#noteology

Lots of people, including myself, have included “read more books” on their list of New Year’s Resolutions. So I thought I’d compile some book recommendations to provide you guys with inspiration! In no particular order, here’s a list of 101 books I’ve read and loved.

FICTION

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (my all-time favorite!)

Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

Sabriel by Garth Nix

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Room by Emma Donoghue

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Magic Strings of Frankie Presto by Mitch Albom

Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill

The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Wild Awake by Hilary T. Smith (an underrated but oh-so-beautiful book)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (duh)

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

The Odyssey by Homer (I recommend the Robert Fagles translation)

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

It by Stephen King

Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (even better if you can read it in the original French!)

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

Savvy by Ingrid Law

The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

The Once and Future King by T.H. White

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland by Rebekah Crane

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

Hunger by Knut Hamsun

Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper

The World According to Garp by John Irving

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell (love, love, love!)

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

1984 by George Orwell

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis (a book whose message is especially relevant in light of the recent election)

Lucky Boy by Shanthi Sekaran

NONFICTION/POETRY

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be by Frank Bruni (a must-read for anyone stressed out about college admissions and the Ivy League hype)

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow

The Reason I Jump by Naoki Higashida

salt. by Nayyirah Waheed

Killing the Rising Sun by Bill O'Reilly

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

The Princess Saves Herself in this One by Amanda Lovelace

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Night by Elie Wiesel

Ariel by Sylvia Plath

Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance

A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom (this is the memoir that baby memoirs want to be when they grow up)

Cosmos by Carl Sagan

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank

The Ethics of Ambiguity by Simone de Beauvoir

Black Skin, White Masks by Frantz Fanon

How to Become a Straight‑A Student by Cal Newport

The Color of Water by James McBride

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Shoe Dog by Phil Knight

We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The Road to Character by David Brooks

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (all of Gladwell’s books are great tbh)

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

No Matter the Wreckage by Sarah Kay

Our Numbered Days by Neil Hilborn

P.S. If you’re trying to read more in 2017, check out my posts about goal-setting and habits!

Thanks for reading! If you have questions, feedback, or post requests, feel free to drop me an ask.

+Click here for the rest of my original reference posts!

I’ve been searching for the perfect planner for the past several years. After trying agendas of all shapes and sizes, bullet journals, apps, binders, whiteboards, and notepads, I’ve finally settled on a planning system that’s efficient and convenient without being too time-consuming to maintain. In today’s post, I’ll be sharing my personal planning system, which will hopefully provide inspiration for you to develop or refine your own.

THE CRITERIA

To start off, I made a list of criteria for my planning system by answering the following questions:

What do I need to plan? I needed my planner to keep track of all my homework assignments, quiz/test dates, after-school activities, and miscellaneous activities and events such as parties and doctor’s appointments.

If you have a job, you may need to include your work shifts and paydays in your planner. If you live with other people and/or have kids, you might need a planner that can sync several different people’s schedules.

How precisely do I need to plan? I decided I needed a broad monthly overview so I could see what was coming ahead. (I pretty much never have assignments I need to work on more than a month in advance.) I also needed to break down each day in 15- or 30-minute chunks in order to use my timeboxing method.

Depending on your needs, you may find that a yearly, weekly, daily, and/or minute-by-minute planner works best for you. Some people work best with a strict schedule; others thrive with a little more flexibility.

How much time can I spend planning? The intricately decorated planners in the #studyspo tag are beautiful, but I knew that I wouldn’t have the time to replicate them. I needed a portable, barebones system that I could maintain anywhere and anytime with only a black pen.

Of course, if you love stickers and washi tape, go nuts with the decorating! Do whatever helps you use your planner consistently.

With those criteria in mind, I settled on a two-part planning system composed of a monthly calendar in a regular paper planner and a digital timeboxing tool on a website/app.

MONTHLY CALENDAR

For my monthly calendar, I use this ban.do agenda that I received as a birthday gift. It’s a super cute, fun, and girly planner, but I honestly don’t think it’s worth $28 plus shipping. The paper quality is nothing exceptional, and the boxes for each day on the monthly view are a bit too small for my taste. A standard cheap planner from Target or even a printable monthly calendar would work just as well.

I’ve created a fake calendar to use as an example in this post. Here’s what the monthly spread in my planner looks like at first:

I take my planner with me each day to school. Whenever my teachers assign homework or set a quiz/test date, I write it down on the day it’s due. I write events and appointments on the day they’ll take place. So the days end up looking something like these:

My planner also includes weekly spreads with large boxes for each day:

I don’t write in these too often, but sometimes I use them for adding extra information about my assignments such as specific requirements, hints from my teacher, and reminders to myself. For example, I might add notes about the math test I have on Thursday by writing this under December 1st:

TIMEBOXING

Now that I have a good overview of everything I have to do, I use timeboxing to plan out each day in detail. I recommend you first read about the specific steps that timeboxing encompasses in my time management post, but it’s essentially allocating tasks to certain blocks of time.

I prefer to do timeboxing digitally because it’s easier to adjust the times and move things around. My tool of choice is Plan {Web//iOS}. You could also use Google Calendar, a table, or a spiraldex.

Plan has monthly and weekly views as well, but I tend to stick to the daily view. I consult my monthly calendar to turn my assignments and deadlines into actionable tasks.

(click here for full size)

As you can see in the example above, when I block out a chunk of time to do something, I include specific steps to help me accomplish it. I also schedule time for exercising and relaxing, because I consider those just as important as studying.

Overall, I find that the structure that timeboxing provides really keeps me accountable on a day-to-day basis. I procrastinate and dawdle less when I have a schedule that tells me exactly what my next task should be and when I should do it. And I feel calmer because I know that accomplishing everything on my plate is possible, as long as I simply stick to the schedule.

I hope you’ll be able to use my planning system to create or improve your own. Here’s wishing you an organized, productive, and happy 2017!

Thanks for reading! If you have questions, feedback, or post requests, feel free to drop me an ask.

+Click here for the rest of my original reference posts!

THE POWER OF HABITS

Willpower is a limited resource– it’s constantly depleted throughout the day. You use some up each time you have to force yourself to do something. Habits, on the other hand, are automatic actions that don’t require willpower, such as brushing your teeth and biting your nails. By building positive, consistent habits, you can regularly get more done without draining precious willpower and energy.

BUILDING HABITS

Set a trigger. This is the cue that will remind you to perform a habit. Take something you already do (i.e. going to bed) and attach a habit to it (When I go to bed each night, I will take five minutes to write in my journal). Some other examples include:

come home from school —> work out on the elliptical for 15 minutes

take a study break —> drink a glass of water

brush teeth —> floss

finish homework —> organize backpack/desk

“Gamify” your tasks. This tip comes from blogger Thomas Frank, who suggests using the reward mechanisms from video games to make sticking to habits more fun. He does this using Habitica {iOS//Android//online}, an app where you play as an RPG character and earn experience, health, and cool items for completing your habits. The app also has a social aspect where your completion of tasks impacts your friends’ characters’ health, providing extra impetus.

Create accountability devices. Set up a system that incentivizes you to stick to your commitments. A famous one is Don’t Break the Chain, which motivates you to continue your habit in order to keep the chain of X’s going. If you’re feeling extreme, sign up for Beeminder, which charges you real money for going off-track with your habits. Another great effective device is peer pressure (the positive kind!). Announce your goals to your friends/family so they can check up on your progress and keep you on track.

Be patient. The popular saying that it takes 21 days to form a new habit has been proven to be untrue. Research has found that it takes anywhere from 18 to 254 days to form a new habit (depending on the difficulty), with the average being 66 days. So start small by focusing on one or two little habits for a couple of months, only take on new habits if your old ones have become automatic, and be gentle with yourself if you slip up.

LITTLE HABIT IDEAS

Here’s a list of small daily habits for you to start with, as well as some specific apps that will help you along the way. Choose a couple and stick to them!

wake up/go to bed early

make bed

drink 6-8 cups of water {Plant Nanny: iOS//Android}

work out for seven minutes {Johnson & Johnson 7 Minute: iOS//Android}

read for X minutes

write for X minutes or X amount of words {Written? Kitten!} {750 Words}

practice Duolingo {Online//iOS//Android}

answer the SAT Question of the Day {iOS//Android}

meditate {Stop, Breathe, & Think: iOS//Android}

keep a journal

BREAKING HABITS

How do you go about breaking a bad habit, such as nail-biting, stress-eating, or procrastinating?

Reduce triggers. Cut out anything that makes you engage in your bad habit. If you tend to eat too much junk food after school, throw out your unhealthy snacks or keep them out of reach. If you put off doing your homework by playing a game on your phone, delete the app and only re-download it once you’ve finished your work.

Replace them with good habits. Bad habits are usually caused by sadness, stress, or boredom, so find other, healthier ways to relieve those negative emotions. Try going for a walk instead of watching TV, eating fresh fruit instead of ice cream, or reading a book instead of playing on your phone.

Surround yourself with like-minded people. You don’t have to ditch all your friends, but it’s hard to break bad habits when the people around you are participating in things you’re trying to avoid. Even finding one or two buddies who can set a good example or who are trying to break the same habits can be immensely helpful.

TRACKING HABITS

Some apps and tools to help motivate you and record your habit building/breaking progress:

Bullet journal spreads {i.ii}

Don’t Break The Chain {Online//printable}

Habitica {iOS//Android//online}

Momentum Habit Tracker: {iOS}

HabitBull: {Android}

Balanced: {iOS}

Fabulous: {Android}

Thanks for reading! If you have questions, feedback, or post requests, feel free to drop me an ask.

+Click here for the rest of my original reference posts!

One of the most common questions I receive is “How do I take notes in class if my teacher talks way too quickly?” While I firmly believe that you should always pick out the most important points instead of trying to transcribe a lecture, I have been in classes where the pace is simply much too fast to allow anything more than furious copying. So if you’re in a write-or-die situation, here are some strategies you can try:

Type your notes instead of handwriting them. (This is assuming, of course, that you can type faster than you write.) If you’re typing, make sure you’re familiar with keyboard shortcuts such as Ctrl+Z.

Print out the professor’s slideshow/notes before class so you only need to add a few extra notes during the class itself.

Take notes from the textbook beforehand so you can walk in with a baseline level of knowledge and a set of notes that includes most, if not all, of the important information.

If you’re completely lost on something, wait for an appropriate break in the lecture, raise your hand, and ask your instructor if they can repeat it or go more slowly. Most of the time, they’ll be happy to oblige.

Record your lecture on your phone/laptop so you can listen back to it later and fill in any parts you missed. But make sure to ask for permission before recording!

Use shorthand and abbreviations! This is by far my favorite tip, since it takes the least amount of effort to implement and it works for every class. Pick out your most frequently used words, then design shortened versions of them. For example, if you’re in an American Government class, you’ll probably want abbrevs (see what I did there?) for words such as President, Congress, representative, political, and so on. However, there are also words that come up in almost every lecture, no matter what subject you’re studying. And to help you out, I’ve created a printable guide to some of these extremely common abbreviations. Introducing...

Click here to access as a PDF!

You can either save the image directly to your device, or click the Dropbox link above to print it out, hang it above your desk, share it with your friends, scatter copies in the breeze, whatever. The small gains will start to add up and you’ll be a super speedy note-taker in no time!

Thanks for reading! If you have questions, feedback, or post requests, feel free to drop me an ask.

+Click here for the rest of my original reference posts!