You can view part two of the series on taking notes in class with paper and pencil by clicking here.

Introduction

Over the course of the next two weeks, I’ll be posting a series of three articles on how to get and stay organized for school. I’ll be covering how I use my computer to stay organized, how I take notes in class with paper and pencil, and how I stay productive in my dorm room. I’m not productivity maven—see Merlin Mann of 43folders or any of David Allen’s work, including the GTD system—, but I am organized and I do get a lot of work done. I hope these tips help you as they’ve helped me.

Today is the first of the series and so I’ll be covering how I use my computer to stay organized for school. There are two areas I’d like to cover: in class and out of class.

In Class

For some classes, taking notes on the computer is preferable—and even encouraged; for others, it’s nearly impossible—e.g. science and math. I use my computer in about half of my classes to take notes. My note taking strategies are the same in all of my classes, but I’ll use my Ethics notes as an example since the professor encourages taking notes on the computer. (Question: Just how ethical can a 7:30am class be?)

Pre-class

I usually arrive to class a couple of minutes early. Before lecture begins, I prepare to focus by minimizing external distractions. I do this by getting my social media fix before class starts. I’ll check my email, Facebook and Twitter accounts just before class starts. I’ll also usually head over to the LSU Ultimate forums, my blog and weed through my RSS feed. Since I’m constantly connected (aka addicted), checking these things off before I get into class helps me get my mind off of them and focus.

Immediately before the professor begins lecturing, I prepare myself to begin class by completely removing myself from the electronic world. I disable my WiFi and Bluetooth. This keeps me from switching to Facebook in between slides. I also fire up Pages, which I’ve just recently begun using over Word to take notes in. If my teacher has disseminated their slides (via Moodle), I’ll bring that up in the background as well. I then hide the dock and pull up Think, which is a neat little application that helps focus on one application. It basically overlays a black background, allowing only selected applications to be focused. This keeps me locked into note taking.

During Class

I’ve tried nearly ever note taking application on the Mac. I’ve tried Circus Pony’s award-winning NoteBook; I’ve tried Yojimbo, xPad, and Word; I’ve even tried using my beloved TextMate. I’ve only come across two solutions that have worked for me.

I used Word 2008 for my last year in high school. It served me decently, although it’s a very sluggish program and way too complex for my needs. I did really like the notebook layout feature with tabs. To organize my notes in Word, I would create a notebook for each class, breaking them up into tests and using the tabs for days. This actually worked out very well.

This year, I decided to switch to Apple Pages. I use Pages to write everything else, so there were no transitioning issues. It’s very snappy and I love the minimal, easy, functioning interface. It doesn’t have the neat notebook layout feature, but I still organize everything well. In lieu of tabs, I open up the page thumbnails drawer, which allows me to quickly thumb through the notes. Below is a picture of how I set up my notes.

School Notes

As you can see, my organization is quite minimal. This goes back to my love for the minimal aesthete. I post the page numbers in the upper right hand corner for easy reference and I use a page break to separate days. The font I use here is Helvetica Neue. I begin each day by creating a heading with the date. Immediately preceding, I write any assigned homework. I space between the heading and the homework and the homework and the outline. I use the Harvard List Style, which is built-in. What Word has over Pages here is the easier outlining. For example, if I want to back up an order, I can just hit the delete key in Word. In Pages, it’ll just delete that level. If there’s a way around this, please let me know. What I do instead is keep the inspector open on the lists panel to click the demote button (tab still works for promotion). Update: I should’ve read the help file first. To do demote a livel, just hit Shift-Tab; it works the same way that the delete key does in Word. Also, a note on my outlining: To create a new paragraph under an element, hit Shift-Enter. I also created a character style for emphasis. I used the Baskerville typeface and set it to italics. It looks nice and adds some cool distinction for emphasis. You can create a character style by opening the paragraph drawer and then holding down the plus button at the bottom of the drawer. Now, highlight a line with your desired style and click “Create New Character Style from Selection…” Be sure it’s a character style so it’ll be inline (paragraph styles are block, just like in web design).

Sometimes staying focused during class is difficult. For those long, early morning humanities classes, it’s especially difficult. Besides bringing a cup of coffee with me to class, I have a few methods for keeping my mind alert and engaged. Mind wandering is fairly natural, so if it happens in class I don’t worry too much about it. Because I use Think to help my focus on my note taking, I don’t quit any applications. So if I start wandering, I’ll switch over to TextMate and finish some code or to Safari to read a couple lines of a preloaded CNN article. This usually alleviates my boredom and I can return back to the real world within a few minutes. I’m not too worried about missing notes, because most of my teachers post their slides and because I can still magically type without paying attention. This might be terrible advice, but it works for me so take it for what it’s worth.

Outside of Class

Outside of class, I use a few tools to keep me organized.

To-do List or GTD App

I’ve recently become infatuated with The Hit List. It’s the first application that I’ve found to fit my needs. (Aside: I’m currently using the beta and have yet to purchase a full license. I’m slightly apprehensive about paying $50.00 for the app, so I’m hoping that PotionFactory decides to create a student license for poor college kids.) I’ve also tried Things, Anxiety and iCal for to-do listing. You might also want to explore some GTD apps. It’s all about what you feel comfortable in. All of these have some level of freeness, so try them out and see what you like. Richard Felix of ShiftedFrequency, for example, told me that THL didn’t work for him but he “lives in Things.” The opposite is true for me. Experiment! Regardless what you choose, having some sort of to-do list app is imperative to staying on task and organized—especially if you’re involved with as many projects as I am. It’s important to note that I don’t only use these applications for keeping to-do lists for work and other miscellaneous actionable items, but also for keeping my homework. Everything that needs to be done is put into The Hit List. Now, I’m just waiting on the iPhone version!

iCal

Having a calendar to stay organized is also equally important. For me, I balance full-time school, part-time work, work on Noteflood and NewAperio, and play ultimate for LSU. To keep all of this balanced—including family and other personal things—and keep me sane, I put everything into iCal. This allows me to stay organized. It’s also great because it syncs to my iPhone so I always have my calendar handy. This is also very important to staying organized.

Conclusion

This is how I stay organized for school using my computer. There are two more posts coming in this series on how I take notes using pen and paper and how I stay productive in my dorm. Stay tuned for those.

How about you? What do you do to stay organized for school using the computer? Do you have any suggestions or do you use similar methods?

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