philosophy of Dreams.

The Sociology of Religion: Read this book by Max Weber, here.

Religion eBooks: Read books about the Bible, Christian books, and more.

PLAYS

ReadBookOnline.net: Here you can read plays by Chekhov, Thomas Hardy, Ben Jonson, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe and others.

Plays: Read Pygmalion, Uncle Vanya or The Playboy of the Western World here.

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: MIT has made available all of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, and histories.

Plays Online: This site catalogs “all the plays [they] know about that are available in full text versions online for free.”

ProPlay: This site has children’s plays, comedies, dramas and musicals.

MODERN FICTION, FANTASY AND ROMANCE

Public Bookshelf: Find romance novels, mysteries and more.

The Internet Book Database of Fiction: This forum features fantasy and graphic novels, anime, J.K. Rowling and more.

Free Online Novels: Here you can find Christian novels, fantasy and graphic novels, adventure books, horror books and more.

Foxglove: This British site has free novels, satire and short stories.

Baen Free Library: Find books by Scott Gier, Keith Laumer and others.

The Road to Romance: This website has books by Patricia Cornwell and other romance novelists.

Get Free Ebooks: This site’s largest collection includes fiction books.

John T. Cullen: Read short stories from John T. Cullen here.

SF and Fantasy Books Online: Books here include Arabian Nights,Aesop’s Fables and more.

Free Novels Online and Free Online Cyber-Books: This list contains mostly fantasy books.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE

Project Laurens Jz Coster: Find Dutch literature here.

ATHENA Textes Francais: Search by author’s name, French books, or books written by other authors but translated into French.

Liber Liber: Download Italian books here. Browse by author, title, or subject.

Biblioteca romaneasca: Find Romanian books on this site.

Bibliolteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes: Look up authors to find a catalog of their available works on this Spanish site.

KEIMENA: This page is entirely in Greek, but if you’re looking for modern Greek literature, this is the place to access books online.

Proyecto Cervantes: Texas A&M’s Proyecto Cervantes has cataloged Cervantes’ work online.

Corpus Scriptorum Latinorum: Access many Latin texts here.

Project Runeberg: Find Scandinavian literature online here.

Italian Women Writers: This site provides information about Italian women authors and features full-text titles too.

Biblioteca Valenciana: Register to use this database of Catalan and Valencian books.

Ketab Farsi: Access literature and publications in Farsi from this site.

Afghanistan Digital Library: Powered by NYU, the Afghanistan Digital Library has works published between 1870 and 1930.

CELT: CELT stands for “the Corpus of Electronic Texts” features important historical literature and documents.

Projekt Gutenberg-DE: This easy-to-use database of German language texts lets you search by genres and author.

HISTORY AND CULTURE

LibriVox: LibriVox has a good selection of historical fiction.

The Perseus Project: Tufts’ Perseus Digital Library features titles from Ancient Rome and Greece, published in English and original languages.

Access Genealogy: Find literature about Native American history, the Scotch-Irish immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries, and more.

Free History Books: This collection features U.S. history books, including works by Paul Jennings, Sarah Morgan Dawson, Josiah Quincy and others.

Most Popular History Books: Free titles include Seven Days and Seven Nights by Alexander Szegedy and Autobiography of a Female Slave by Martha G. Browne.

RARE BOOKS

Questia: Questia has 5,000 books available for free, including rare books and classics.

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT

Books-On-Line: This large collection includes movie scripts, newer works, cookbooks and more.

Chest of Books: This site has a wide range of free books, including gardening and cooking books, home improvement books, craft and hobby books, art books and more.

Free e-Books: Find titles related to beauty and fashion, games, health, drama and more.

2020ok: Categories here include art, graphic design, performing arts, ethnic and national, careers, business and a lot more.

Free Art Books: Find artist books and art books in PDF format here.

Free Web design books: OnlineComputerBooks.com directs you to free web design books.

Free Music Books: Find sheet music, lyrics and books about music here.

Free Fashion Books: Costume and fashion books are linked to the Google Books page.

MYSTERY

MysteryNet: Read free short mystery stories on this site.

TopMystery.com: Read books by Edgar Allan Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, GK Chesterton and other mystery writers here.

Mystery Books: Read books by Sue Grafton and others.

POETRY

The Literature Network: This site features forums, a copy of The King James Bible, and over 3,000 short stories and poems.

Poetry: This list includes “The Raven,” “O Captain! My Captain!” and “The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde.”

Poem Hunter: Find free poems, lyrics and quotations on this site.

Famous Poetry Online: Read limericks, love poetry, and poems by Robert Browning, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Lord Byron and others.

Google Poetry: Google Books has a large selection of poetry, fromThe Canterbury Tales to Beowulf to Walt Whitman.

QuotesandPoem.com: Read poems by Maya Angelou, William Blake, Sylvia Plath and more.

CompleteClassics.com: Rudyard Kipling, Allen Ginsberg and Alfred Lord Tennyson are all featured here.

PinkPoem.com: On this site, you can download free poetry ebooks.

MISC

Banned Books: Here you can follow links of banned books to their full text online.

World eBook Library: This monstrous collection includes classics, encyclopedias, children’s books and a lot more.

DailyLit: DailyLit has everything from Moby Dick to the recent phenomenon, Skinny Bitch.

A Celebration of Women Writers: The University of Pennsylvania’s page for women writers includes Newbery winners.

Free Online Novels: These novels are fully online and range from romance to religious fiction to historical fiction.

ManyBooks.net: Download mysteries and other books for your iPhone or eBook reader here.

Authorama: Books here are pulled from Google Books and more. You’ll find history books, novels and more.

I’m supposed to be studying some Italian, but instead, I was googling in my computer how to learn a new language (no, googling how to learn will not teach you shit, you have to sit down and learn your target language not how to do it, I know but I’m lazy.) and I came across LingoHut, and I have to share it.

I don’t know if someone ever talked about this page, but if they did is worth mentioning again.

So basically you go to the website and in the Home Page you have to choose what is your first language and what language are you trying to learn.

Once you choose it’ll take you to another page in which you have tons of lessons, for ex. In Italian, there are 109 lessons.

I haven’t checked every lesson yet but for example, the first one is greetings and such. You click that lesson and you have 16 flashcards that will show you the word in your target language and the translation, at the same time that someone pronounces the words.

Below the flashcards, you have this  ⬇️

And basically is a bunch of game, an easy matching words kind of game, some kind of tic tac toe with words, a memory game do you know the one that kids play in which they have to find the matching pictures? Same but with words and lastly a listening and matching game.

Below the bar of the games, we have the vocabulary list of the words we are taught in that lesson, and you can click the word and listen the pronunciation.

In the end, you have a bunch of the next lessons.

The lessons vary from the content it can be greetings, numbers, health stuff, office words, computer terminology, etc.

The website doesn’t have every language in the world, but it has a lot of them. choose your target language, in my case Italian, and enjoy, is fun and simple if you want to practice or do something related to your target language but you don’t have the willingness that day to study something more consistent like structure.

All that’s stopping you from doing this is you. All you need is discipline. This took me ages of learning the hard way that that’s literally all it is. Discipline. It’s finding the root core of WHY you want to study WHY you want to eat healthier and it needs to be something strong that you can hold on to. Such as being top of your class, going to med school, practicing a good routine for after high school, wanting to feel better by eating better, want a longer life etc. etc.

College tips series

1. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. People aren’t as scary as they seem, and everyone in college is on the same boat. What surprised me the most is that people are willing to help you. 

2. Help others. I figured out this is how things worked, especially among classmates (well, at least the responsible ones). They help you, and you help them. This is also a good way to start making connections too. 

3. Invest in the fastest internet speed. There will come a day where you’re gonna send that essay at 23:59. You’ll be ABSOLUTELY EXTREMELY HAPPY to have spent those extra bucks for a speedy internet connection. 

4. Do everything online. Please, do. They are not gonna get lost. They will always be in the cloud. No memory sticks, no sending via e-mail, no hard drive lost. Your data will always be in your desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile. Didn’t bring your laptop or stick for the powerpoint presentation? Just take out your phone and cast it to the screen. Couldn’t be easier. 

5. Buy a laptop that doesn’t give you a lot of headaches, if you can. For all you people doing regular average work on a Windows 10, please consider either buying a Chromebook (for the ones on a budget) or a MacBook (for the ones who can afford it). You don’t have to worry about things like buying, downloading and installing an antivirus every few months. And if something comes up, client service is ridiculously fast and helpful. However, if you are in the creative fields that require special software like Adobe Suit or video editing, buy yourself a MacBook. I know it sounds like I am trashing Windows 10, but I am not, I use torrents all the time. But the maintenance a Windows 10 requires might take some knowledge and time for some people. You are better off spending that time doing something else. Plus both of these laptops can last for a long long time.  

6. Consider adopting minimalist practices to control anxiety, get focus and be more organised. I cannot stress this enough. If everything around you is a mess, you are gonna be a mess physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. Don’t buy a lot of notebooks, don’t buy all the books, don’t buy a lot of stationary, don’t bring your entire house in your dorm, don’t bring your entire closet either. That will cause more chaos which is gonna ruin your focus on what truly matters. 

7. Have a night routine. We are creatures of habits. And having a good night’s sleep could make or break your grades. No matter how good you learned for an exam, if you didn’t get a good sleep, your sorry ass will definitely regret it. (I know, I’ve been there). So make sure to get a night routine that will help you relax and get the sleep of your dreams. 

8. Talk with yourself regularly. This sounds incredibly stupid, I know. But it was in that first year that I realised how important it was for my subconscious and conscious to be on the same page. I learned to see my brain as an attic, where I store things. If I get to a point in where I just stuff things after another, the attic will be full in no time. And as a result, I would feel overwhelmed, I would not open that door, I will avoid open that door and I would fall in horrible breakdowns. I spent about 2 weeks crying for no reason. I cried watching the news, in lecture, while eating, for a lost rhino, for my dog, for my phone, for my bed. I cried for so many stupid things. And that was because I wasn’t emotionally stable. My mind was cluttered and was affecting me greatly. So, I started writing regularly again, my thoughts, what I have to do. And little by little, I got back on my feet. 

9. Google. Scholar. Is. Your. Friend. Not. Wikipedia. Just ditch Wikipedia altogether. If it’s the first essay you are working on, don’t you dare to use Wikipedia as a reference. Anybody can edit the contents of the page. JUST RUN, BISH. 

10. Sign up for relevant websites that have to do with your studies. Believe me, this will give you a great advantage in all of your classes. I study Entrepreneurship and Management, (I know, boring). We get a lot of marketing, so I signed up for marketingweek.com and I have been saved by the heavens. This is a website specially designed for marketers to keep up with what’s happening in their branch. And the insight you get when you read these websites is incredible. The information you get here is more up to date than whatever you might get in college because it is usually posted the same day it came out. Our exams are open questions, and we often get cases and are asked to give examples, and it is so easy to respond to these questions when you know how the world’s leading companies are putting marketing into practice. 

11. Make your life easier. Use a citation generator. We need to use APA-style to make references and literature lists. I use https://www.scribbr.com/apa-citation-generator/. I like this one because it has an autofill option in which all you need is the link. 

12. Have a second brain. By this, I mean, use a swiss army app like Evernote, OneNote, Google Keep, Bear or whatever app suits you best. I personally use Evernote. My Evernote account currently stores 5 years of data and it should be a mess but it isn’t. Notes are organized into notebooks and tags. You can search within notes too, making finding a note the easiest task in the world. I can draw, I can scan documents, I can record and take notes at the same time. PDF markup, easy sharing and collab. And the best? The web clipper. It has saved me so many times when doing market and desk research. Evernote’s web clipper is the best.