LETTING GO: OF YOUR SCHOOL NOTES

I remember having a hard time packing up my school notes when I moved for my first job. I had stacks and stacks of school books and notebooks and I felt like if I threw them away, I was throwing away the knowledge I learned. If they weren't so hard to move, I probably would have kept all of them. I kept the most important (Dipiro's!) and also kept most of my notes, especially for classes that I knew I would use again like ambulatory care, pharmacology and medicinal chemistry.

As we've moved through the years, I've gotten better about dwindling the books, mainly because notebooks and textbooks are very heavy and I was tired of moving them from place to place. When I was in school, the Internet wasn't as prevalent as it is today and we still had printed handouts and went to the library for a lot of things.

More recently, I was packing up my office as I prepared for yet another, and I just couldn't bring myself to take my notes from my work office to my home. Then, I had a wonderful idea - scan them all in and throw them on a jump drive! For the next two weeks, I came in a little early or stayed late to scan the thousands of pages that I had accumulated. It was a wonderful feeling to throw those big notebooks in the garbage and know that I still had the material I needed. I use the word "needed" loosely because that was two years ago and I've only looked at a handout once!

I will spare you ten years of lugging notebooks around - pick the most meaningful textbooks and and notes to keep (better yet, scan those) and THROW THE REST AWAY!

Let go of the clutter. Most of the information you will be able to find again anyway.