The Hierarchy of Sixes

I was talking to my friend from another law school the other day and she mentioned how she had a table of contents in her notes that she takes into the (open-book) exam. My immediate reaction is that any content not directly contributing to the transfer of knowledge is a waste of space and time (spent reading the table of contents). The next day, I thought a little more about why I structure my notes the way I do and the following is what I came up with.

I realized that I tended to keep all my notes in “packages” of four or six sheets of paper. I would also only have a total of three to six of these packages at maximum (ideally one package is best). The reason for this is that six sheets of paper allow for 24 pages when printed double-sided and double-paged per side (also make sure to use the narrowest margins practical). Why is this important? To answer that, we must consider the human psychological model of chunking.

In short, the theory of chunking basically says that we can only keep track of about six things in our head at a time. Six also being an even number can easily be halved (so you can think of information residing in the first or second half). After halving, it can then be separated into thirds which is also intuitive in the sense that you can call it "beginning", "middle", and "end" in your head.

So stepping back to see the big picture, chunking limits the human brain and the ability to know in your head exactly where information resides. Therefore, rather than print out a book, separate your information into packages or different levels (be careful not to have too many) of abstraction where you can intuitively operate within the chunking limit of six items at each level of the hierarchy. That being said, some people may only be able to operate with thee or four, in which case you should adjust accordingly.

Table of contents? I think not.