6 Basic Steps to Outlining

First let me say, there is nothing "basic" or "easy" about outlining. However, I frequently get to the point in the semester where I know I need to start outlining, but I just don't know where to start. Despite having done this many, many times, the amount of information that I have obtained over the semester is always overwhelming. These steps make it easy for me to step back and get an idea of what I really need to do so that I can effectively outline and not get overwhelmed in the process. 

1. Gather Your Notes

This may seem fairly obvious, and it should, but it is still something that you need to actively do. Generally this is the easiest step, but keep in mind any day that you skipped missed class and need to either ask someone for notes or find the email where they sent them to you. And it some cases, if you have a mixture of hand-notes and typed-notes you want to make sure they are all in one place. Personally I prefer to print out all of my notes because it is easier for me to go through them, as well as not having to go back and forth between screens when I'm making my outline. But, if you have two screens and/or staring at a computer doesn't bother you, that may be unnecessary.

2. Get Organized 

In addition to needing your notes to start your outlining, you are likely going to want the textbook, professor handouts, and any other supplement for the class. Now is a good time to gather everything you are going to need for every class that you intend to outline. It's much more fluid to go from working on one outline to another if you aren't having to stop and look for things all the time. As an overall organization tactic, it might be a good time for you to also make a study plan. Since you have all of your notes, books, and supplements gathered you probably will have a good idea of just how much time you want to spend on each outline and which ones you just want to get out of the way first.

3. Make a Skeleton Outline 

I generally prefer to go to the Table of Contents in the front of the textbook and use that as a skeleton or template for my outline. Occasionally there are other ways that I organize my outline, especially in a class where the professor tends to jump around from section to section in the book. For instance, our Con Law professor set out "Themes of Constitutional Law" at the beginning of the semester, so in that case I let that be my guide. Generally though, I tend to use the Table of Contents as a starting point. Even if I end up rearranging the information here and there, it is a good place to start when you don't know where to start. If you compared the picture below to the Table of Contents of my book, they would look almost identical. 

4. Go Through Your Notes and Highlight Important Information

After I've gathered all of my notes and made the Skeleton outline, then I go through all of my notes and highlight what comes across as important to me. This can be based on the emphasis you remember the professor putting on this certain topic in class, it can be a rule or something that is clearly important, or in a code class like Negotiable Instruments or Contracts it would be a provision of the UCC. Occasionally I will also highlight different things in different colors so I know how to treat them. For instance with our Con Law professor cases were very important, so I always made sure to highlight the case names as I was going through my notes the first time as a guide for what I needed to come back to.

5. Fill in Your Template with Substantive Information

After Step 4, this should be relatively easy, though very tedious. It can also be a difficult task if your professor doesn't tend to go "with the book" in his or her lectures. To that I would say, do the best you can and fill things in where they seem to fit. That is the best part about having a skeleton outline already complete, if something in your notes doesn't seem to match what's around it, look for somewhere else in the outline that it fits and makes sense.

6. Finalize and Format

Congratulations! You are almost done! This step can occasionally become the "if I have time" step, however, if you have at least a few days before the exam and you have completed the outline with information to your liking, I would strongly suggest taking a few minutes and formatting the outline so it is easier to read and follow along. Aside from bullets and numbering I don't like to do a lot of formatting as I go because if I don't want it to apply to the entire document occasionally I struggle with it trying to do just that. But, if you do it all at the end, it's a lot easier to pick and choose which sections you want to have bigger font, underline, etc. The exception is, if I want to make cases, rules, or something of the sort stand out, I do tend to put those in bold as I go because it's harder to catch them just by going back through.
For those of you that never really finish your outline, you can still spend a few minutes to do some formatting to make it easier when you are studying. A few of my friends always use their outlines as a "work in progress" and are never really finished. I, on the other hand, like to be completely finished and print mine, knowing that there may be somethings I would have added or taken out, but keeping in mind those things can always be written in or crossed out.   {Obviously I should have spell checked the document below before posting it on here, another key final step.}

I hope these steps have been helpful to you, I find it so much easier to start outlining if I just know where or how to start. What are some of the things you do when you are outlining to make it "easier" for you? 

Have a Great Day, y'all! 

xoxo

5 Tips for Preparing a Successful Study Plan

As a 3L, I have already been through FOUR rounds of Law School finals, in addition to undergraduate and graduate school finals. I would not say I am an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but I have had a lot of experience determining what works and what doesn't. One of the biggest things I've learned is that preparing to study can be just as important as studying itself. When I prepare a study plan I tend to be more effective in my studying and outlining and waste less time trying to decide what I want to work on next. 

1. Make a Master To-Do List

This is what I have found to be the best way to really get started when you don't know where to start. The goal in the end is to have a few weeks planned out, but you need to know what tasks you plan to complete. Sometimes I find myself wanted to write everything down, but that is not what the purpose is here. I tend to only write down "big-ticket" items, i.e. Decedents' Outline, Negotaibles Outline, Take Home Exam, etc. There are other things that might make it on to my daily to-do list, that don't necessarily need to be spelled out here, for example, "print notes," "print slides," "email professors," you get the point. Write down things that need to be done, not things you need to do. You can see that I included registration, which might be considered as something you don't need to include, but in the chaos of everything going on right now it is definitely not something I can afford to forget to do!

2. Take into Account Pre-Existing Obligations

When you start trying to figure out when you are going to have time to work on each task, don't forget about any pre-existing obligations. The first thing I do after I've printed out my weekly calendar is to fill in work, class, and other meetings. This lets me see how much "free" time I actually have and also ensures that I don't plan to work on something if I'm already obligated to be somewhere else. If you make your own template, it is easy to go ahead and fill in any thing you already have scheduled that takes place on a weekly basis so that you are not having to constantly write it in. As much as I love to have this plan, it can be annoying to write "work" 18 times in each week's plan. Obviously, as you will see on the "final" product at the end, it took me one week's planning to realize this.

3. Be Realistic with Yourself

Being realistic with yourself and your plan is essential. If you aren't realistic about what you think you can accomplish on a daily basis you are setting yourself up for failure. Not trying to be harsh, but this is true. It is a tough place to be when you have scheduled 12 hours of straight work and 6 hours in you are ready to pull your eyeballs out. Trust me, we've all been there, but there is a balance between overestimating and underestimating yourself. Some people might think, set the bar low so that you always meet your goal. In some cases that might work fine for you, but depending on how much work you have do get done, if you set the bar too low, that is only schedule 6 hours of any kind of activity for the day, you literally won't have time to get it done. For instance, I schedule every hour from 8 am until 10 pm, but I know that if I were actually trying to engage in something for every single one of those I would go crazy, which is why I let myself have an entire hour (or 2) for dinner, laundry etc. Which brings me to my next tip - schedule breaks.

4. Schedule Breaks

If you are going to insist on scheduling every hour of the day (which there is no shame in because it's what I do!), make sure you schedule yourself a couple of breaks. Whether that break is to watch some Netflix, grab something to eat, or call a friend, just make sure you do it. I have found that I am much more productive and efficient in my studying and outlining if I take breaks every couple of hours and let my eyes rest and my brain focus on something less demanding. I think it is important to schedule these so that you don't feel like you are "breaking the rules" when you take a break and so that you stay on track.
As an aside, it is also 100% okay to block off a Friday night to have fun. This purpose of the schedule isn't to make sure that you are all study, all the time, but rather to show you how much time you still have left and give you a chance to plan accordingly.

5. Compartmentalize Separate Tasks

Obviously with all of these tips, certain things will work better for some than others. In this case, by "compartmentalize" I'm trying to say, "keep separate tasks separate" (which maybe is just what I should have said.) But what I mean is, don't try to do a different task/project every hour. I've learned that people tend to work more efficiently on something when they can work on it for a few hours at time. That way, in the even that it takes you thirty minutes to really get a grasp on what you are doing/how you want to organize your outline/etc., you still have a couple of hours to implement your plan. When I've tried to go back and forth between classes and projects too quickly, I end up getting lost in my thoughts and have very little to show for my time. If you are able to jump around and do so effectively, I applaud you because honestly I get bored doing the same thing for more than two or three hours, but it has still not been to my benefit to actually change what I'm doing more frequently than every two hours.
I also like to work this way because I can get a big chunk of something done and will normally have "something" to show for it, whether that is in the form of page numbers, highlighted notes, or flash cards. I am very much visual in measuring my accomplishments and I feel much better when I can see where my time has gone.

Hopefully it should look something like this when you're done. As you 'll see, I still have some empty boxes for now (I also made this on Sunday, hence why Sunday is blank). I think it is a good idea to give yourself some room to adjust initially and re-familiarize yourself with having to study longer hours as you approach exams.

How do you prepare for exams?

Have a Great Day, Y'all!
xoxo

How to Study More Efficiently

Make a Plan 

This might be the best advice that I've been given in terms of getting a good start on your studying. Make. A. Plan. Personally, I like to plan in increments of about 30 minutes because that is the most realistic way to do it. I don't mean only thirty minutes at a time, but there is no reason to decide you need 22 minutes to work on something, that is ridiculous.
That being said, when you make a plan it is easier to know what you need to do and what you have left to do. Like I mentioned in this post, there are plenty of times that you will have over or under estimated how much time you need for a particular task, but at least you have a basis of something to follow and you aren't spending time in between trying to decide what to work on next.

Set Goals

In keeping with the first tip, setting goals gives you an big picture idea of where you "need" at certain points. For general reading this could be a certain place in the book, or a certain number of cases. For outlining, you could set a goal of x amount of chapters for the day, or a certain day in your notes that you want to get through. If I have printed my notes out, I like to put tabs every so often and use those as my goals that I want to reach. The key to this is to set realistic goals. Trust me, it feels a lot better to set a relatively easy goal and exceed it rather than to set a far reaching goal and come short.

Organize Your Material 

Organizing your material can really help streamline your studying and outlining. I struggled initially with getting all of my information together before the semester was over, but as you know, or will know shortly, it is very important to start your outlining before classes are actually over. I think the best way to go about it is to print your notes through the day you start and then within your notes make some kind of notation like, "PRINTED THROUGH OCT. 20." That way when you print the rest of your notes at the end of the semester or some other time, you know where to start.
Doing these things will make sure you only have the material that you need and makes it easier to find what you need instead of wasting time filtering the important information and relevant class notes.

Limit Your Use of Social Media

This might seem obvious, but if you actually do it you will notice a huge difference in the amount of work you can get done in such a short time. I understand you need to take breaks, but schedule those breaks or allow them to coincide with goals you set. When you can work for 45 minutes to an hour without distraction you are going to get a lot more done. I will be the first to say that this is hard, everyone's first instinct when they start to get bored is to grab their phone and open up Twitter, Facebook, etc. But, after you see how beneficial it can be, you will appreciate the limited use while you're studying. Sometimes I try not to use my computer at all so that I'm not tempted to open up Facebook, Pinterest, or other non-school websites, but obviously most of the time you need to use your computer.

When I was in undergrad I discovered an App you can download for your computer called "Concentrate" and with this App you can block certain websites from yourself for a certain period of time. Maybe you have more self control than me and you don't actually need an App to keep from getting on those websites. But if you are as easily distracted as I am, this is a great tool. I'm sure there are others like it - and turning WiFi off can be enough sometimes, unless you need Lexis or access to your email - but I have used this for a few years and it is really helpful.

What are some things you do to study more efficiently?

Have a Great Day, Y'all!
xoxo