“He listens well who takes notes.”
Dante Alighieri
Taking notes is a fantastic way to learn and remember information. When we take notes, we make the information fit our own words and way of thinking. This helps us understand and remember things better.
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8 Methods to Take Notes
“The ultimate advantage of taking notes is that they customize the information you need to retain to your vocabulary and your mode of thinking. At their best, notes allow you to organize and process information in a way that makes it most likely that you can use this information afterward.”
Jim Kwik (Limitless)
1. Outlining
Outlining is simple. You write the main ideas as bullet points and add details under each one. This way, you have a clear and organized set of notes. It's great for subjects like history or psychology. But be careful! Sometimes, you might write down too much and not understand it.
Pros:
Easy to organize
It helps us see relationships between ideas
Cons:
It can be hard if the lecture is fast
It might lead to mindless copying
2. Mind Mapping
Mind mapping is great for visual learners. We start with the main idea in the center and draw branches for related topics. It's great for brainstorming and understanding complex ideas.
Pros:
Visual aid
Good for brainstorming and less structured lectures
Cons:
Time-consuming
Can be messy
3. The Boxing Method
This method involves putting related notes in boxes. It helps you see how ideas are connected and is useful for organizing notes from lectures or textbooks.
Pros:
Shows relationships between details
Keeps notes neat
Cons:
It is not good for unorganized lectures
It can be hard to see nuanced connections
4. The Slides Method
Many college students use this method. They print out lecture slides and write notes on them. It's efficient but can make us lazy. Remember, we still need to study the material afterward.
Pros:
Information is already recorded
Focus on what the professor says
Cons:
Encourages passive learning
May miss small details
5. Cornell Notes
Cornell Notes is a famous system from Cornell University. We divide our papers into three sections: questions, notes, and a summary. This helps with reviewing and retaining information.
Pros:
It is organized and great for reviewing
Encourages active learning
Cons:
Requires effort to write summaries and questions
Limited space for notes
6. The Flow Method
The Flow Method involves taking notes creatively. We simplify, visualize, and connect ideas. This method is excellent for subjects with lots of details, like anatomy.
Pros:
Captures complex ideas easily
Encourages creativity
Cons:
Can be disorganized
Requires understanding of your mind
7. The Charting Method
Charting organizes information in a chart. It’s great for comparing facts and scoping subjects. We can use boxes, T-charts, or Venn diagrams.
Pros:
Easy to compare topics
Great for memorizing facts
See relevant information
Reduces writing
easy for active recall
Cons:
It is time-consuming to create charts
Some details may not fit in the charts
may need to frontload information
8. Systematic Consolidation & Expansion
Systematic Consolidation
Note-taking is useful but not the best for reviewing material. However, systematic consolidation can make all notes effective for active recall by shrinking notes into smaller spaces. This helps by:
Cutting extraneous information
Developing special neural pathways
Improving recall of information
One Notecard
In college, I had closed book exams, but because my classes were so information rich we got to use one notecard where we could write anything we neededd. This forced me to choose the most important information. This method of consolidating notes helped me learn effectively and provided great study resources for finals.
For some of the exam, I didn’t even need to use the notecard to do well on the exam. Simply consolidating the information helped me retain the information.
Systematic Expansion
Expanding notes into larger creative projects deepens understanding. When I was a tutor, I used this method to create online content, which help me fill knowledge gaps and articulate thoughts clearly.
Writing is rewriting.
My Workflow
When I encounter an idea worth recording I start with quick notes in my iPhone's notes app for convenience. I’ll end the note with a tag related to the topic I am researching so I can easily find it later.
Later, I organize them in Microsoft OneNote. I organize those notes into different notebooks. I like OneNote because it provides notebooks, sections, and pages - allowing for more refined organization. This organization gives me an opportunity to assimilate the new information into my broader body of work which in turns build more neural connections.
These OneNote notebooks then become online content like posts, videos, lectures, and books.
This process enhances my understanding of each idea.
Lately, I’ve also been using Notion to better organize and expand on ideas.
How to Practice Systematic Consolidation & Explan
Expand on ideas in a way that works for you. Creating projects from your notes helps encode information for the long term. Periodically consolidate your notes and expand on them in creative projects for deeper understanding.
Handwritten vs. Typed Notes
Writing notes by hand helps you remember better because it uses more brainpower. Typing is faster but might lead to shallow processing. Handwriting is better for subjects like math and science while typing works well for humanities and social sciences.
A study by researchers at Princeton and UCLA found that students who wrote their notes by hand remembered more information than those who typed them on a laptop.
When we write notes by hand, we must think more about our writing, which helps us understand and remember the information better.
In the study, the researchers compared two groups of students. One group took notes by hand and the other used laptops. Later, they asked both groups questions about what they had learned. The students who wrote their notes by hand did better on the questions, especially those that required understanding concepts rather than just remembering facts.
The main takeaway is that writing notes by hand helps your brain work harder, which makes it easier to remember and understand what you learn. This can be helpful for students who want to do well in their studies.
The study is "The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking" by Pam A. Mueller and Daniel M. Oppenheimer, published in 2014.
When to Use Each Note-Taking Method
“Be sure that you understand the purpose for taking these notes. For example, the goal of taking notes in a midsemester lecture might be very different from the notes you take in the review class before a big final. ”
Jim Kwik (Limitless)
It depends on the class or purpose. Is it concept-based, like math, or fact-based, like history? For concept-based courses, try the Flow Method or handwriting. For fact-based classes, try Cornell Notes or charting.
Tips for Effective Note-Taking
“If you take notes with a goal in mind, every note you take will have relevance.”
Jim Kwik (Limitless)
Understand why you’re taking notes. Different situations need different notes.
Listen to get precisely what you need.
Use your own words as much as possible.
Try systemic consolidation: shrink your notes into a smaller space to help us remember better.
Avoid highlighting. It’s not as effective as other methods.
Highlighting is not an effective use of your time.It’s an example of prioritizing the short term over the long term. It feels good and productive to highlight things in a textbook, but to encode the information in our heads, we would need to reread those sections, instantly doubling our work! We would probably have to read outside the highlights for context,potentially tripling our work. Highlighting is one of those methods that breeds more work, and the benefits you get from highlighting are not worth the time. We are better off using one of the methods mentioned above incorrectly than highlighting.
Finding the right note-taking method takes time. Try different methods and see what works best for you. Remember, good note-taking is a skill that improves with practice. Keep at it, and soon you’ll be a note-taking pro!
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