Since classes are held online these days, wouldn’t it be ideal if your notes are also accessible online? Going paperless is not an easy feat. Some would even have a hard time grasping the concept of it. Ever since we started going to school, we have always used notebooks. Buying stationeries and notebooks year after year only to barely use them for actual note-taking. Most, if not everyone, have had the experience of purchasing a notebook for a class, just for a professor to distribute printouts or give a soft copy of their handouts. And another situation is reaching the end of the semester only to realize that you bought notebooks for all of your subjects but only ended up using half of them.

Going paperless is undoubtedly a huge investment upfront. You would need a device with a stylus. Many use an iPad with an Apple pencil, but there are tablets cheaper than this and can do the task just the same. It can get costly, but it pays off in the long run. You won’t have to buy notebooks, bond papers, and binders every year.

Here are several reasons and tips that will help you in converting to paperless:

1. Shareable notes across platforms.

We all have been in a predicament where someone from class or a friend had asked for a copy of our notes. With digital note-taking, sharing your notes has become a lot easier.

Multiple note-taking apps allow users to almost effortlessly share their files. One of these apps is Microsoft Word; once the document is saved, you can quickly share your file. But if you want your file to remain the way you made it, you can convert the word to pdf and send it to your classmate.

Aside from sharing your notes with other people, going paperless will also make sharing notes across your own devices easier. You can sync your files and notes across all your devices. With this, you can use your phone, laptop, or tablet to access them. This allows you to type and add something on your on-hand device on the go and revise it later on a larger screen.

2. Easy and customizable notes.

Making online notes gives you the advantage to easily customize them. It gives you the freedom to organize your notes the way you want them to without having to worry about making errors as you can quickly undo and correct them. Going paperless allows you to add visuals such as pictures, videos, diagrams, tables, and charts which can aid in information processing. Seeing visuals can help one attain and remember information.

Besides being able to attach visuals, the customization is endless. Admittedly, some professors talk and discuss too fast during a lecture. Putting this into consideration, notes might not always be organized optimally for you. But by going paperless, you can reorganize your notes however you please.

3. Hassle-free organization.

You can never go wrong with being organized. Most note-taking applications allow their users to create different folders for each class. With digital note-taking, you can arrange and organize your files and notes as you see fit.

One way to organize your notes is to designate a folder for each of your classes. This helps you locate them readily and will consume less of your time.

4. Save up space.

Textbooks are huge and heavy enough; it wouldn’t be ideal to have to bring a bunch of notebooks along with them. Carry all your notes, and even the textbooks themselves, in just one device! It doesn’t just save space but also lightens your load.

5. It is relatively affordable.

While buying a device may be expensive upfront, going paperless does save you the hassle and money of buying notebooks, pens, highlighters, and other stationeries every few months. Note-taking apps offer extensive color palettes for your digital pen and highlighters. You can select from hundreds of colors available to make a color-coding system for your notes.

6. Help save the environment.

One of the most obvious reasons for going paperless is to help save the environment. We are all aware of the current situation of our environment. It is slowly deteriorating due to industrialization and pollution. Going paperless helps cut down on deforestation and pollution. It leaves a comparatively small impact but going paperless is one way to help lessen the amount of waste put out there that negatively affects the environment. If you intend to help preserve the Earth, consider digital-note taking.

Why go Paperless?

Beyond saving the trees and environmental concerns, going paperless will help save time, effort and will give you easier ways to stay organized. Going paperless can be quite a challenge. It also implies that using technology to replace the papers, which you are used to having, can be expensive. You will need a little time to get used to it, but it is not entirely impossible.