1–10 of 14 posts
I usually prefer to centralise my notes rather than have them in two places, so it's something I've been thinking about recently.
How do you organise your note taking life?
As you said, there is nothing like the convenience of sketching out a graph, quick comments on the margins, drawing arrows to point at stuff, etc.
I know there are digital solutions to everything I mentioned, but none of them have felt as natural or productive as old-fashioned note taking, especially when at the mercy of however fast the teacher is teaching.
So, I usually hand-write notes as I'm learning. As a part of my studying method I digitize the notes as I'm studying them. I find re-writing out the notes verbatim helps me solidify what was learned and clarify any areas I'm not 100% with.
I have repeatedly tried to convert over to pure digital note taking, but have not been able to. This is in the context of active learning (classroom, live video lecture, etc. where I cannot pause). As you said, there is nothing like the convenience of sketching out a graph, quick comments on the margins, drawing arrows to point at stuff, etc. I know there are digital solutions to everything I mentioned, but none of t…
This way my notes are synced across devices and search-able.
And I use WorkFlowy to archive what I probably need to refer to in the future.
Touchscreens help with sketches.
For equations, normally I write down the "long, English version" of them, like how the variables fit together. So speed helps more there.
* Take notes by hand;
* Review the notes, converting to digital form;
* Review the notes, inserting into a Spaced Repetition system;
* Keep the information fresh via Spaced Repetition.
Notes for learning are not a write-once-read-never system.