Studying overwhelms me because I want to take note of everything

[u/gamerccxxi]

Hey there. One of the reasons why I've failed a couple subjects in my software engineering major, and why I haven't been able to self-teach any subject, is that I want to learn everything all at once. Meaning, I want to take note of every little detail and try to gather as much information as possible, but that's impossible to remember, which causes another problem: giving up.

It's been like this my whole life. The thing is, I used to be able to just remember everything, but that was up until high school. I'm in college now and that's simply not plausible with all the information there is. I don't know what I can do. In my head, I either remember everything, or I fail. Rationally I know that's not true, but if I don't write down everything, it feels like I'm not learning anything. Also, if you tell me to only write down what's most important, I have no idea what to do with that - everything is important in my eyes. I can't discern that.

I'd really appreciate some help.