10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades (While Studying Less)

Drafts
 (iOS) - an app that instantly opens to a blinking cursor so you can 
just write. It’s the fastest way to enter text on my phone. It’s also got smart 
shortcuts to actions I can take after writing - I generally sent my notes to 
Evernote for later processing. Android alternative: 
Evernote
(there’s 
nothing like Drafts that I’ve found, unfortunately)
•
Scanbot
(iOS/Android) - a document scanner app. I generally use it for 
scanning receipts for my business, but it’s amazing for scanning 
handwritten notes as well.
•
Trello
 (iOS/Android) - an amazing project management app (more about 
it in Step 10). If I get ideas on a project I’ve already planned out, I often 
add them here.
•
Sunrise Calendar
 (iOS/Android) - my favorite mobile calendar app. Syncs 
perfectly with Google Calendar, which is what I use on my computers.
•
Todoist
 (iOS/Android) - tasks I need to do later get entered here. This is my 
to-do app of choice.
Lastly, I use 
Pinboard
 to keep a well-tagged collection of web pages I want to 
save for later.
Get a Second Brain
For almost six years now, I’ve been operating at a significant advantage to most 

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10 Steps to Earning Awesome Grades (While Studying Less)
50
other people on Earth. Why? I’ve got two brains. Ok, maybe it’s not all that 
crazy - but I do have a tool that I refer to as my “second brain,” and it’s called 
Evernote
. 
Evernote is, at a glance, a simple note-taking app. However, there are reasons it 
became my most-used application throughout my entire college career, as well 
as in my career as a writer/podcast/video producer/beard model today. I used 
Evernote to take detailed, Outline-style notes in most of my classes throughout 
college, and it also held group meeting notes, project details, and lots of other 
things that pertained to school.
In addition, Evernote is where almost every piece of College Info Geek gets its 
start. I have notebooks in it for:
•
Articles, podcast notes, and video ideas
•
Large guides and book outlines (this book started as an outline in 
Evernote)
•
Speaking notes and resources
•
Testimonials and reader questions
•
Various notes from website changes and other technical stuff
Evernote also runs much of my personal life as well. I have personal notebooks 
for:
•
Life details - apartment info, ISP information, account numbers for utilities 
and other random things
•
Software licenses and support contact information
•
Rap lyrics
•
Magic: the Gathering decks and combo ideas
•
Fiction that never sees the light of day
•
Travel info - all flight/hostel confirmations, info about where I’m going, 
conference registrations
•
Dance Dance Revolution goal progress (I’m trying to beat every song on 
Doubles mode)
Lastly, I have a notebook dedicated to book notes. Every day, I have a habit of 
reading for 15 minutes and taking detailed, summarized notes of what I learned. 
This helps me retain much more of the important material in each book I tackle.
Like Dropbox, Evernote syncs all your notes to the cloud. You can access them 
via any of their desktop or mobile apps, and also via the web app. Also, 
Evernote can capture notes in formats besides text - you can record voice notes, 
and when you capture picture notes, Evernote will even make any text in the