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Hey Classmates,

I wanted to follow up on my last post about organizing life with the second part of my techy organizational system.  If you read my post on “the system” then you have a good idea of how I manage my to-dos, projects, running thoughts and so forth, but you may have thought “What does he do with all of the notes, power points, syllabi, etc?”

Well, this is what I do.  I have a free Google Drive account that I use only for school, not pictures, no music…just school.  This is important because the how point of organizing is to be organized and simple, so don’t do it.  If you want to store music or pictures in a cloud based service you can use Dropbox or Skydrive (both free).

Steps:

1. Download Google Drive
2. Create 2 folders: DPT Classes and Other PT School Docs
3. Within the DPT Classes folder create a folder for the semester (ie. Summer 2013)
4. Within Summer 2013 folder, create folders for every class you have
5. Optional step: If you would like to further divide your classes you can create a folder called Lecture notes and folder called Assignments

This may seem like a lot of work but it really isn’t bad compared to losing work and misplacing things throughout our three years of class.  This will be very helpful for comprehensive exams.

For you paper note takers, I think this system can still be helpful for you.  You can take notes in class on paper, then copy your notes onto the power point (assuming the lecture is power point based).  That way you see the notes twice before storing them and you have an electronic copy in your Google Drive to be accessed from anywhere

Hope this is helpful 🙂

Hey classmates,

There has been a lot of talk the first couple of days of school about what techniques and strategies are best for staying organized during PT school.  I want to start by saying that there is no ONE system that works for everyone.  I am a tech nerd so the system I use leverages technology pretty heavily (basically you need a smart phone for it to be helpful), but there is definitely room for paper within it if you’d like to do that too.  Let’s get started.

The system I use is called The Secret Weapon.  It is built on the framework that David Allen created in his famous Getting Things Done book.  The premise of Getting Things Done is that in order to operate at our highest level cognitively we need to clear out space in our working memory aka we need unclutter our heads to think clearly.  The way that we do that is by getting things out of our heads and into a trusted system.  The example he uses a lot is, if you have a presentation that you need to make sure you don’t forget for tomorrow morning, you put it in front of the door that way as you are leaving you run into it and you remember.  The idea is get things out of your head and into a system.

The secret weapon is that system…it sounds ultra nerdy, maybe it is, but so far it has been helping this (undiagnosed) ADHD brain work well amidst a lot of busyness.

Setup:

Setting up the system is not hard it just takes a little bit of time (more time for more busy people).  All you need to do is sign up for a free Evernote account, have an email account and follow the steps laid out on the website.  I promise you at first you will be a little confused and probably not like the system, it isn’t until you get it fully up and running and you are able to be fully engaged with what you need to be engaged with that you will love it.

1. Download Evernote
2. Prep Evernote for the system 
3. Set up your email for Evernote–if you have problems here there may be a solution for you here www.ifttt.com.
4. Empty the inbox –this takes the most time

And you are ready to go!  Now when a professor says remember to read blah blah for next class, you whip out your phone, make a note that says read blah blah for class, tag it, and its done until you revisit your system later and get it done.

This is how it looks in action

Like I said this system is definitely tech heavy so if you don’t like that you can always do something similar with paper, a cabinet and some folders (Allen’s book will help for this).  The real key is to get a system whether its print based or digital, our human brains work best when clear of clutter.

How do you organize your life?  Do you have a system?  I’d love to hear about it.

Hope this helps 🙂

Look out for my next post on how to use Google Drive in conjunction with this system.