Get your due dates and assignments from the Syllabus. Then see what you will need to do to meet the objective. Everyone’s pace is different: adjust for your strengths. If you have questions, check with your professor early and often to make sure that you are on track.

Break your larger projects into blocks that will take 1–2 hours. You can do as many blocks as you want in one sitting but creating smaller blocks mean that you can squeeze in progress between other obligations. If you work hard for 1–2 hour slots you can get a lot done (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique). It also means that you can take meaningful breaks to relax. This is different than the “all nighter” approach of 6–8 hours of rushed or mediocre work all at once without a break.

Calendars are visual representations of time. Your mind will subconsciously organize and plan your time as you look at your calendar. You can easily create alerts that help you plan.

Most of us have had the experience of “reading” a boring or challenging textbook for an hour and not remembering a single thing.

Active reading means that you will always be looking for information and reading with a purpose. You will read in different passes to understand the structure of the information, the type of information, the biases and positions of the author and finally extract the information from the text. Read with a notebook in your hand or use a computer if you prefer.

Active reading means:

• Read for structure in the material. Understand and create an outline as you read.
• Read with a question in mind: what is the author trying to say in this section? What does this title mean?
• Read in layers and cover the entire material each time.
• Use pre-reading to estimate how long it will take you to read the chapter. Then budget that amount of time before class to dedicate to reading.
• If the material is dense or confusing, find other resources that can give you an introduction to the topic. Wikipedia and YouTube are great for this.

You can develop this skill for yourself, and it will help you get more out of life. For example, how can I caramelize onions like a restaurant? How can I throw a spiral? How can I improve the results of this meeting? How does a carburetor work? How can I sweep pick?

I have become pretty obsessed with Obsidian and used it to write a book already: Bitmasks for Fun and Profit

I have always been a reader, but two years ago, I decided to triple my book reading to 100 per year (including audiobooks), almost all non-fiction. Because of my lifestyle, I found this easy, and I read 150 books a year. There have been a few very influential books, but the biggest benefit is increasing my intellectual "mulch."

I have gamified this by keeping a spreadsheet. This is important because just by seeing a title with a date I can recall quite a bit about a book. I also take notes (see above).

Write a NotePD list, a blog or a book, make a video. You will learn a lot.

This is a deep rabbit hole, and there are thousands of YouTube videos and books about this. https://www.buildingasecondbrain.com/

Practice the process of taking notes, especially digital notes. Learn an app: Apple Notes is excellent: you can take photos, mark things up, make voice memos, etc.

Practice these skills without worrying about the actual content of the note. Then, when you need to mark up a "real" note, you will know how to do it.

As I often say, NotePd is great for this. By consistently expressing yourself, you will get better at it and faster at it. It takes a long time and hundreds of hours to see a benefit (or it has for me), but you must put in the time. Grammarly is like having an editor or writing coach all the time.