* If so, how?
* If not, what is their value?
Edit: I've returned and re-read that comment. It may come off as a little snarky, but it's not intended as such, it's a genuine question. I ask, because I'm interested in how other people's processes work, and wonder whether my system would be of use or value to anyone else.
* Most of my notes relate to a single blog post / article / paper that I read.
* In my notes, I jot down any new concepts I learned, and summarize them in a way I know I will be able to understand later.
* I'm very forgetful, so it helps to have this type of "condensed" representation so I can go back and review in six months when I inevitably forget what I learned.
* It's even better if my note-taking software can help me find old notes that I may have forgotten about. This is where tags and bidirectional links come in handy.
* My notes contain a lot of math, which is why I can't just use a plain text editor. The side-by-side style some editors use (like the VS Code Markdown Preview) is also suboptimal, because it wastes screen space -- normally I want half my screen to be notes, the other half to be a pdf). So far, Typora is the only software I've used that gets math editing right. But I'm slowly working to fix that! [1,2]
[1] https://github.com/benrbray/prosemirror-math [2] https://benrbray.com/static/prosemirror-math/index.html (only tested in chrome)
I usually write notes on paper for _every_ meeting I have in my professional life. Even at meetups or other low-key situations, I will write down things before, during, and after.
However, I hardly ever go back and read them after the event. The point is not to keep a record of what I learned but instead to help me learn _in the moment_.
I have found that by hearing/reading something then creating a new thought/paraphrase of the thing I learned, then writing that new thing down, then reading what I just wrote all help solidify the new knowledge enough in my mind to not go back. I don't remember everything but I have the knowledge associated with other things enough that I can build on top of it, usually.
When I do go back, I hardly know what the notes mean and usually give up and throw the notebook out. The only common exception to this are action items/todos as I've learned to write those very clearly and with clear expectations.
How? I just flip back through my notebook until I find it. The problem is that some days I have 15 meetings and some days I have 3 meetings, and some meetings have 2 pages worth of notes and some have 3 lines worth of notes. And due to the sheer amount of notes I take, it's not easy to remember in which meeting which topic was discussed, so I sometimes have to read 15-20 pages worth of notes just to find the one thing I was looking for... very frustrating.
I don't allow my team to bring laptops into any of my meetings, unless they are giving a presentation, and I have taught and encouraged them to avoid taking laptops to other team members' meetings. Instead, we bring notebooks and pens.
This serves a few purposes. First, like you said, it forces you to pay attention. You learn a lot more, and you get more involved. You ask more questions and you walk out of the room having learned something.
Second, it makes you look GOOD. Imagine going into a meeting with the CTO and you're the only person without a laptop, the only one making eye contact, the only one writing things down. As far as the CTO is concerned, everyone else is dicking around on Facebook, and here you are, bluGill, taking notes and being a go-getter.
My team resisted my rule when they first heard them, but (pre-COVID) I've overheard them suggest to other people not on our team to leave the laptop at their desk and bring a notebook instead. It really works.