Changes

Now that I’ve finished the Back-to-School series I’m moving over to wordpress. I’ve been toying with the idea of a move – and a change in direction with my blog.

So here is what will be happening – firstly, since I am no longer a student I’m changing my website to simply my name – travisthetrout and will be moving over to wordpress – so please update your links / reader.

Secondly, as I want my blog to have a more “grown up” feel my student and a lot of my organisational blogging with be done over at Organisation for Students – so please feel free to check me out over there as well.

Back to School Series – Tackling the Home office [part 5]

 

This is the final part in my back to school series. Law Minx asked for tips on tackling the thesis monster – unfortunately as I’ve never had the delights of doing such a thing myself I found anything I would say would be somewhat unhelpful. That said, a large chunk of her problem appears to be keeping the paperwork under control – and that I can help with.

Firstly I’d like to stress the importance of confining paperwork / study materials to one area of the house (side of the room if you live in halls).This helps improve your concentration when you are working and relaxation when you are having a time out. I always used to work while in bed as a student – which was a dangerous habit to get into as bed really should only be used for sleeping, otherwise you get into difficulties sleeping.

The next thing to do is be ruthless with your papers. There is always an overload of information – usually stuff that you don’t need and don’t use. If you are going to keep stuff “just in case” at least have a proper way of organising it – its not like electronic copies where you can just search for it. This is also a great way of clearing the clutter before starting a new academic year.

So we’ve got rid of the unnecessary paper and dumped it in the recycle box. Next step is to organise it. I do like keeping electronic copies of everything and but for those of you who simply love paper as it is easier to read / annotate etc you are most likely not going to get by without a filing cabinet of some kind. I know they are not particularly cheap but they are a god send when it comes to organising papers/articles and general bits and bobs. For everything else you can have the usual folders, and box files. The cheaper alternative to having a filing cabinet is metal box file.

After you have decided what you will use for the purpose of filing the papers, the next step is deciding how you will organise it. Labels should be usable – you need to know where everything is and unless you files are actually people’s names, alphabetically filing rarely works.

Assuming you’ve already split the papers into the large general topics. The way you split it next is very important. I am using the example here, where you are writing coursework, you’ve researched everything under the sun that’s remotely linked to your topic of choice and have photocopied books and printed articles / journals and legislation – everything you could get your hands on. If you have stopped using the material and just want to keep it “for future reference” a good, simple way to do it is simply find everything on that topic, band it, put it in a box file and label it – and put it on a shelf somewhere.

If still using the material it is more important to organise the papers in a way that is reflective of how you see yourself using them. For example my last piece of course work had 3 main arguments. So to start with I split the material into these categories. Then within each category – there was:

• the essential material – the weighty articles backing up everything I had to say
• the opposing POV – the stuff that developed a counter argument, or provided an interesting reflection.
• the stuff that I may refer to, if I couldn’t find something strong  - a lot of what I found at the beginning of my research ended up in this category – as I found as my research developed I found stronger arguments and more developed points of view.
• and finally the stuff that I wouldn’t use but wanted to keep.

Each page/bundle is labelled with where I got it with a post it detailed why I want it  and I what I intend to use it for. And that is just the basics – I will also have highlighted and annotate the materials.

In another file I will keep everything I’ve written to date, every draft and all my rough notes. I also used to photocopy particular arguments/notes on a particular topic and include them with the research papers on the matter as well as in my working file – so that when I looked at a particular file I knew what was going on.

Once you’ve filed the papers away into a filing cabinet in terms of research project and your general subject files. hopefully you’ll have less clutter and a more organised space.

Drinks with: LPC Students

 

Yesterday after work we had what was our first reunion post – LPC. Most people have now returned from their summer of travelling to start training contracts or job hunting. The stats are as follows: 4x with Training Contracts, 3x non law jobs, 2x law jobs, 1x no job. Quite a variety.

There was a sort of familiarity about being back in our usual haunt surrounded by friendly faces, yet undoubtedly things have changed, there was a new sense of competitiveness and tension. Particularly when 2 friends were talking about the fantastic interview they had last week that they really thought they got – unfortunately it turned out to be the same place, for the one job. So they decided to analyse the differences between their interviews until they were blue in the face. It is clear as long as we are all searching for a training contract there will be a certain tension.

Graduation is in three months – lets hope there will be a lighter atmosphere then.

Back to School Series – Blogging Round up [Part 4]

There is always a wealth of organisational tips for students floating around the web, no more so than the September Back to School season. So I've decided to put together a collection of some of the more recent additions that I found worth a read.

A few of our very own law students have been tackling the back to school topic (whether intentionally or not) and have come up with a few gems:

The Uni Looney about to embark on his second year of law school has put together a great list of advice for those starting out at university. Not just for law students, but words of wisdom beneficial to everyone.

Scots Law Student tackles the issue of students going paperless (a well informed post which is worth a read) and taking a laptop to college (addressing issues such as security and backing up).

Michael of Law Actually has also recently written up the conclusion of his open source law student experiment - even if you're not considering going totally open source there is still some information contained within that applies to all, or may just inspire you consider going open source.

From our friends across the pond there has been a lot of blogging from law students detailing their return or first impressions of law school. A few weeks back we had the 10 commandments of law school from fearfully optimistic ( a collection of tips equally applicable to us), and more recently we had an excellent post on note-taking "You're a law student not a court reporter". Over at Legal Geekery the importance of eating correctly (an often looked over
topic) was brought into the spotlight with regards Snacking.

Of course we can’t just take advice from law students, there is other useful stuff out there. Lifehacker the indispensible source of geeky goodies brings us another great back to school series and I would have to recommend reading both Classic ways to boost your note-taking and GTD explained for Students. GetOrganizedWizard blogged How to become a smart student over the summer but I thought it was worth a mention even this close to the new semester in case people hadn’t seen it yet. Ian’s Messy Desk also does a great organising post: how to be an organized student some of the tips given are just common sense but the post is a nice straightforward to the point posting which sums everything up so I thought it was worth a mention. And Organisation for Students talks about getting all moved into halls and includes a list of items to pack.

And finally in the inevitable lists department we have:
Top 100 tools for learning in 2009 although a lot of them you will have used before or probably won't find that useful - it will be useful to have a quick glance down the list when you have some free time.
Online Universities weblog provides us with 100 best back to school hacks. Again a good list to glance over, and is probably more relevant for students just starting out covering everything from moving in, to organisation and time management.

Deafness – a mix of fear and frustration

 

I’m taking a break from the B2S series to vent my frustrations. I'm ill which for me equates deafness which only adds to the insanity I'm feeling as I am confined to bed drinking tea on bank holiday weekend no less. As I've mentioned before I'm Hard of Hearing (HOH). A while back I met a guy whose hearing level was similar to mine – but he learnt sign language at school (where as I rely totally on lip reading). Annoyed that I was never taught to sign at school I decided to sign up for evening classes in sign language to start mid-September.

This of course was not as simple as I would like - it is one of the few classes that you cannot sign up with online at my local college. I emailed them and they suggested I go in to see them between 9 and 5 which of course doesn't work for me as I'm in work / commuting to work from 6am until half 6pm. The remaining option was phoning them. Given that I lip I hate phones, but I braved phoning them in my lunch hour - this turned into a disastrous conversation - I couldn't understand a word they said and they couldn't understand a word I said and so I didn't get signed up to the class. Very frustrating.

Now I know there are deaf people are lawyers - but for me the fact that I'm HOH was what put me off trying to become a barrister - that said I still worry about being able to cope as a solicitor. It is a hard thing to get people to understand what I experience, and I've found there is a distinct lack of support. Here in the UK both the Group for Solicitors with Disabilities (now lawyers with disabilities division of the law society) and Deaf Lawyers UK seem to be MIA. I've emailed both a few months ago now and failed to receive any response. I have debated whether my attempt to reach the lawyers with disabilities was lost during the change in organisation even though they say it shouldn't have been. As for the deaf lawyers their website hasn't been updated in a long time. Compare this to America where there is a regular blog and a twitter presence of deaf lawyers – and generally a good sense of community.

I find the UK's lack of support a great disappointment and in many ways it is discouraging – as it doesn’t bode well for coping in the future. You’d think with all the advancements in social media – it would improve.

I received little support through school and university - but I've always considered myself self sufficient. However, more recently I've found myself to struggle more, due to a mix of deteriorating hearing and a much more busy work environment, where lip reading is more physically exhausting and probably also hindered by my own unwillingness to announce to the world my difficulties. I have many fears about being able to be a solicitor one day - for example my difficulties in using a telephone confidently - some days it just makes me want to pack it all in. It just seems hard enough to qualify these days without admitting to the fact that you may not be able to do some aspects of the job that should be the most straightforward part.

Back to School Series – Get Organised [Part 3]

How to get organised for the new academic year:

This third installment of my Back to School Series is focusing on those who see the new academic year as an opportunity to finally get some organisation in their lives. Whether they have just started university, or didn't quite get the grades their hoped for at the end of the last year.

My last posts for undergraduate and LPC students will suit those who already are organised but just need a little help. This post is more for those who just simply are not organised but want to turn over a new leaf.

Have a goal

The thing about turning over a new leaf and getting more organised is that you will usually have something that you want to achieve / get out of it. It is important to work out these goals. Even if you just change one simple thing - you've achieved a lot.

My 2 goals at university were broad - get a 2.1, make lifelong friends. During my first year of university I enjoyed doing the minimum work possible, I never did the prep, and I always answered "I'm sorry, I don't know" in class. I had the lifelong friends but was never going to get my 2.1. My goal then was to change that and become more organised. The main problems I identified were: that I enjoyed having fun, none of my mates went to university which was a bad influence and I kept putting off the work only to do it half heartedly on the way to class (if I was lucky). I changed this by developing a schedule. I'd get up earlier - do the work in the morning before anyone else was awake - I'm only talking about getting up at 9am rather than midday - wasn't too much of a hardship once I got used to it. I'd then have classes during the day, stay in uni (so no distractions) and do a bit of a write up of the days notes and then come home to dinner, relaxing with friends, and go out most nights of the week. The perfect work-life balance - I was more happy and my grades shot up.

Of course this sort of intense timetabling won't work for everyone - but the key is - identify your goals, work out what needs to be changed to achieve them, and change one of these things if not all to get closer to your goal.

The first steps to achieve these goals

For most goals the thing in common is the need for a little more organisation. There are 2 things everyone should have - even if you have nothing else you have started the long journey to getting organised. These two things are an academic diary and a to do list.

The Diary.
Shopping for the perfect diary is never easy. I've currently got two diaries that I've previously blogged about – the Moleskine diary and my to-do-list diary. Both of which I'd highly recommend for anyone deciding to get organised. I enjoy having a *real* diary rather than just using something like Google calendar as notes can be made at any time so you don't forget.

The moleskine diary is a pocket diary - there are many different styles and you should choose on based on how your day plays out. Some people need a page a day to schedule their appointments - detailing everything, others a page a week as they simply write things like "9am contract lecture" in the Friday box.

It is important to have a timetable that you've made for yourself as well as the scheduled classes - have a better idea of when you are going to do prep work and the fun stuff.

The To-do List.

The important thing to note is a diary can often double up as your to-do list. Here I've used a desktop diary to detail everything where as here, the pocket diary is sufficient to keep a little tickable list. Of course many people prefer to go the electronic route with RTM for example, or my favourite - mini task (see previous blog post here).

Finally, if you are really not the organised sort, the way I got my bf organised my be something to try - scrap piece of paper - write what you need to do on it (in his case what he had to do to complete his final year project) and use blue tac to stick it above the bed. Get some satisfactions out of scribbling off everything you've done. worked wonders for him.(of course there is still the tattoo option).

Once you've done all these things (or even any of these things) and stick to them, it will be easier to stay organised: as I’ve often found - Simple things are often the most effective.

The Back to School Series will continue with a collection of other people's postings that I would recommend, and my additional post on saving your home from thesis monsters (which I am writing at law minx's request).

Back to School Series – For the Undergraduate [Part 2]

The main difference between the undergraduate experience and the LPC experience that I blogged about in part 1 is that everything (or the majority of things are done on the computer - sometimes whether you prefer it or not).

This post is not so much about HOW to study at undergraduate level - as the range is too broad - instead I've detailed three types of tools that I used at undergrad (out of the wide range of software I’ve tried over the years) that worked well for me, and that I believe that you can’t go wrong with. Any of these methods will serve their purpose with the right motivation and preparation over the course of the academic year.

1. Ready Made - Little/no set up required

For a single service look to Notely  (this can also be used by those aspiring to be more organised in the new academic year as it is very straightforward to use.) I used this during my undergraduate degree and found it to be a great addition to my studying routine (see previous  detailed posting on it here).  For those that don't like wasting time getting their services from the far reaches of the web - this is a useful service. However, for some people Notely may have more features than they know what they do with, which is why sometimes juggling only the things you need works better, for example I used to use google cal, google docs (see previous posting here) and remember the milk.

2. Use of a wiki to provide more creative freedom

Need your own voice to do what you want? A wiki is the solution. As I mentioned in my LPC Post PBworks (PBwiki) is a great online wiki, simple to use and edit. The benefits of the wiki are obvious - mainly the freedom to design it as you want.
PBwiki is useful because it is an online service (great for the LPC when I didn't take my own laptop to uni).

As an undergrad, I took my laptop everywhere so as an alternative to doing everything online, is the downloadedable Linked Notes (I use Basic) which is great for general note taking - it creates a tree like structure for your notes. It also links pages automatically for you. This works well if you incorporate your own glossary for legal terms or cases. For example you would keep a page entitled by a case name, and write about it on that page, and then any time you refer to it on any other page within linked notes it will automatically link in and you can just click on it to read the information - this is a great function as to do this in most other note-taking methods, you will have to manually put it in yourself. The downside is something like if you've entitled a page with a common term like property it will link in each time even though you may be using it in all different contexts - of course it is all in the wording and you learn to get round this easy enough.

3. For Every Student: the classic

I know that everyone knows about onenote (see previous detailed review here) by now, but you really can't beat the classics. The ability to dump all your thoughts, link pages, create the layout with a certain amount of freedom means it works well both for the organised and those who need a more relaxed approach.

Another great thing, particularly when it comes to coursework and revision is the search function for quickly highlighting and finding the things you need. Just type in the search term and all the pages with the term change colour to be identifiable. Very useful.

And as silly as it sounds I also loved simple things such as the ability to make it pretty. and getting the satisfaction of ticking off things on my to-do lists.

The Back to School series will continue soon with how to get more organised. Feel free to share what works for you and/or ask questions.