Slides, PDFs & Recordings → One Study Doc
The four-tab problem.
You sit down to study. You open Canvas (slides tab). You open the lecture recording (player tab). You open the assigned reading PDF (reader tab). You open your own notes (notes app tab). You spend ten minutes deciding which one to start with, get distracted, re-read the slides because they're easiest, and call it studying.
The move: take all four sources and turn them into one study doc per week per class. Then study from the doc, not the four tabs.
Why one doc is the move
Two reasons. First, every tab switch costs your brain a context-switch: small, but they add up across a 90-minute study session. Second, the same concept showing up in slides, lecture, and reading is test gold: it's almost certainly going to show up on the test. With four tabs, you can't see overlaps. With one doc, the overlaps surface themselves.
Step 1: Gather the four ingredients.
Same recipe every week. Pull these four files into one folder before you start.
The four ingredients
- Slides. Download as .pdf or .pptx from Canvas/your LMS. (Screenshots if the slides are web-only: you can paste image stacks straight into Claude.)
- Lecture transcript or recording. Either the clean notes you made in Lesson 3.1, the raw recording, or someone's transcript. Any of these work.
- Assigned reading. Textbook PDF, article, case, whatever was the reading for the week. Drop the file.
- Your own notes. Even fragmented, half-scribbled notes from class or while reading. Type a rough version or take a photo of the page.
Free vs. Pro reality check
Free: usually handles 2–3 medium files in one chat. If you hit the limit, do this in two passes: slides + your notes first, then add the reading and the lecture in the next message. Pro: drop all four in one shot. The Cowork Projects feature in Pro (Lesson 7.2) is even better: you load the syllabus once, and every chat in that Cowork Project starts with your class context already loaded.
Step 2: Build the unified study doc.
Once everything's in the chat, send this. It's a longer prompt than the one in 3.1:that's because you're asking for synthesis across sources, not just a clean-up of one. Worth the length. You'll run it once a week per class.
Hit send. Read what comes back. This is your week's master doc.
Step 3: Save it. Study from it. Add to it.
What to do with the study doc
- Save it. Copy the whole thing. Paste into Notion / Apple Notes / Google Docs / Obsidian: whatever you already use. Name it:
BIO101-Week12-Study-Doc. Same naming pattern every time. - Spend 15 minutes reading through. Mark the ⭐ overlaps you didn't realize were overlaps. Add the only-you-would-know stuff (the prof's offhand "this'll be on the exam" comment, the joke that was actually a hint). Fix any ⚠ flags by checking the original source.
- Build a "Master Study Docs" folder per class. By week 8, you have eight of these. That folder is your midterm prep: Lesson 3.5 hands you the prompt that turns it into a multi-day study plan.
The doc is a study tool, not a substitute
Honest Work Code · Rule 1: Learn with it, not instead of it. The unified doc is for active studying: quizzing yourself, finding gaps, building connections. It's not a substitute for ever opening the textbook again, or for paying attention in class. The prof's actual emphasis, the live discussion, the question another student asked: that stuff matters and it's what tells you what's actually on the test. Claude can synthesize what's in the docs. It can't tell you what the prof's eyebrows did when she mentioned the second derivative. That part's still on you.
Up next: turning the study doc into actual studying.
You have the cleanest study doc of your life. Now what? Lesson 3.3 hands you the active recall engine: flashcards, quizzes, MCQs generated from the doc you just built. Plus a subject-by-subject playbook (STEM, humanities, languages, intro coding) that tweaks the workflow for whatever class you're actually in.
Continue to 3.3 → Active Recall Engine