Fresh from the Desk: Prevent the Accidents When Taking Notes
I love good notes taking, or I bet everyone does. I’m feeling very satisfied if after I had a lecture/lesson and your hand is just numb and can’t feel to hold a pen anymore (too much writing) and the result is just good. But what if it isn’t? What if you have to write so many things and you have to draw a circulation system at the same time? What if there’s a lot of important words that you might not know what exactly it spells and you don’t want to mispell? Or what if you accidentally tear a page whilst writing? Anything can possibly happen, and those all had happened to me at least once. This is what I do when these common mistakes happen to prevent me from panicking absurdly or feeling miserable when taking notes.
1. I don't really like white out since I use gelpen for writing instead of ballpoint. It tends to dry at a very long time and of course we have no time to wait. I try to avoid using any white out by being comfortable line my mistaken writing. But if it's disturbing I use sticker paper or correction tape (fluid makes my hand dirty because sometimes it doesn't dry perfectly). If I write in the wrong space or I accidentally write the wrong sentences, I just glue a small piece of paper (or sticky notes if you don't have much time).
2. It takes quite a while for me to draw something like graphics or any system (Biology) even though I can draw well. Some teachers are basically pretty much understand the class situation by give us some time to draw. So if I have this kind of time, I use pencil for a quick draw (more likely a sketch so the curves won't go wrong) then I use drawing pen to thicken the drawing. I don't use my gelpen since the ink can also got wiped when you erase the pencil sketch. If I don't have any time to draw but I want to have my notes looks cool, I just put a sticky notes to fill the space where I have to draw the picture on and write what should I draw. So when I get the time to draw I can draw without adding some extra paper (since you've got the space) or just print out an image then glue/tape it over the drawing if the drawing is pretty hard or have a lot of detail.
3. When you're not in the mood of taking good notes but you have to, take a blank paper (like HVS) or wide ruled paper and write with 0.7/1.0 pen. It's okay to take up a lot of space so it'll look nice and neat even if you're not in the mood. You can also play with colorful pens for taking notes, not just all-black. Colors tend to bring up your mood and make you feel more relax than before. You can also add some stickers or write the important words bigger than the other words to make you feel better. Then you can glue it on your notebook.
4. If I accidentally tore a page out, I tape it with clear solotape if it's still possible. It could be vertically or horizontally. Or if it's off the page I keep it on the map and write a reminder to rewrite the notes onto a new page.
5. If I accidentally spilled a drink, or it's wet because of the rain (or anything watery), I put the notebook a side until it gets dry by itself. Do not open/do anything with the notebook because it could tear the pages and you don't want it happen, right? Then, after it dries, check what's missing and add a piece of paper/sticky notes to add up what's missing. Or if nothing's missing but the ink is just everywhere, make a doodle or some footnote so it becomes something blissful instead of an accident.
6. If the color accidentally bled to the next page, I could just tear up the page (it's a blank page anyway). But if I'm taking notes on my textbook, I use correction fluid since color bled is more than a correction tape can handle. But if I know the ink will bled before I'm taking notes, I try to prevent the color bleeding by put a cardboard on the next page or tissue underneath my hand to minimalise or even better, won't leave any mark.
7. Have a good color coordination by picking up the colorful pens/highlighters before taking notes. I used to have random colors when taking notes, but when I saw my friend only wearing the same color when taking notes, it feels better and neat. So I decided to manage my color coordination but keep the colorful ongoing at the same time. My architecture teacher once said about warm-and-cold color. It's roughly like this, if you have green, you can take blue and the shades inbetween. If you have red, have the shades in between. Do not mix up something randomly or it won't give you the atmosphere, it's just a regular notes.
I hope tips above will help you in taking notes in your notebook, or even on your textbook. And for disclaimer, these pictures aren't mine, I took them all from random sources, but mostly Pinterest and Tumblr. So if you're paying a visit, this is the disclaimer! Thank you, see you soon xo
