Metacognition: Get Organized

I love my Macbook. I go on it every day. So obviously I would want to treat it nicely and organize all of the files, e-mails, and applications on it.  I took up this grueling task, beginning by organizing my Word documents into folders and deleting any useless files.  I then cleaned up my desktop by removing unwanted icons from my dock, which made it a lot simpler and easier to navigate. I finished up by browsing through my e-mail inbox and deleting all of the useless e-mails I accumulated over the years.

I will admit that I was a little unenthusiastic when I knew I had to organize my computer. Perusing the abysmal lists of files and e-mails was a daunting task. But as soon as I got more into the organization, I began to feel more and more productive, like I was doing something that matters.  By the time I was finished, I felt pretty pleased with myself for completing this undertaking.

After completing this project, my mind felt a lot more organized.  I am generally not a neatly organized person, instead relying on a system of untidy organization to get by.  This is probably one of the first times that I have neatly organized something in my life, so it's easy to understand the sense of confidence that I felt after finishing.

Before organizing my computer, I really did not have much idea of the variation of documents stored on my computer.  While looking through all of my files, I found some that I had forgot about or had not looked at in a while.  I found some plans for my Academy Epic (that's something on which I would be happy to elaborate some other time) and some of my English projects from last year.  It was pretty interesting to see how much my writing had progressed during my freshman year.

Now that my computer is organized, I will be able to work more efficiently with less distractions and a better system in place.  I definitely plan to organize my computer again in the future because the time will come again when my current layout becomes outdated and needs to be changed again (and also because I like how nice my desktop looks with so few icons).

15 icons total. Anyone with a Mac should know how few icons this is.

Metacognition: Orlando Essay

When I wrote my Orlando essay for Academy English, my process of thinking tended to follow a certain pattern. When it came to finding the subject of my writing, I generally followed all of the standard processes, trying to think of some good ideas. I am the kind of person who usually goes for the minimum and not the maximum, but this something I would like to change. For example, I will admit that I tried to write as few explorations as possible for the "Exploration" stage of the Orlando essay.

As for the blood and guts of my paper, however, I typed it all out and went back once, twice, maybe three times to edit and revise it. I felt like I was doing the right amount of editing, but I probably needed to do a little more revision. This was evident in the fact that, when I received my essay grade, I received perfect scores in spelling and grammar, but lost points in areas that needed better revision.

I am surprised that my method of thinking is not as effective as I perceive it to be. I generally feel pretty content with my essays after editing and revising them, but I have seen obvious reasons for why I should be second-guessing my feelings of content.

I like how my thinking tends to follow a pattern. I feel as if someone follows the same pattern for doing something, they are likely to get the same result each time they do it. If someone's thinking is too frantic and messy, it causes the results of their thinking to vary largely. 

When it comes to improving my thinking, I would like to increase the cycles of the different steps of the pattern I follow. I definitely need to increase my amounts of brainstorming and revision, but I would not want this to change my patterns too much.  I would also like to find ways to make what I am doing engaging, because this would greatly improve my thinking. If I can make my thinking involve something I like, it makes me a LOT more involved in what I am doing.

In a way, metacognition is similar to critical thinking which, according to my seventh and eighth grade English teacher, is "thinking about your thinking while you're thinking in order to make your thinking better". I've got the "thinking about thinking" part down. Now it's time to make my thinking better.