Senior Internship: Week 9 Journal Entry

What is the one thing you would strive to improve upon?

My biggest, and most regrettable weakness that I have found throughout my life in education and in the professional field is... I suck at retaining information. It's almost as if once a conversation goes beyond a minute I begin to daydream, my eyes glaze over, and anything that goes in one ear comes out the other. I hear it, I understand what I'm being told, and I can apply it on that day, but by the time the sun sets and rises it's as if the previous day hadn't happened at all. The only way I really retain information is through repeated application of it.

So what is there to improve on? I can't just... retain information better. Not without 'study drugs' that I have stayed clear from. Well, I wish I was a better documenter. Documentation is knowledge that doesn't fade. A well organized container of documentation should have everything I need to succeed at my job. But, instead, I rely on the documentation stored by my work and struggle to find things because I can't seem to memorize where anything is.

I want to document more. I want to organize what I know. I want to write more things down. The pen and paper is an extension of our memory, and it'd really help mine!

I have made attempts in the past to organize my own documentation but even then I tend to get sloppy - or lazy - and lose track of things. This is by far my greatest weakness in the professional field and definitely made me struggle throughout high school and college. Whether it's using a planner, a nightly diary, or an intricate folder system that only I understand, I usually end up dropping the habit of documenting what I learn.

I would like to take a page from the book of my professor Becker who religiously using Zotero to document things he finds. Perhaps he struggles as I do and eventually landed on this tool to 'zone in.' I continue to this day to find the habit or tool that best speaks to me and will best organize my mind.