Ask HN: How do you take notes (useful note-taking strategies)?
Whether in lectures or learning things on the job, how do you retain what you learned? How do you write them down?
Just the act of writing them down somehow forces me to remember more of what was covered. And, for reasons I don't understand, this works much better if I'm writing with pen and paper. Typing them doesn't have the same effect.
Somewhat unfortunate, because writing them by hand makes them much less useful when I do need to refer to them later.
Edit: For what it's worth, I googled a bit after being downvoted, and there's research that seems to agree with what I noticed. Both the value of note taking even if you don't refer to it later, and the retention difference with handwritten notes.
Just a tip: get yourself a fountain pen (doesn't have to be fancy but don't buy the cheapest crap on ebay either - they dry up instantly). Handwriting becomes fun and from my own experience I remember even more. If you use colors you might remember even more, especially if you have synesthesia.
As an instructor, it is painfully obvious how little attention some students have for lecture material. Taking notes at least forces you to continue listening, even if you are just writing them down on autopilot.
Edit: Bonus content. Here's a sample page[0] of notes from the first Computer Science course I took. I knew all of the material already, but still wrote down almost everything presented. Notice how there is very little structure, just filling the page up as densely as possible. This was very typical for me.
For students: Read chapters BEFORE your class and write them down. While in the class, all you have to do is listening and recheck your notes you done before. Pre-reading is way more important than note-taking. This suggestion is straight from my grade A friend to me when I notice he didn't do any note-taking in the class, but his notes is my life-saver.
For non-students: Just use Cogi https://cogi.com/
Get what's the most important things on-site and focus, not your note-taking. I remember some big companies against note-taking when meeting. I once hear my boss said "...Some people can't remember things, so they have to do the notes. The funny thing is, their notes just a page long..."
I treat my notes as if they were a software project, which is to say, a collection of text files organized according to domain-specific methods. I use a code editor to write and edit notes (Textmate in my case) -- this has the bonus of not just using my familiarity with my code editor, but it actually adds to the value of improving my skills with the code editor, since that makes me better at notes and at code.
I keep two projects -- "life" notes and "work" notes. They are stored in Dropbox (and are additionally put in version control, although I commit changes rarely). Storing them in dropbox makes them all accessible on my mobile phone, which is nice.
In the root directory of my "life" notes, I have:
a few scratchpad_{identifier}.txt files (alpha, beta, etc.) -- so I always have an easy file to jump to to take notes on anything. I then synthesize these notes into a more useful location.
todo.txt -- a todo list schedule.txt -- notes on my schedule (typically to aid planning things a few weeks ahead, not a replacement for a calendar app) goals.txt -- keep my life goals front and center
and then directories, which included .txt files related to their title, or further subdirectories:
career culture (notes on articles) finances identification (keep track of useful info like VIN #) journal knowledge (non-career related learning) lifestyle (hobby-related notes, fun ideas) media_lists (books to read, books read, movies (watched/to watch), podcasts, etc.) projects (personal software project notes, ideas, before they deserve their own repo) travel self_improvement writing
Like a software project, I sometimes "refactor" the notes; the goal being to improve the ease of storing and the value of retrieval of the notes -- as a bonus, going through the notes refreshes valuable information for me.
My work notes are organized in a similar manner, but related to work things.
It's an awesome workflow -- almost everything I write starts in a scratchpad, and either gets migrated and synthesized elsewhere, or (like code) deleted if not worth maintaining.
After a lot of exploring solutions, returning to the core concept of files in folders and a text editor has been a perfect fit for me -- I never used to be big on notes, now I relish it.
The only difference is I keep most everything on Dropbox Paper. Really love the markdown editing and ability to add images.
Monthly Plan - daily time blocks and a master tasks list
Active Project Notes - I keep a page with a section for every project I'm working on. I'll take log as much as I can, especially any problems I fix. Screenshots and the code markups help in case the issue arises again.
Documentation - The nice thing about Paper is that it serves as a great knowledge sharing platform. So our team will document as much as we can in here. Much better than our previous solution (Dokuwiki). I liked Dokuwiki but other people in our company didn't fully understand the syntax. It's also much easier to add photos and add data tables in Paper.
Then individual files for more specific things I want to keep track of (movies to watch, places to visit, etc..)
I use Evernote for dumping in anything I'm mildly curious about or might be valuable in my development work. But anything of more value and curation will go into Paper.
Xmind - overview of everything in my mind in form of mindmap
Notepad/Sublime - scattered notepad files on my desktop symbolize sticky notes or reminders
Mathematica 11 - Math & Physics equations with their interactive graphs and my notes on them, can be exported in TeX
Excel 2016 - Time Table, Daily routine, monitoring budget or expenses, time spent in various activities, my progress day by day
Powerpoint 2016 - writing contextual notes just under the duplicate copy of original slides
TeX - Formal notes worthy of sharing with others, I use the textbook templates available online
vim+ranger - saved code snippets and related notes
Sigil - annotation and note taking over epub textbook or novel
Adobe reader/PDF Expert - annotation and note taking over pdf textbook or novel or paper
Scrabook X (Firefox addon) - annotation and note taking over web pages, data can be later exported as epub file
Zim - Journal
Sound recorder - audio note just as a back up in a case I missed something during lecture
Video camera - explaining a point to your future self
I hope this helps.
My recommendation is that you rewrite your notes to retain what you learned.
I like to think of the rewrite as refactoring my notes on a particular subject. I like to treat my collection of notes as a concise book/article on a topic, this means I should be able to read through them and have everything I need. Ideally this means key points are quoted with references to other notes such as lecture slides or books and page numbers.
The other recommendation I have is that the time between your first write and your rewrite depends on how good your memory is. I prefer to do it between 3 to 7 days after the first write. This means that anything that didn't fully stick gets somewhat forgotten, but once I re-read lecture slides or parts of a book, I pick it up again, and am able to put in a more thorough, yet concise, summary.
As you rewrite you should also focus on whether your organisation of the topic fits this new set of notes. The high level table of contents becomes your your view on the ontology of the subject matter. Think of it as a mind-map that you can refer back to and expand on as your knowledge about the domain grows.
BTW, I used to use Evernote with their linking feature for this. I now maintain a folder of Markdown files that link to each other. Maintaining your own personal Wiki may also achieve the same goal.
It's a system on how to write down notes/tasks/events in a notebook. It let's you refer back to your notes easily.
So lets say I am annotating a video online I am watching, the app knows the URL and take notes for that specific video.
Or lets say I am working in Sketch and have some todos or comments or information, my app knows what I am working in and attach notes to that specific context.
Or in Sublime, Terminal etc. I can even add notes to files and folder in finder.
That way I don't have to worry about structuring my notes (because I am not good at that) my notes are structured for me by my usage and always in context.
I am even selling the app now and making quite good money on it.
1. Pen & paper: this is my preferred approach and I try to take notes on paper in as many occasions as I can, because for me the act of writing it down really helps to register and better remember the material.
2. Org mode: for the situations where there's a lot of material to take note of, or classes where the instructor goes too fast and I can't keep up my writing speed, I use Org mode on my laptop.
To aid recall, use the quiz and recall method: "The idea is to study by lecturing out-loud, to an imaginary class, about the key concepts you need to learn. Something about articulating arguments in complete sentences cements them in your mind like nothing else"
from http://calnewport.com/blog/2007/08/02/the-straight-a-gospels...
Also the book How to become a straight A student by Cal Newport is thin but packed with actionable information. Highly recommended.
- If the instructor takes the time to repeat something, write it down.
- If the instructor takes the time to write something on the board, write it down.
- If the instructor takes the time to point out something on a slide in a presentation, write it down.
- Later that evening, rewrite the notes in a more organized fashion.
A lot of note-taking is figuring out what's important and what's not important. Once you can make some educated guesses as to what's important, you can filter out the rest and keep your notes clean and organized.
Honestly, when I follow the above rules, I rarely need to refer back to the notes again. But if I had a big test or something, the solidly organized, high-value notes made it a breeze to study.
At work it's largely the same, but now I do a lot of note capturing in org-mode on my laptop, either at the time I'm learning/acquiring information or after the fact by transcribing my handwritten notes.
A lot of things get forgotten, but C-s finds most of it.
`grep' usually gives good results, but I also use DEVONThink to index the directory, which has a good fuzzy search option plus content similarity ratings.
Retention, assuming you understand the material, is best achieved by quizzing yourself and answering in your own words without looking at hints. Ideally, you should be able to explain the topic as if you were teaching it to someone else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Notes
I have an "actions" column on mine.
I use Bullet Journal methods for todo lists interspersed with that.
A big tip I once read was: "Write your notes in such a way that you can review them."
I now divide my page with a line which splits the page vertically in 1/3 and 2/3rds of the page. Write your notes in a series of questions/definitions. Then you can cover up the right side and try to use active recall.
I noticed that I used to make very sophisticated notes in class but rarely used them afterwards. This seemed like a huge waste of effort to me. I always used to be the type of guy who has FOMO if he doesn't write everything down while my best friend in undergrad NEVER wrote anything down claiming he couldn't pay attention otherwise. We both got stellar results, I think it depends on the person a lot.
I also use it to keep track of my tasks as a to-do list.
The most important thing is to find a note keeping method that works for you. Once you've found one, stick with it. For me, even little things matter, like using the right paper and pen. Once I found the right tools, I bought a ton of them so I always have them on hand.
If I'm meeting with someone else I take all my notes on the following planner:
http://www.mead.com/mead/browse/product/Cambridge+Limited+Me...
I like it because it forces me to record information that will help spur my memory later. If I have tasks I need to complete, I put them in the action items box at the bottom.
I take all my other notes on legal pads. If I run out of space on the meeting pad, I take additional notes on a legal pad. I have at least one least one pad for each project I'm working on. When I finish a project I tear the pages out of the notepad and staple them to the back of the meeting page (if there is one) and record the date I finished the project on. Then I file my notes in chronological order. This makes sure I don't waste too much time sorting things. If I need to use categories, I use the broadest possible topics, such as which department a given project was for.
When taking notes, I focus on information that either will be difficult to remember later, or information that will help me search for more information later. This can be jargon, URLs or file locations of important documents, who I should talk to about certain subjects, etc. You need to be kind of active when taking notes like this, and ask questions if you don't have all the information you need. People tend to forget what they know, and have a hard time communicating all the information that you need to know what they know. Some questions I have to ask a lot are:
Has this been done in the past? | When was it last done? | Was it done differently in the past?
Is there anywhere I can find additional information on this? | Is there anywhere I can learn more about this?
Was this ever called something different? | Does this have another name?
Note taking is all about realizing how you remember things -- this information might be completely useless to you, but hopefully someone else finds it useful. The worst thing you can do is try to force yourself to use a note taking method that doesn't work for you.
Finally, if you don't know something, it's better to ask someone for help early, rather than take a lot of time trying to figure it out and realize you still don't know it. When you ask for help, figure out how you could have found that information yourself. There are some things that you'll never be able to figure out without asking someone, you'll eventually have a way of figuring out pretty much everything else.
- Laverna
- Random file somewhere on my computer
- Email to self