If that works for you then it works for you. Law school is trial and error, but I think one important thing to do that I didn't do my first semester is practice problems.
Those are really the key and how you learn to apply the law. I used Cali lessons
http://www.cali.org/lesson , which all ABA schools provide for free. Then also try multiple choice problems and law school essays. You will do poorly your first few tries, because these problems are meant to trick you, but as my contracts professor said there are only so many tricks they can trick you, so once you learn all the tricks you should be good. .
Another item I used was reading ecasebriefs.com , before I read the case.
Also, don't rely to heavily on hornbooks and pay attention to what your professor says. Professors like Judges are people and have slightly different views and your Civil Procedure professor might think talk about interpleader and think that is the most important thing to know, which means it probably be on the exam more than another Civ Pro professor that thinks knowing the rules of discovery is the most important.
At the end of the day most 1L's over complicate law school and I was guilty of this myself. However, law school teaches you how to simplify matters, which is a skill you will learn.
I think the number one thing to do is read everything the professor says to read, do practice problems and make your own outlines. Creating the outlines in whatever format helps you learn is how you learn, don't worry if X person says you need to do it this way every person has their own way of learning.