"Study habits" at work

October 2, 2011 2:56 PM

What are some good school "study habits" that can also benefit you at an office job?

I'm looking for ways to improve how I learn new information at work, organize myself, remember important things, look for details, etc. I'm a project manager on digital projects, if it matters. I was talking to someone today who was mentioning how he used to be made to copy out his school outlines so that he would remember the information better, and it reminded me how in college I would read things twice so that I would learn the information better. What are other school study concepts that can be applied to things like meeting notes, project briefs, research, and other things that need to be learned in office work?

posted by sweetkid to Work & Money (15 answers total)

For me "writing everything down" is a big thing I need to do whether at school or at work. I keep a hand-written running to do list that I update all the time, during meetings, and when I'm working. It's also really helpful to me to take copious notes during meetings the same way I did in classes because otherwise I forget immediately.
posted by bleep at 3:12 PM on October 2, 2011 [5 favorites]

Best answer: I take notes in meetings on paper. I'll go and re-copy them into another notebook (this also helps cut down on the doodles and other crap) or the computer. So my notebooks have the details I need and are more organized than the raw info I'd enter.
posted by birdherder at 3:14 PM on October 2, 2011

Best answer: 1. Take notes in outline form so they are easier to skim later. The extra thought to figure out how to structure the outline will help you remember the information.

2. When you take notes, leave a very wide left-hand margin. Use the margin to note any follow-up actions, for yourself or to put a star or arrow to key points or to write the name of person who has responsibility for it. So I might write "check w/ Mark" or "DS" for a detail that needs to go into the data sheet or *** next to an important, do-not-forget comment.

3. As an alternative to #1, do a mind map - each key point gets a circle with related points connected to it. (Not my style but really good for more visual learners.)
posted by metahawk at 3:16 PM on October 2, 2011

Response by poster: This is all exactly the kind of stuff I'm looking for!
posted by sweetkid at 3:19 PM on October 2, 2011

Best answer: I keep a notebook that I use for everything, the notebook goes everywhere with me and it does not get thrown away until absolutely all the information in is is redundant.

When I was regularly having to have structured discussions with clients that had to cover specific topics I wrote down my questions in my notebook in a particular colour. I'd leave space for the answers in between the points I wanted to cover. Then I'd take a different coloured pen into the meeting to write down the answers. Much easier to make sense of scribbled and hastily jotted down parts of sentences if you can see easily what's the question and what the answer. Also easier to find the questions again to prepare for the next such meeting a few days or weeks later.
posted by koahiatamadl at 3:40 PM on October 2, 2011

Proofreading!
posted by pupstocks at 3:46 PM on October 2, 2011

Best answer: Well, two things that come to mind are:

#1 - The Inbox/Outbox concept which in school was really individual and team assignments vs. presentations and work handed in. In an office setting the Inbox is bigger: tasks assigned to you, general company directives and deadlines, stroking the customer, liasing with other departments, routine duties that still must be considered in context with all other work and with an eye on the calendar (end of month crunch is not an excuse because you can see it coming a month away), etc. The Outbox must be managed more carefully so that you do not set the bar to high. You need to react in a timely fashion to all Inbox activity, but that reaction may be a non-reaction when you are confident none is needed, or a cautious and brief response indicating where things stand and what the next step may be, or a referral to your boss when really necessary, etc.

#2- Time management which in school was class and study times, library visits, tutoring, team meetings, etc. In the work world people are spinning lots of plates (except for the ones who do little and wouldn't help you anyway) and so waiting until the last minute is a big mistake. Putting something in somebody else's Inbox with an unnecessarily short timeframe is not really a request it's a demand (at least from their standpoint) and they won't forget it. Similarly staying on top of deadlines and getting your work done early both leaves you free to react to emergencies and avoid getting burnt by the unexpected or, in the best scenario, get promoted so you can manage a team instead of just be a member of one (at which point the need for time management just goes up several notches as you need to watch out for yourself and your direct reports).
posted by forthright at 3:59 PM on October 2, 2011

Best answer: I also swear by the handwritten to do list. I find that any task that I am procrastinating on is simply not well enough defined for me to start tackling -- therefore, if I'm having trouble moving on a project, I break it down into smaller pieces and wrote THOSE on my to do list (with an uber-satisfying to check off box next to each item of course). Sometimes I have to do that a few times or break down the sub tasks into smaller sub tasks, but it definitely helps me stay on track.

I don't know what the nature of your work is, but one of the aspects of my job is that my coworkers often request short projects/reports from me. I used to have trouble keeping track of to whom I owed what, or, even worse, remembering exactly what I had done for that person in the past (hey, telegraph, can I have the same report again but for August instead of July?). Now I keep track by always sending the report in an email with all of the details/info I would need to reproduce it. The recipient doesn't really need all that info, but this way it is in one place, searchable in my mail archives, and I have a record of all of the work I've done. If someone needs more details or a slightly modified version of the report, they'll usually respond to the same thread, and BOOM all the info I need is already there.

Since you're a project manager you probably already have your system for this down but I'll share anyway. I use Google Spreadsheets to make my project plans, and I use conditional formatting for the "Status" cell of each entry -- green for "Complete", yellow for "In Progress", red for "Not yet begun." It's automated and built into my template so it takes no extra time but helps me see at a glance how my team is doing.
posted by telegraph at 4:33 PM on October 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

For me, prioritizing to-do projects in terms of importance works well. If there are a bunch of things that need doing in roughly the same time period, I sort them by difficulty -- I do the toughest things first, then move down the list.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 4:37 PM on October 2, 2011

The biggest thing I practice now: when something isn't working (in school terms, stuck on a paper...in work terms, stuck on a project), move on to something else and come back to it later (as long as it isn't something that has to get done rightfreakingnow). You're just wasting time trying to work through a mental block; use your brainpower elsewhere and you might find that other task easier to tackle later on.
posted by litnerd at 5:20 PM on October 2, 2011

Building on what people mentioned above - in my meeting notes, when I write down a task that needs to be done, I draw an empty box next to it just like on a checklist.

This makes it so easy to skim back and see what needs doing without having to reread an entire meeting's discussion. (I also try to check them off when I eventually finish them)
posted by cadge at 5:59 PM on October 2, 2011

Best answer: Keep a pocket full of index cards. Write stuff on them. Never put an index card with writing into the pocket with the blank cards.
posted by pmb at 7:12 PM on October 2, 2011 [1 favorite]

I give presentations regularly and volunteer to give presentations often. Nothing makes you learn something faster than preparing to teach it to someone else.
posted by dottiechang at 10:03 PM on October 2, 2011 [2 favorites]

Best answer: You might be interested in the latest science behind the best study techniques. Some of these are counterintuitive. (NYT links)

To Really Learn, Quit Studying and take a test.
Forget what you know about study habits.

Summary:

1. Vary the location in which you study.
2. Study distinct but related concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing.
3. Space out your study sessions.
4. Test yourself through self-quizzes.

Interestingly enough the conventional wisdom about learning styles? The idea that some are visual learners, some are audio learners and so on? A catchy idea but there's actually not much evidence to support it.
posted by storybored at 9:04 PM on October 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Late during my PhD I realised that I was collecting large scraps of notes on papers and notebooks. Even when I made efforts to organise them, these notes merely gathered dust, and when I learnt something useful and new, which related to something I had a vague recollection about, integrating that was almost impossible.

Then, l came across Tiddlywiki. I started making ongoing notes within the Tiddlywiki, interlinking them, integrating them and organically growing them. Nearly 5 years on now, and working full-time these notes have grown into a massive resource, literally invaluable. My current job is very knowledge intensive, and I have no doubt I would be nowhere near as good at it without having done this.
posted by inbetweener at 2:22 AM on October 8, 2011 [1 favorite]