I’ve been trying to come up with a simpler organization system for college and I’ve
recently applied it to my binder.
I was used to have complex binders before, with pockets, customizable tabs and inserts;
however, I found out that I was not using all of that stuff and it was just occupying
tons of space in my binder and making me carry unnecessary weight.
So instead of a larger binder I decided to buy two smaller binders this year, so I could
distribute the weight between them as my notes added up during the semester.
I suggest investing in a good set of binder tabs, one for each subject, which you can
then use in future binders without having to constantly buy new ones each semester.
I prefer the ones which are transparent and have large colored tabs so I can easily flip
back and forth between my notes.
A transparent binder tab can be really useful so you can keep a cover page for each one
of your subjects.
I usually keep my syllabus or an index in that front page.
Besides that, I use that front tab as a dashboard to keep post it notes with questions, reminders
and any other type of information regarding that subject.
It’s a really nice way to organize information without cluttering your binder with loose
pieces of paper, and you can remove the sticky notes whenever you feel like you don’t need
them any more.
In each tab I keep different sets of printed documents.
I mainly keep three distinct documents per subject – a document with my lecture notes,
another one with my discussion notes and the last document has exercises and solved cases.
Although many people prefer to print their notes in a batch in the end of the semester,
I feel like I don’t keep up as well as I should if I use that method, so I prefer to
update my binder at the end of each week by printing that week’s notes and then proceed
to file them.
That means that I need to know exactly where each one of the documents starts and ends,
and that’s why I use smaller plastic tabs to separate them, within each larger tab that
separates each one of my subjects.
Here you have an example from my Commercial Law class.
My lecture or theoretical notes start at the beginning of the main tab, so there’s no
reason to flag that.
However, as soon as I reach the end of that document, I have my exercises and solved cases,
which I need to separate and identify when I am studying.
So I just stick a small plastic tab in the corner of the page to mark that document.
I will proceed to do the same with all the documents inside that subject divider.
When I flip the transparent divider over the first page, you can see the smaller tabs,
and that’s why one of the reasons why I prefer transparent dividers over colored ones.
It’s a really simple system that makes studying and accessing my notes much easier.
Simplifying things on the long run is much better than trying to come up with more complicated
systems that will distract you from the main activity in which you should concentrate,
which is studying in itself, instead of organizing for the sake of organizing.
If you want to see more minimalistic organization tips don’t forget to tell me in the comments
below and I’ll see you next week.
Bye!