Hi guys, today I'm going to be showing you how I take notes on my iPad Pro. Starting with hardware slash products, I have the 2017 10.5 inch iPad Pro. I ordered this off of Amazon Renewed and it was $350 when I bought it. Since it was renewed, there was a possibility for the iPad to be damaged and other reviews show that the iPad would be hit or miss. So I just checked it for scratches, checked the volume, all of the applications, etc. when I received it. On Amazon, it did give a 90 day period in which you can send back the product if it's not up to your standard. So that was how I was able to justify buying it renewed. I also bought this iPad case for around $12. It's pretty basic. It has a magnet on the side so you can fold up the screen along one of the ridges and then prop your iPad up. Next is the Apple pencil. This Apple pencil is truly amazing. I've dropped it a lot since I've gotten it but it still works, which is a big relief because this pencil was $100. It writes really well too, which is expected because it's meant for the iPad and it's really comfortable to hold. Finally, the Game Changer for note-taking. I have a paper-like screen protector on my iPad that gives the screen a little more friction and makes it easier to write on. It helps it feel more like writing on actual paper. This has really made the process of drawing, taking note, and just using the iPad a more enjoyable experience overall. For all of these products that I've mentioned, I ordered them all off of Amazon and I'll leave all of the links below. So why digital note-taking? At the beginning of uni, I was a lot more strict with myself and I would take really detailed color-coded notes by hand, but since I couldn't keep up with the lecture, I'd end up recording my lectures and relive something to them at home. It would take three times as long to get through the lecture material and write the notes because of how often I paused my recording. Since then, I've learned to relax my note-taking method and my current system allows me to take notes efficiently while not losing out on the quality of information I'm writing down or impeding too much on my time outside class. Writing my hand on paper also just takes a lot of time and I'm a lot more picky about how my notes look. If it's on paper, for me, it's just not worth it to take notes on paper and it just makes physical clutter that I don't want to get rid of, is I've grown attached to the amount of effort I put into my notes. Overall, I think digital note-taking combines the speed of typing and the improved learning that comes when you take notes by hand. For apps, I use the app good notes to take all of my notes. I think it's $8 on the app store right now, but it's worth it for three reasons. Convenience, simplicity of the interface, and how easy it is to organize notebooks, folders, and other handouts onto the app. For organization within the app, I have a folder for each class and then within the class folder, I have subfolders for further separation of documents. For example, within my biochemistry folder, I have a section for my biochemistry lab, the exam 1 material, and the exam 2 material for the class. Uploading documents and PowerPoints onto good notes is easy as well, so I keep all of my class information and all of the handout documents PowerPoints on this one app, so I don't switch between printouts or anything outside of good notes unless I have to type something using Google Docs. I oftentimes use a standard notebook with a brown cover and black binding for my notes on good note, and lately I've been using a 5-sized gridded paper. I think writing on the grids looks nice and it helps me write straight across the page. The 5-size is small enough so a single page doesn't feel overloaded with information and I can write comfortably. I don't use a zoom-in feature that comes with the app is I don't always reach the end of the line when I'm writing, so having a smaller page is my alternative for that. The good notes app comes with three pens and my favorite one to use is the ball pen. I used to use the fountain pen last semester, I don't really like how it looked, and I think the brush pen is supposed to be used for fancier titles so I don't use that one either. The ball pen is the most like using an actual pen or pencil and it is true to your own handwriting, so it's the one that I use the most often. I like the 0.35mm size pen for most of my regular note-taking, but on PowerPoints where the file is larger I'll make my pen size big enough so that I don't have to zoom in on the screen to read what I've written. For my pen color, I usually stick to three colors. Black is used for the bulk of my notes and I choose two other colors, but I change the other two colors whenever I get bored. If I'm writing on a PowerPoint that already has black text, I don't use a black pen whatsoever and I just use whatever colors I want. I usually use the blue, red and purple highlighter to highlight text. I think those colors are really pretty and I don't change the sizes of these at all. I just highlight things that I think are important or if I profess as anything in particular I'll highlight it on the page. As a preface to how I actually take my notes, the way I take my notes differs from class to class. For classes that supply PowerPoints like my bio-cam lecture, I usually just write directly on the PowerPoint itself. For other classes like my physics class last semester where there was no PowerPoint or if I'm adding my own additional notes for bio-camistry so I can understand the material, I take notes in a lecture, in lecture in a lecture style notebook format that I'll show you in a little bit. For some classes I don't take notes at all because it doesn't feel necessary. This might be because the professor basically just reads off of the PowerPoint or I already know all the material that they're talking about so I don't feel the need to write down any notes. I think note taking isn't that serious as I used to make it. Before I used to spend the bulk of my time writing notes but then I would have to dedicate the same or more amount of time studying anyway. So now I become somewhat of a bare minimum note taker for my classes and I tried to put more active effort into revising. Still it's important to take notes that you understand and you can look back at and be able to study off of for later. After all of that extra information it is time for my note taking process. It's really simple and it works for me so here we go. I started by writing the date on the upper right corner. It makes a good bookmark for revision and if I ever want to reference one something was taught I usually write the title of the topic for the day at the top of the page and I highlight this as well or I circle it. For any notes I'm adding I use a simple bullet point system. A bullet point is for the most general information within that topic and then for any additional information that is more specific I use a dash mark underneath the bullet point. If I have even more specific information to write on top of that I'll use an arrow pointing down from the dash mark. After that if the subtopic gets more specific I'll restart the cycle of bullet dash arrow, bullet I think keeping this simple note taking system makes it so I don't forget my signifiers and I can take notes in a way that is clean and not too overwhelmed by too many symbols that I won't remember later on. For taking notes on PowerPoint or pre-made notes that my professors have made for me I highlight any statements on the PowerPoint my professor has emphasized or set out loud in class. If I think it's important I'll highlight it or if it seems to be something that is essential to know for the topic we're being taught I'll highlight it. I then use a color other than black to draw any diagrams or add any extra information for clarification. If there's something that my professor says specifically that will be on the exam I use an asterisk and I write it down in the form of a practice question so I can look back at it when I'm reviewing my notes and I can try to answer it myself. These are notes I took from a biology textbook I was self-studying and this was basically useless if I'm being honest. There's too much information I know I'm not going to go back and read these notes and I tried condensing something that was already condensed for me. If I made the monics or flashcards or took practice tests I could have studied this information much better than just by writing notes. I eventually stopped doing this because it took a lot of time and now I use enki flashcards instead to reinforce and test myself on the same information and it's a lot more practical and it wastes a lot less of my time. So yeah that's it for my note taking system. I hope this was helpful to you in some way. Like I've been saying throughout the video I think it's really easy to obsess overtaking the perfect study blur aesthetic notes. The functionality is really what is important in the long run for understanding the information and being able to review it for an exam. Okay so that's it. I'm going to stop talking and I'll see you next week with another video. Bye!