10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades (While Studying Less)

mindless note-taking - that is, simply recording the lecture material without 
really thinking about it or trying to put it in your own words. I’ve definitely been 
guilty in the past of sitting in certain classes and trying to note down every detail 
the professor says without really putting in the mental effort to learn.
The Cornell Method
I’d be surprised if you’ve never heard of this system before, though you may not 
know exactly how to use it. The Cornell Method was invented by Walter Pauk - 
the man who wrote the excellent textbook How to Study in College - and is 
designed to cut down on the amount of time you need to spend processing your 
notes after class before you can properly study them.
To take notes in the Cornell style, you divide your paper into three sections:
1. The Cue column
2. The Note-taking column
3. The Summary column
The Note-taking column will be the most familiar to you, as it just contains the 
notes you take during class. You can use any style you want, though in most 
cases people will use the Outline Method.
As you take your notes, you’ll use the Cue column to formulate questions based 
on main ideas and important details from the Note-taking column. Once class is 
over, you should immediately write a small summary of what was presented in 
the Summary column.
By doing this, you’re processing your notes for efficient study while you’re still in 
class. When it comes time to actually study them, you’ll find that you’re already 
halfway to creating a great study guide, as you’ve already written down 
questions. You should also have a clearer understanding of the material already, 
since you took the time to summarize it.
The Mind Map Method
Mind mapping is a fantastic method for creating a tree of connected ideas, and I 
find that creating mind maps helps me to better flesh out ideas I want to write 

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10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades (While Studying Less)
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about. They’re a great way to visualize a lot of information.
To create a mind map, start with a single “umbrella” term in the middle of your 
page. Then, start branching out from it by drawing lines and writing down words 
that flesh out that main idea. 
Mind maps are very visual, so you should experiment with using different 
colors, drawing pictures next to your terms, and doing other things that help you 
understand and remember the information more clearly.
You don’t have to use paper for your mind maps, either. While I prefer doing it 
that way, there are plenty of apps that let you make mind maps on your 
computer; my favorite is 
Coggle
, which is a free web app that has a lot of 
convenient keyboard shortcuts for creating your maps.
For me, mind maps are best used when I’m trying to get a clear picture of all the 
details underneath a certain topic. I’m not so fond of using them when taking 
notes during classes, since I often like to create diagrams, write down more 
detailed blocks that don’t always fit nicely into map nodes, etc.
But what if you want to integrate small mind maps into your notes? Can you 
create a hybrid system? Yes you can, and it’s…