I don't know if I have brought this up before on the blog, or just in personal conversations but I have a dilemma with note taking/journal keeping. How do I organize what I study? Or better yet, how do you organize your personal studies? Do you keep two journals? On my mission I would have one journal that I took to zone class/conferences, and another journal for personal studies, and a third journal for describing what I did that day or week (the large plates), etc. I need some ideas on how to 1. Organize, so that I can go back and easily find the notes/revelation from that one conference two years ago, and 2. Consolidate.
I have had this challenge for sometime, and just last week I came across this great video that is motivating to act.
The first video is most relevant to this discussion, and the second video is the episode from which the first segment was taken. Let me know your thoughts.
http://www.mormonchannel.org/teaching-no-greater-call/15?v=1520686899001
http://www.mormonchannel.org/teaching-no-greater-call/15?v=1520686899001
Honestly, I'm not a good one to ask. I'm not much of a journal-er these days.
ReplyDeleteBut my thought to organize/compile would be to use a three-ring binder with tabs. You could use one tab for General Conference, one tab for Church meetings/firesides, one tab for personal studies, one tab for day-to-day stuff, etc.
Then within those tabbed sections you could color code by date to be able to locate things more quickly. ??? I found this download here, so you could print off note paper on different colors: http://www.etsy.com/listing/160312076/printable-digital-notebook-paper-in?utm_source=google&utm_medium=product_listing_promoted&utm_campaign=art_low&gclid=CPyT35jJ5r0CFYuXOgodbxkAAQ.
I don't know. The only other option I can think of would be to keep a digital journal so that you can search easily, but that's not always practical.
Anyone have any other thoughts?
I'm not sure how helpful I can be either. I have several journals, but they are not well correlated. And, I am guilty of what Elder Bednar mentioned--that I seldom go back and look at my notes. What I do have is my personal journals (which I have been inconsistent about writing in the past two years) and my conference/trainings/devotionals journal. For the latter, I always draw a line down the middle of the page and have one side of the page and another side of the page for inspiration. And if I feel inspired to do something new, I try to later write it down somewhere else that I will see it so that I don't forget. In the past I have tried online journaling, but it didn't really stick. I need and want to improve recording insights from my personal studies. The margins of my scriptures is my current record.
ReplyDelete*edit: one side of the page for instruction and the other for inspiration
DeleteI must also admit that note taking is one of my many weaknesses. However, my husband has helped my personal study immensely with his technique. He has a template in a Word doc on his computer, and he creates a new document for each gospel topic he studies. He has it divided by definition, related topics, doctrine, principle, application, scriptures, talks, quotes, personal experiences, others' experiences, stories/parables, and thoughts/promptings. I like the organization and how it helps me look at many different aspects of a gospel topic. However, one of my favorite things is that it does help me to look back at my past studies. For example, if I do a study on prayer and make one of these study documents, then I find myself coming back even months later and adding to it if I find a good talk on prayer. It might not work for everyone, but it has helped my studies.
ReplyDelete