Any tips on how to absorb and retain what you've learn during research since there is so much information?
Any thoughs on information gathering technique and your preferences?
(e.g. handwritten vs digital, draft vs directly doing a grimoire/BoS, one grimoire with all the info vs multiple grimoires, dividing info by subject or by source, etc.)
How to Take & Organize Notes on Witchcraft
Use what works
You'll find with things like if it's handwritten or digital, it's going to entirely depend on the person. Be practical. Be realistic. What are you actually going to use? What is going to help you personally learn? This practice is like 90% studying, especially when you start. You want to make it easy for yourself.
Don't worry about a grimoire
I've tried to make a grimoire TWICE now and it just becomes information that's not true, that I longer agree with, or that I won't use. We have reference books for a reason.Those aesthetic correspondence lists won't get you far, I promise. Focus on practical notes. Focus on notes about what you're actually doing. If at some point far down the line you feel you can organize that into some kind of long term grimoire, go for it, but as a newbie doing research? An aesthetic reference book is not what you need.
Use a binder
I have yet to see someone mention using a binder for this and someone not go "Oh that's genius! I'm gonna do that" it's also what I use. Wonderful, simple tip. You can exchange out sheets if you don't like them and keep them in an ideal order. You can add new sections as you please. It's ideal.
Focus on a few topics
It can be easy when you start to get really overwhelmed and make long lists of things you want to learn. That will come. For now so you can manage it and actually remember, focus on two or three topics at a time. Maybe pick something practical like warding and a couple topics you find really interesting. Remember, keep it fun and easy for yourself because you'll need to do a lot of it.
Highlighters!
This might seem boring, or like duh, but seriously. If you've got a wall of text because that's how you had to or prefer to write it and there's something in there you really want to memorize or reference highlight it up. I also have a bunch of different colored highlighters, and when I'm taking notes for reference I like to highlight by very specific color for later. So for example if the usage of an herb is friendship, I highlight that in pink. I have a list of the colors, and what they mean. If I need all the herbs for friendship I have notes on at my finger tips I just flip and look for pink.
How many books to have, dividing, ect
This is going to vary by person greatly so I'm just going to explain how I do it to hopefully inspire you. I have a big binder that's split into two sections. The first section is a grimoire I don't use and will be redoing at some point. Since all the info just kind of came from my brain from studying over time it's more practical to go by topic so I just arranged the topics in the order that made sense to me . Mostly basics first, more advanced and detailed stuff later.
The second section is more a book of
shadows/journal/recording mad scientist experiments type thing. I've got spells I wrote, sigils I designed, divination readings, intuitive feelings/weird experiences, stuff like that in there. That makes up the majority of it and that's what I would focus on. Reflection is so helpful for perfecting your craft. It is divided by chronological order currently so it's just a mess currently.
At some point I will probably even divide that second section into groups too. The spells and sigils will likely become part of that grimoire I'll eventually get onto making. Then maybe I'll have a separate tarot journal. Something like that.
You might prefer having 5 separate books, organizing by source, or something else. This was just to spark your inspiration, ideas and preferences.
Details I would recommend keeping in all notes:
Any thoughts, things to fact check later, ect
Notes ideas for things like spells:
The time/day/moon phase you did it
Steps/the order you did it in
Additional notes/thoughts
I hope that helps & addresses all your concerns! The examples you gave were super helpful for getting my brain going 💕
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