In the spirit of school starting up again, here’s a few thoughts on taking notes in class. I’ll be the first one to admit that I don’t particularly care for going to school, although I love learning. Now that I am finally almost done I’m starting to find bits here and there that make the chore easier. Or at least more pleasant.
For the most part, I actually enjoy lectures. I get a little bit more from listening to someone talk about than I do from reading a text book (which is practically useless for me). And I get way more from talking to someone about what they are passionate about. Sometimes lectures fit somewhere in the middle for me. Depending on the class, some lectures are quite interesting and often useful, in those it’s helpful to jot down some things.
In middle school everyone was required to have one of those giant zip-up binder things with dividers for each class. I felt so cool for a bit, so official, like I was doing something important. But the coolness wore off as I realized that it was only filled with prescribed assignments and junk, I got tired of packing the thing around as well. Plus, it broke by the end of the year. Once I got to college I experimented with various notebooks and apps in hopes to create a home for my class stuff. It worked, kinda. Turns out Moleskine are the most fun to write in, and composition notebooks are classic. But I found out that I never cared to read my notes later. My desire to take them diminished.
On a recent project I pulled out one of those yellow notepads with the pages anchored at the top, I used it to sketch out ideas and keep track of thoughts and things I still needed to do. It actually worked out great. Granted, it wasn’t school, it was a freelance project that I was exited about. In fact, it’s definitely one of the best things I have worked on. That said, having this notebook was very great. However I did find that the lines were annoying when I wanted to draw and they also got in the way if I wanted to write bigger or smaller, or crooked. The pages also wore out slowly as I used it a lot. I did glue in noted from other collaborators or sheets from other sources, which was nice. I decided to adapt this for school this semester.
Here’s my most recent experiment… So far so good. Here’s what I’m doing:
I took a bunch of regular printer paper and binder clipped them together. Sounds cheap and lame but I’m finding that it is working well for me. Here’s why. It’s super cheap. I can choose my paper, nice weight, or crappy and cheap, lined or not, graph, color, pattern, etc. It’s also dynamic, I can rearrange pages to my liking adding or removing things as needed. I only have to pack around what I need, not a whole ream.I also have all of my classes in one book, and I can move them around. I could do this with a 3-ring binder, but I like the ability to turn it sideways and write or draw landscape. I also like the simplicity of the thing, and I made it. There’s a certain satisfaction that comes when you make something.
Who knows, maybe this is dumb, but for now it has me exited to take notes in class and make them my own. I am also thinking of using this for smaller projects and archiving. Plus, if it turns out cool, I could have it bound in some sweet leather and have my own custom process book.
