I truly believe that a brain dump notebook should be a student staple. Whether it's physical or digital doesn't matter. Because I'll have all of the following in the same notebook; my workout plan for the semester, some drafting for psych quiz given to me by my evil AI obsessed prof, and the regulation of glycolysis and CAC. It can be messy, cute, but most importantly functional.
Usually starting a study session is hard to do because there’s the small hurdle of actually starting. This method will set you up to prime yourself for the task in a way that's low effort and frankly kind of cute if you use colours and stickers to indicate different things.
Colour-coding is one of the best ways to organize your info while also keeping it messy. As mentioned above, I had the quiz drafting written butter yellow so I knew exactly where my psych quiz ideas were drafted before the quiz. I also wrote and still write little notes in red to remember certain crucial pieces of info or to indicate corrections for myself during active recall.
The tape/sticker function in Goodnotes is also useful for blocking out definitions or bits of a pathway for an easy way to imbed active recall. So when I wanted to test myself, I just tapped on the tape to reveal the answer and tapped again to cover it up. You can do this with sticky notes or flaps of paper too!
You can format it the way you want and it doesn't have to structured. But here are a few other uses for it:
A revision notebook to write down the key ideas from today's lecture and for review.
Your study log with the topics and time your covered them.
A home for your 500 to do lists so you can cross them out as you go.
Where you can record all of your questions from lecture/class and jot down any advice or answers your instructor might give you.
Basically, the possibilities are endless! So I really recommend having some sort of space or hub to let your mind loose before you start your study session.
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