#organizingtips

This is a controversial opinion. I doubt many people would share it. And why would they? It’s one of the more dramatic and impressive avenues of this hobby. Those trying to emulate Sherlock try to mimic it, and those who are led to believe it’s useful put lots of time and effort into it. Here’s why I think it is (largely, but not completely) a waste when being used for storing massive amounts of data.

First, an appeal. Many of us began by reading or watching some adaptation of Sherlock, and here I think is a good example. Would Sherlock have spent so much time and effort on a mind palace if he had all the knowledge of humanity at his fingertips? Of course BBC Sherlock says yes, but let’s take the glamour out of it for a second. Would the true character have bothered with it in today’s day and age?

I think yes, but nowhere near to the same extent.

Bottom line is, mind palaces take effort, energy, focus, and time. In your practice, these are important resources. Knowledge is undeniably a crucial aspect to the process and will assist you immensely, but do you need to have every aspect of the human body memorized? Every aspect of a chemical and its makeup? No, not anymore. However, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know about it. Do your research, read up on it, and save the information in an easily accessible way. Additionally, decide what information is most useful to you in your day to day life, what is most relevant, and store that away in your palace instead. This is a more productive use of your time.

Here’s what I propose to replace this.

1. Decide what information is most useful to you in your day to day life. I doubt many of us are working with murder cases on a day to day basis. Maybe some of us are, but generally, most of us aren’t. So maybe learning and memorizing aspects of crime scenes isn’t a good use of your time. But then again, if it is something you work with, maybe you should. It is up to you to decide what is useful for you to store, but ideally, it should be minimal.

3. Read and practice. You should put every effort into constantly learning new things. Body language is a fantastic example that would benefit everyone. Always studying and learning more about body language would help. Work with the material every chance you get. The more you work with it, the more you train your brain to work with it, and the easier this will be. An example would be riding a bike. Do you study in a book how to ride a bike? No, you get out and do it. And when you practice enough, it becomes second nature. And no matter how long you go without doing it, you can still hop back on a bike again. Practice and work with what you learn (within reason and safety, of course) instead of memorizing information.

3. Focus on your observational memory instead. When you can recall what you’ve observed and taken note of later, you can do more research into it, or double check your hunches. This will be a better use of your focus and memory.

4. Develop a good data management system. There’s plenty of free resources out there to organize articles, videos, podcasts, websites, etc. Find an easy and organized way to store useful information. This is where you should put all the info you would otherwise haphazardly shove into your head, and maybe use again, maybe you never touch it again. But it’ll be here where you can access it, and you’ve left room in your head, as well as used your time better. Take advantage of technology.

Here’s some good suggestions:

Google Drive

Pocket

OneDrive

I do suggest that whatever you choose can be accessed online. This ensures that you can access it from anywhere with an internet connection, and you don’t rely on one device that can be stolen or break. With this in mind, make sure you practice good online security and make sure you remember your login info.

Make sure you use an intuitive and accurate organizational system to find what you need to. This means tags (if applicable), folders, and descriptive names.

Can you imagine what Sherlock would have done with today’s tech? If anything, I think BBC Sherlock doesn’t even begin to cover it. He would be taking advantage of awesome websites like Reddit, like Quora, to find quick answers from people. He would have articles on articles saved, Youtube playlists galore, flash drives full of info, and would know how to access it and use it.

Tech makes things faster and better, if you let it. I’m not saying ditch mind palaces completely. However, that doesn’t mean you should throw away fantastic opportunities to make some of this stuff easier. The mind palace does certainly still have its place, I myself still use mine frequently, but have managed to make it far more efficient and useful, but its place is no longer for remembering massive amounts of data.

Thanks for reading.

If you're the type who doesn't like to feel restricted by a schedule, has a soft spot for not completing what you set out to do, or simply don't have the time to sit down and make a whole plan — this app is for you.

My initial thing was making to do lists before I slept for the next day, but after a while of using this, if felt like it was missing something. I don't know if it's my steadily manifesting short attention span, or my inclination to abandon things once I get a small grip, but I needed more. This is where Microsoft To Do came in.

I found a new feature recently on this little app that has always been on my phone but never got the time of day, and all of a sudden it's my #1 organizational tool. Here's why it's such a good app meshed in with a tour of the app.

1. The main interface

So this is what the main page looks like (sans the email address at the top, which you need btw). It's simple, clear, and as minimalistic as it comes without it being too barren. You can make your own lists using the bottom left option (shopping lists, wishlists, writing prompts — literally anything), and if you want, you can group them together and pull the group up and down with the bottom right option. I mainly use it for studying at the moment, hence the singularity. The top lists (my day, planned etc.) come preset along with the app. More on them below.

2. Tasks

So everything you make, wherever you make it, also ends up in the tasks list as a master list of sorts. This is pretty useful if you want to reflect on all the to-dos you've made, or you want to quickly see everything at once.

3. My Day

So this is a really neat feature I've used religiously. Let's say you go to your tasks and make to-dos for the whole week, but then you need a space to see the ones for the specific day — that's what this is. You can put your to-dos of the day here and cross them off as you go, and of course, this'll also be crossed off your tasks list.

Here's what it looks like -

I'll explain what everything is. If nothing's checked off, it'll be one consistent list, and since I did *something* today, it separates them automatically like that.

Q: What is "Today"?

It's "suggestions", and these are from your uncompleted tasks. So, frankly, it's reminding you of your past failures and asking if you'd like another chance at them. It's safe to assume that I've used this option a lot, and it's especially useful when you plan on doing a task you put on your My Day the next day instead, and you don't have to write it again.

Q: What is the plus option on the side?

I know, I know — you probably knew. It's to add tasks. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT'S FUN?? You have all those options at the bottom! You can dump stuff straight into your tasks master list bar, you can set a due date (and time!), you can set a separate date to remind you, and you can chose to make the task a repetition. Yay.

Q: What about the star? The little numbers (0 of 3 etc.)?

If you star a task, it ends up in your important list.

Plain and simple right? Pretty self explanatory.

And this brings us to the feature I just recently found ✨✨✨

You can add steps to a to-do. EXAGGERATED GASP.

Isn't that beautiful??? It's an incorporation of a useful tip — when you're planning something, lay out the steps you gotta go through to finish a particular task, and with this feature, you don't have to make a bunch of to-dos that are steps to reach one particular goal. Extra yay.

3. Planned and Assigned to you

That's what it looks like. In regards to Planned, it shows what you got planned, what's overdue, and what your week looks like. So this is the nitty gritty part of the app, where you can have an overview of your plans. Assigned To You is more personal — what do you have to do, as simple as that? That's what you put in there.

Of course, this is all subjective. You can delete and make your own, use whatever for whatever, and more importantly, pick your own colours! There's an option to use a picture as the backdrop of a list, but those are some set images unfortunately. But they're pretty good too, I'm not complaining.

So that concludes this how-to/ tour. Honestly, I discovered the steps portion and just ran here to make a whole post about it. But it's really useful. And it's fun to use, and pretty freeing, so I would suggest this as a good organizational tool.

A couple of more fun things to note: it makes a little chime noise if you check something off (when your phone is on sound, it was a pleasant surprise!), and you can make it a widget to put on your home screen, either as a shortcut, or to show a (scrollable, tiny) list. I put Planned as a shortcut, and My Day as a tiny list, and I noticed that when you check stuff off while the list is a widget like that, a small bar appears and grows corresponding to how much of your tasks you completed.

Yes, I'm gushing. With a straight face. But honestly, extra big yay for Microsoft To Do. It's simple, clear, and as minimalistic as it comes without being too barren.

In general, it’s nice to be (and stay) organized. There’re a plethora of tips on how to maintain your stuff, but as a stem student, it seems like it’s all too much for me - or maybe I have commitment issues, I’m not sure, but it doesn’t work for me. So! I decided to share an organizational system so to say that took me three years to develop.

Virtual Stuff

folders for your major - organized by year by semester by subjects by ppts / assignments / extras

name everything correctly 

 (you don’t have to colour code or date them or anything extra unless you wanna)

hard to find? pin them 

(i pin my current semester’s folder + the most demanding courses separately if needed)

use bookmark manager on your web browser

how my bookmark folders are organized - engineering refs (what it is how it is why it is / past paper questions) / class (refs / books / assignment citations)  / online class links / future / internship (according to projects) / volunteer work 

save every page if you’re working on some research - even if it’s 43% useful

go through them later when you’re done amassing info and delete if you need to

(i find that i tend to need a couple lines from useless sites and then get mad that i didn’t save it)

with research:

※ spend an adequate amount of time amassing info first

※ this will help you brainstorm if you don’t have ideas, or refine the ones you got

※ record any ideas that pop up as you do since you’ll have come up with a rough draft in your head

※ if you do this before every report / assignment, you’ll save so much time coming up with a rough draft, going back and forth researching, getting stuck etc.

on google docs? more folders!

folders folders folders

separate appropriately and on an easy-to-find basis

Paper Stuff

keep everything 

even scrap paper (will be useful later)

own one spacious folder / binder for daily use

how mine is organized according to leafs - schedule / syllabi / transcripts or score sheets / important stuff from uni / review sheets collection / several empty leafs for new courses / assignments to be handed in / returned assignments /  graph paper / lab report paper / blank sheets / scrap paper 

buy those pack of cheap folders for extra stuff - if you need to hand something in a folder, to hold previous stuff once you empty main binder out, to hold extra stuff at home etc.

label the ones used if you know you can’t differentiate later

organize notebooks according to schedule (if you pair a couple courses in one notebook)

keep recurring stuff within arm’s reach of your study space

keep review sheets / formula sheets of previous courses in your binder if they relate to current courses (ex: i kept my last year’s transport phenomena stuff in my folder because i was taking mass transfer last semester)

Recording Stuff

a small notebook / planner / an app to record assignments and quizzes and exams

one is enough

write the teachers / profs / doctors information on the first day in one place

date everything please

own a pack of extra pens / pencils / a set of stationery so you never have to buy any new stuff for the semester

(i legit buy them in packs and never buy any more for the rest of the semester)

do that on a good month / when the money isn’t tight

(in the middle of vacation is my time)

write everything down 

spend a moment of time to make a formulae / questions / review stuff master list(s) 

that will help you loads later if you start from the beginning

keep recurring stuff within arm’s reach of your study space 

use scrap paper for practicing formulas / questions / review stuff - works better than flashcards if it’s repetitive, and saves time as well

The biggest takeaway from this post I would say is: doing the bare minimum is fine. You don’t need to do a whole lot to be an organized person. I can say that confidently because apparently I built up a rep of being the most organized person in my batch, and I’m just like 🤨🤨🤨

Anyways - the bare minimum is fine. If you have the little things everywhere in place, that’s enough. But!

※ do underestimate yourself

※ if not, you will lose track of your stuff