This probably the longest I've gone without posting since I first started this blog, but I'm not suprised since, as is usually the case at the end of the semester, my workload has increased. I don't attribute it to the structure of my classes or my duties at CHNM, but more to my rather unorganized way of doing things. Between battling off a case of the flu (or something) and working on a few projects, I've come to realize how unorganized I am. The case study for today: Taking notes.

I'm not sure how everyone else takes notes, but I seem to adopt new strategies every week or so for note taking, whether I'm taking notes for a project at work, a research project, a class discussion, or a potential weblog post. I admit to taking copious ammounts of notes on just about everything, but the sad thing is that I have absolutely no idea what to do with them when I'm done. I take notes on everything: 5x8 notebooks, note cards, legal pads, Microsoft Word, Scribe (which, if you haven't heard of it, is a great program), regular spiral-bound notebooks, envelopes, napkins. After I've written something down I spend a lot of time hunting down that little morsel of insight; I spend more time finding the note than I do using the note. I even wrote down an idea I had on the sleeve around my Starbucks coffee cup. Needless to say that I threw that idea away with my finished mocha.

This makes me very nervous as a graduate student, as I'm coming close to my major field exams and my dissertation research. It's something I know I can overcome if I just knew how to do it. I'm curious if anyone has any advice or strategies for sticking to one method of keeping notes organized and easy to find (and thus use).

*[CHNM]: Center for History and New Media