Most law schools are in Week 4 of the semester, so you have now covered sufficient material to begin an ongoing course summary. This means creating an outline or a mindmap with a discernible hierarchy that will serve as a study tool for your exam. 

I’ve written a fair bit about outlining. See, e.g., https://www.lawschoolplaybook.com/the-roundup/on-the-agenda-this-weekend-outlining?rq=outline and https://www.lawschoolplaybook.com/the-roundup/outlining-faqs?rq=outline. I’ve written less about mindmaps, which can be an essential tool to summarize courses with concepts inextricably linked to one another. One example is Civil Procedure: you can use a mindmap to follow a civil lawsuit from beginning to end. Another example is Contracts: you can use a mindmap to walk through transactions. These courses are in contrast to a subject like Property, where a concept like the capture of wild animals is clearly distinct from a topic such as future interests. In courses like Property, a smaller mindmap may be helpful for a particular topic like adverse possession. 

If you google contracts mindmap, you will find all sorts of examples for form (not substance). To make formatting easy, here is an article with mindmapping resources: https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2018/01/9-great-concept-mapping-tools-for.html?fbclid=IwAR2W52nPKRBLPX2PZlZuOsIfPNrNf-t5A5KuNe-w16i6Sv5fhTPmMOsSpB4 The first one mentioned, bubbl.us, is popular with my students.

I know what you are thinking:

• I’m focusing on finding a summer job now.

• We still have 10 weeks left in the semester.

• I don’t need to start now, I’ll have plenty of time.

I’ll turn to the words of motivational speaker and author Mark Victor Hansen in response:

Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions.

So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.

So jump right in, the water’s fine. The earlier you start, the longer your head will stay above water. Finally, there is zero chance of you saying, “I just wish I hadn’t started my outline so early.”