1) Find a pocket big enough to fit this “pocket guide” in – its quite thick.

2) Check with your University programme lead to see if they can offer you any deals for buying the PENG at a cheaper price. I know my university was able to do this because they bought it in bulk and were selling for a reduced price of £32.50. Or another option is that you could bulk buy with your friends or other course mates (this was you only have to pay for delivery once, so it works out cheaper).

3) When your pocket guide arrives, it should come with a note where it gives you a code where you can access all the information from online so it can save you carrying your physical copy about.

4) Using sticky tabs, paperclips, paper corner bookmarks – anything that will help you better navigate to that page would help you to identify the key and relevant pages that you often refer to. I use the list of common foods and TEE calculations the most.

5) Picking up things along your dietetic journey – so in my pocket guide I have these smaller card cut outs of the IDDSI framework (texture levels), Bristol stool chart, you can add anything that you’ll find useful and would need repeatedly.

6) Compendiums – so these are small booklets with nutrition supplement information listed in them. Every company has their own, currently I have the Abbott one, and Nutricia (usually you’d pick these up on placement, but you could always reach out to companies yourself and explain you’re a student dietitian and you’d like a free copy, which they would usually send to you with no charge of postage).

7) I copied this hack from my supervisor on placement, but I like to use the inside of my pocket guide to store my scientific calculator, it makes the most sense to me. You could also attach your own pen to the spine of the guide if you wanted to as well.

Take a look at my highlights on @Rubys_Recipes_ to physically see how I’ve organised everything.