A graphic of a messy pile of files and paperwork ready to be decluttered
Episode 91 – Decluttering course notes

Decluttering course notes from school, university, college, work, conferences and training courses is vital so we don't use valuable space in our homes for things we are unlikely to refer back to. Why do we keep it all and why do we think we will ever look back on those notes? Listen in for some inspiration on how to tackle the decluttering of all those course notes.
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Transcript of this podcast episode
Intro  0:07  
Welcome to today's episode of The declutter hub podcast, your channel for super easy, no nonsense advice on how to declutter and organise your home. Please welcome your host professional organisers, Ingrid Jansen, and Lesley Spellman.

Ingrid  0:31  
Hello, and welcome listeners to Episode 91 of the Declutter Hub Podcast. I'm Ingrid. 

Lesley  0:36  
And I'm Lesley.

Ingrid  0:38  
If you have clutter and want to sort it out, this is the show for you. In today's episode, Lesley and I are talking about course notes. Why do we keep it all? And why do we think we will ever look back on those notes? Now, Lesley, some people might find this strange topic for a podcast. So what do we mean with course notes, I mean, we had a whole discussion about what the Course note is, it does start up within we

Lesley  1:04  
now first things first, I think the reason why we decided to do a podcast on this is because we see the huge volumes of the kinds of things that we're talking about. So when we say course notes, now we're well aware that different people around the world use different terminology. So let's be specific about the type of things that we mean. So we're talking about course, notes that you might have made at school, GCSEs, or a levels, whatever it whatever the exams are, in your country, might be from college, maximum University, might be from professional qualifications that you did once you started working. It might be things like PowerPoint courses that you did, of course, it might be professional development, it might be PhDs, all of those things where you are handouts, or notes, or take notes or write essays, we tend to keep them in a lever arch files, or some other type of filing box files, maybe as well, and they hang around for donkey's years, because we're not quite sure what to do with them.

Ingrid  2:03  
You know what I was also thinking notes from conferences, I've been to a couple of conferences, or like, it can be day conferences, or several days of conference. I love writing stuff down. And then late you think I've jotted all this stuff, wrote all this stuff down? What am I going to do with it? Now?

Lesley  2:21  
You see, it's interesting, really, because we have this debate all the time don't because I, I consider myself to be a kind of reactive person. And so I like to look at something that's already written down, and then I'll react to it if that's, you know, so that's why Ingrid prepares a lot of the stuff that we do. And then I add my bit later, don't so you come up with the core content. And then I add my bit later. Because I'm not really a note taker, I don't write things down. And so at a conference, what the reason why I'm saying this, because at a conference, I will scribble and doodle, but I won't make any notes that make any sense, I might take a few action points that I might come back to later. But in general, I wouldn't write copious amounts of notes, because I know that I'm never going to come back to them. But if you're on a training course, you are encouraged to take notes. When we've been trained as Ingrid, when we train other professional organisers, we encourage people to take their own notes to write their own notes about their own situations. And so that's something that's actively encouraged, isn't it?

Ingrid  3:22  
You know, as the I Am the note taker and the list maker. So I do write copies. I have, like, you know, 12, a forum of notes that I did I take it at a conference, and then I take a highlighter, and I highlight the things that I want to take action on or that I want to investigate. I've become better over the years in not keeping it all. But we find it all the time, don't we in our clients houses. We're like, Oh, what is all this paperwork? And we can dig a bit deeper. And we realise, oh, it's not financial paperwork, or bills, or memorabilia, which is paper collectors show kind of cards. And then we find out it's all this stuff they've kept from work, or college or union, all the things you've said, and it is boxes and boxes and stuff. You know, these plastic wallets with these press on kind of closure things or with a wire around it. Yeah, all of the things we like, yeah, I went to a day course here, and I did a training there. And I took notes here and you're like, what have you ever done with it? And I

Lesley  4:26  
think the important thing about all this is that every situation is going to be completely different. But what you need here is we need to work out. We need to be realistic and honest with ourselves. And we talk about realism and honesty all the time, don't we? Where did that fit into our life? Are we ever going to return to it? Is it practical? Or is it sentimental? Is it reference material? Are we going to come back to it? Are we not? Those are all things that we're going to talk about, and every situation is different. So we're not here to say you have to ditch all your course notes. But what we're saying is, for a lot of people, they are compromising valuable space by keeping things that they may not use. And so the whole idea of this is that we try and get quality over quantity.

Ingrid  5:13  
So let's then dive into it. Why do we keep all this stuff?

Lesley  5:19  
There's so many emotions aren't there? You know, we've talked already about sentimental there's, when there's a sentimentality about things, particularly those things that we did at really key times in our life. And so school and university and college, those are very key special times for a lot of people with really, really fond memories. And so there's an emotional attachment to something that you feel very proud of, or happy to have gone through. So those are probably the things that are most difficult for people to declutter and have that level of honesty and realism about, aren't they?

Ingrid  5:54  
I know, it's like, it's the times that have gone by. And when you're home, maybe hold on to that paperwork, you reminisce about the things that you did, and the people you hung out with, and the stuff that you learn in school. And it's almost like, ah, you know, I remember those times, and maybe you think to yourself, if I hold on to my notes, it will make me think back to that special time in my life.

Lesley  6:21  
Exactly. So there's the fact of it being a really special time in your life so that you've got a deep emotional connection to. And then there's also the fact that you may have moved heaven and earth to achieve that. So getting into score passing year, oh levels, GCSE, whatever your exams, were getting into university, getting a job where you went on that training course, these are big deals and things that we worked towards for so long. So that's not something and that's not an emotion, that's not a connection that we're going to get rid of lightly. Is it?

Ingrid  6:52  
Yeah. And I think a lot of people are also exactly what you're saying, Is he proud of that work? Look at what I've accomplished, maybe they decided to do a university course, that involved so many hours of studying and learning and digging deep and being in the library till deep in the night, to finish that project, and to get all that knowledge in your head. And you're like, you know what, I'm so proud of those hours and that determination of concluding this project. That is why I'm hanging on to it.

Lesley  7:29  
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's interesting, actually, because, as you know, Ingrid, I am tackling my own sentimental things at the moment. So just to give you an idea, I have kept sentimental things in two or three boxes over the years, that I'm not, I haven't really, I have visited them, because I've moved abroad a couple of times. And so I have called them over the years. But I probably haven't looked at them for a good. I'm going to say 15 years. So I have become better at what I keep, I think over the years because of the job that I do. So I'm going back to a time when decluttering wasn't a thing in my brain, you know, I mean, I wasn't that kind of decluttering person that was thinking about these things in the way that I do now that I'm a professional. So I actually on Sunday, I went through a box that contain things mainly from me being age 17 to 26. Now, it was quite the box, with all kinds of things that that takes me into marriage engagement University School, our first child, so that that like that was a big box of a very key time in my life. But the interesting thing that I found, and I hadn't really no idea what I'd kept yet all those years ago. But what I found was that I kept because as you know, England, I went to Holland. So I studied German and Dutch at university. I went to Holland for a year abroad. And so speaking Dutch was a big deal to me and spending that time in Holland. And so the only university notes that I have found so far. Now, I'm not saying that they're not going to be in another bucket if I think that was my kind of university box was three big assignments. So almost like a dissertation. And so I kept those three. And that's they're probably all handwritten. My kids were looking at it. And they were like, Oh, my word like you hand wrote 16 pages? I'm like, yes, 160 there was no there was no computers, then that just didn't happen. You have to handwrite it. So I probably got about 40 pages of essay that I've kept from the Dutch part of my university. And I think that I will keep that going forward. Because it did evoke that special memory because it has my kind of Dutch lecture writing on it had the mark, which to be fair, wasn't great. I wasn't great. So there may be more things that come up, but that's the right kind of quantity for me and that's what we're looking at, you know, that's not going to compromise my space, but it is going to evoke that happy memory, which it did when I looked at it on Sunday. I'm the

Ingrid  10:00  
same as you. Interestingly enough, Lesley I, I think when I finished uni, I

Speaker 4  10:04  
remember kind of going, Yes, I am going to get rid of all this

Ingrid  10:11  
paper and I actually 90% At the time I asked for when I got that paper and I got that diploma. I was like, if this can all go, and 90% went into recycling at the time, last January, I was sorting out my paperwork a little streamlining it a little bit. And I came across a folder of kind of when I was young, I've got lever arch files, as you know, I have also kept my dissertation. But I wrote it in Amsterdam. And we were living at the time in this tiny room with this tiny desk with this computer with this green screen. Because we didn't have coloured screens at the time. I think it's like WP perfect, or something called at the time typing away, and the computer gone. Oh, this is like my worst nightmare. I'm such a practical person. And I just didn't like enjoy. But I like seeing the end result of the work that I put in. And it's taking me back to the Hilton and for where I did my internship at the time. And I just thought, oh my gosh, I remember some people that I still remember names of people. I mean, names is like my worst nightmare. But there are still names. And when I did my internship there that I remember. And I was like, wow, that was a year that I learned a lot. I learned a lot that year. So I've kept it to but all my notes from school. No, that's all all gone. But I'm still proud of the work. I'm glad I put the work in I also had to work hard and made a lot of notes. Because I had I was the one who had to work hard on my husband on the other hand, he he read something once and that it will be in his brain forever. Well, I'm like I have to reread about five times if I had to do this exam.

Lesley  11:50  
I think the interesting thing about all this, so just you know that that was my experience at the weekend I was I was looking at my own sentimental stuff. And also, coincidentally, this week, my daughter has just finished her final year at university. So she finished her dissertation and our final two assignments this week. The interesting thing now about students is they all take a picture with their dissertation, when they finished obviously for most kids, God bless them, they are normally at university outside the university when they're taking the picture of the dissertation. Sadly, my daughter's in the garden here because she's her final year at university has been spent largely at home. But they've got that as their memory. So their memory is here's me on a photo with my dissertation. So I don't doubt for one minute that that dissertation over the years will probably go in the bin, because they will be on a computer and be it will be on this photograph and the memories there. Here's me in front of university with a dissertation. But people of our generation didn't have that we didn't take pictures of us doing our dissertation. That's just not the way that we rolled. And so it's very different in terms of the way that we do things in the way that younger people do things now. But I think that it's really all about the passage of time. So for example, when you were that edging were 2122, when you were finishing, you thought that your entire at that time you think your whole career is going to hinge on what you've done in the same way that I thought my career was likely going to involve speaking German, and Dutch. And so you think it's going to come in to your job and that you're going to need to refer back to it. And so at that moment in time you keep hold of it because you feel like you're going to use it. And so then we move into away from sentimental stuff, because of course these things are highly sentimental Job knows, probably not quite so much unless it was unless it was a job that you really liked. So the sentimentality really comes in to the school and university stuff more than anything else. But once you get into work, it's like the practical reasons for keeping it am I going to refer back to this at any point. And that is really dependent on you and the way that you work? So you're saying that you do refer back to some stuff, I know that I never would. But again, this is where the realism the honesty kicks in. And you have to say, Have I ever? Or will I ever go back to a full lever arch file full of notes, probably three or 400 pieces of paper to find what I need? Or would I go straight to Google?

Ingrid  14:19  
Yeah, very much. So I think now what I've learned is to transfer my actions to a to do list and not keep all the paperwork from the training course. But just keep a small selection and get rid of all the things that are not important because I mean at conferences anyway, you got loads of other paperwork that you don't need. So I've become much much better at that. And then now than taking a note taking a highlighter, okay, these are the actions that I want to do and put those on a to do list. And then that paperwork so there's a much more a, a stream through a lifecycle of the way the paperwork is going instead of okay, I'm gonna keep this paperwork I put on my other paperwork of stuff that I'm never going to look at again.

Lesley  15:03  
I mean, it is hard because you do you, it's all about growth, isn't it and professional development and you and you maybe do want to return back to that, or you fully intend to return back to that. And so it might be that you do keep it for a year, but after a year has gone by, you really need to put a timescale on that and say, if I don't then revisit this, or do something with this project, but I intend to do something with that. I'm going to ditch it in three months, six months, two weeks, whatever that might be.

Ingrid  15:32  
Yeah, I think a lot of people kept stuff in the past as well, because they were maybe afraid that it couldn't find the information again, I know several of my clients table, you know, I've written that down. But My memory isn't what it used to be. So I've written it down here. And I'm keeping it because I'm afraid I can't find that information again. But I'm like, how likely are you to remember that you actually wrote down that information on that piece of paper? Some people have, I have seen somebody with a whole cupboard with 30, lever arch files with work notes, university notes and School Notes. How do you know where you need to start looking?

Lesley  16:11  
If it's not effectively indexed, for the most part is just put into a lever arch file? Yeah, we've not got the slick categorization that we've got within Google, you know, we know we can find 10 things, and it's probably any 10 things that you can find on Google is probably a damn sight better than anything that I've written myself when I was 21. Far better things to talk about them what I wrote down, so. So it's interesting, but it doesn't. There's so many things wrapped up in it. This is why we wanted to talk about it. And and people probably it's interesting, when we think about our podcast topics, I'm sure there are a lot of people who think, Oh, I've not got a problem with that. And then when we start talking about oh, yeah, actually, I have got that all those course notes from that conference that I attended five years ago, or have got all my post course notes from school of my A levels or wherever that might be. And so it's this is tough, this is tough. And this is a really probably one of the, you know, it's all there in terms of sentimental, isn't it? Ingrid? And our people are probably more likely to discard children's artwork than they are their own university notes. That's what I would say, is that your experience as well, not all of their children's artwork. But might find it easier? Oh, yeah.

Ingrid  17:26  
Especially if it's like something like a masters or a PhD or something that they actually really, they're like, a year of my life was gone. Ingrid, that's in the year that year is in this paperwork. So they really are incredibly connected to it. But I'm like, you literally I'm like, I've must have written stuff down in my 20s. I'm like, nobody needs to know this. I don't even want to remember it myself.

Lesley  17:56  
But But how do we then how do we tackle it? And what do we do then? What would you I mean, I know what I would do? And I know what I did on Sunday? And what my thought process was for sense. So if we could give any tips what would they be in grid?

Ingrid  18:11  
Yes, Lesley, I know this is going to be not an easy project to do. And I think what you said earlier, I would really look at quality. What's the quality? Go look for the quality, not the quantity. Maybe it's the PhD paperwork you want to keep or maybe only your dissertation or only your project that you wrote about your internship that you have fond memories of let the one Ikats you know, don't try and keep everything because you're not going to never refer to it again. What's the point? I mean, we know I mean, our dear friend Juliet admitted it ourselves in her the podcast that she did about procrastination. She still has her unfinished PhD in her loft. And she's like, one day I will return to this. So Juliette, this is a shout out to you. If you're listening, you need to really get on with that. Because otherwise, you need to declutter it.

Lesley  19:04  
Yeah, if we say that to Juliet, though, she'll she'll put it in our diary. And she'll love that she love that PhD finished by next year now. So if we give her that give her that challenge? Yeah, I think I think that's it, I think it's go through, it's something that you can only do on your own. So even as professional organisers when we're working with people, that sort of stuff is kind of off limits for us, isn't it? So we definitely there are, there are certain things where we're like, you need to spend the time on your own going through this, enjoying it, looking at what it is, so you feel comfortable with the decisions that you make him. But it's not something that anybody else can go through work and understand, because that's so personal to you. Work notes, university notes and School Notes are so personal, but enjoy it before you ditch it is what I would say and enjoy opening up that lever arch file says, Oh, that was my A level physics notes because that would be very exciting to me. No, not really. But I'm sure it is to people who love physics, but then be realistic, is that information ever going to be useful to you? And actually, is it taking up valuable space in your home that you could do with giving over to something else?

Ingrid  20:11  
Yeah, and I think as well realise in advance, this is not going to be a quick job. If you have a whole shelf full of lever arch files, this is not gonna be a, let me sit down on a Saturday afternoon for an hour or so and kind of flick through it, I mean, it's probably going to take, depending on how sentiments you are about the paperwork, it's going to take a while. So give yourself that permission to spend the time on it. And be realistic as well about the time commitment that that it requires from you. Maybe you find out after 10 minutes, you're like, Wow, this is actually not gonna take long, because actually, I didn't even remember what was in here, and I don't really care about it. But we know from experience, that a lot of people get sucked into reminiscing and just kind of going back to the time when they did all that work. And you want to enjoy that and be grateful for it and be proud of it and just go you know what that was? Maybe even sometimes a lifetime feels like a lifetime ago, some of these times in our lives doesn't need allegedly.

Lesley  21:15  
Yeah, you know, I know that when I was looking at my stuff on Sunday. But in some ways, it feels like it was yesterday. You know what I mean? That's the thing. It's so strange, isn't it? And particularly because my, my daughter is going through that. So the exact things that I was saying she's right in the heart of that at the moment. So I thought it was quite pertinent really. So yeah, anyway, course notes, I haven't really got any, because I don't really write them anymore, because I know that I'm not going to do anything with them. But that's me coming from a place of realism, about the way that I work. I think, lots of scribbles, I scribble a lot. That's what I do. And then I just cross it, I like to cross everything out and tick things off. And I think at the moment, it's interesting, actually, because Ingrid and I are doing a lot of training together at the moment. So what we are doing is going through the courses together writing our own notes and our own action points, and then transferring them into a shared to do list, aren't we? Yeah, we kind

Ingrid  22:07  
of agree at the end of the training, like Okay, so what notes did you take and what action points, it's interesting as well as we've got, some of them, of course, are overlapping, but others are like, Oh, I didn't even really write this down to do and you've written it down to do. And some of the things I might have written down is like, we need to investigate this or look at this, you might not have written that to to do so I think that's very interesting. So yeah, we're gonna put it in a actually a digital To Do List nowadays. So before we talk about digital, Lesley, I just wanted to say, if you are struggling with paperwork at home, and you've got a lot of discourse notes, and you've got a lot of this paperwork lying about, you must be feeling quite overwhelmed. So if you think to yourself, I want to tackle that, why don't you have a look at our membership at the declutter hub, because we have a five day paperwork challenge in our membership. And besides that, we have courses and quick wins and a member forum, a live q&a, and we can help you sort out your clutter. So if you want to tackle some of this paperwork, have a look at members dot declutter help.com. For more information,

Lesley  23:15  
I think we just lead people a little bit better, it's quite overwhelming to try and do it on your own. And the members area is there for somebody to be behind you and with you while you're doing it, and to guide you through that process. And if you get stuck, that you don't just give up that you say, I'm stuck here. I don't really know what to do next. What's your advice, and then Ingrid, and I can advise you and you can ask those questions in a q&a. You can ask them in our forum, you can ask other members. So there's lots and lots of advice in there. So it's not just another course. It's the input from Ingrid and I that's important. That's what the members area is all about.

Ingrid  23:52  
Yes, definitely. And we love it though. We Lesley we love giving advice to all of our members. So come and check it out and have it again, have a look at members, Dotty claptrap.com. If you would like to have more information,

Lesley  24:04  
we were talking about digital to do list when we Ingrid and we were talking about what we do with the courses and the way that we have been taking notes and writing actions down. So just in case anybody's interested. The To Do List productivity app that we use is Asana, we've recently switched over from Redbooth, which we also liked as well, but we find Asana is working better for us at the moment. So if you think oh, I really want to go digital and I'm struggling. There is a free version of Asana that you can use. And that's what we're using at the moment. And it's really good, isn't it? It's intuitive. It's quite nice to see things digitally. That's the way that you tend to work. It's also worth talking about the fact that of course a lot of these course notes, schoolwork, things like that, depending on the age you are, but also going to be digital.

Ingrid  24:49  
Lesley I remember those big thin floppy disks. That's how old I am. Do you remember those? Those really square ones that you had to put in your computer? You could put sit, you could save stuff on it.

Lesley  25:04  
And Exactly, yep, floppy disk or something else. And floppy disk is something that we ditch a lot with clients, because they're not going to go back to them. And the thing is, if you've got something really, really vital on a floppy disk, you tend to know that you've got it. And it's written it's written on. So don't get too hooked up about those things on floppy disks. So digital decluttering, of course, is a completely separate topic completely that we need to talk about in a different podcast. But we just wanted to say just because it's digital, doesn't mean say that it's not cluttering up your drives everywhere as well. So that's something else that you can do on a different day. So we would be bigger advocates at the moment. And we're, you know, we're trying to get you to look at the physical clutter at the moment, which is the actual papers and the lever arch files and the box files and random boxes of paperwork. That's what's important to us at the moment. But don't forget, some of that might be lurking in your hard drive somewhere.

Ingrid  25:59  
Yeah, or maybe even on a USB stick or on a cloud somewhere. And maybe you realise, actually, I do have it, I printed it at the time, because I felt I had to, but it is on my computer, it is on my USB stick, I'm going to put it all together in a cloud, thin it all out. And then I actually it's for me, it's easier to let go of all that paperwork that's cluttering up my cupboards. And that I'm never going to look at again. So if you know you've got a hard copy. So if you've got a digital copy somewhere, if it's super important to you, of course, put it on your local computer and also put it in a cloud somewhere on an external hard drive. But if that is makes you happy enough that you don't need that printed version, because it is the same as what's in the computers, you can always retrieve that information if you need be, then the hardcopy can go and maybe it's easier to let it go if you know it's there.

Lesley  26:55  
So Ingrid, what I'm hoping is that when I when I open my other boxes of sentimental stuff that I don't find copious amounts, of course, that's but to be fair, if I did find them, I'd be quite happy, because that will be an easy thing to get rid of, because I would just ditch the lot, you know, I wouldn't necessarily take the time because I know that I've got the important bits already that I want. So sometimes it can be easy, because you can get rid of a whole lever arch file in one go. So it's a lot of paperwork that you can get rid of all at once. Whereas with domestic paper, what you have to go through three things one piece at a time cost. Now as you can see, I don't want anything from that year university. And you can ditch it all together, which sometimes is easy. So it doesn't have to take forever. But you can do if you're if you're weighed down a little bit by the sentiment of it all. So little project for the weekend and grid. What do you think?

Ingrid  27:45  
I'll make that a big project leisure? This is not a little project? I bet you there's going to be people who are listening to this to this going, Oh, no. Oh, mouse again, something else that they found the dead? Do have they looked at my house. Do I know that I have this? It's so funny. Some of our members actually said I was ignoring and notebooks and things like that. And then you did a podcast and now I'm confronted with having to talk this out. D Have you actually looked at my house? Do you know that we've got this stuff? Yes, we do. We do. We see

Lesley  28:18  
everything. We see everything, don't we Ingrid? Yes, Lesley.

Ingrid  28:22  
That's absolutely true. So listeners, do you think we have looked in your house as well? And are you not thinking to yourself, I have a project for myself this weekend and it might have a couple of weeks. I need to put aside to get this done. We really hope that our advice has helped you to think this through and you're going to actually of course take action. So thanks so much for listening. We really appreciate you're here. And if you've enjoyed this podcast, please share with other people maybe your friends and family would love our show to on our show notes page on our website, Declutter. hub.com you can find sharing buttons. And if you'd like to get more tips and advice, please follow us on social media. We are on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as at declutter hub, and we've got a lively supportive Facebook group where we chat all things clutter, you can search for declutter hub community, we'd love to see you there. Take a look at members dot declutter hub.com To find out more about the membership. If you don't want to miss the next weekly episode, please subscribe to declutter podcast on Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher and iHeartRadio. And it will pop into your notifications each Friday. See you next time.

Outro  29:40  
Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the declutter hub podcast. Check out declutter hub.com for more inspiration, and don't forget to tune in next week.</div>
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