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Ask HN: How to Take Good Notes?

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Re: Ask HN: How to Take Good Notes?

#11

Post by marvinblum »

I like to do hand writing and drawing doodles for everything I want out of my head for the moment. I use small notepads for this purpose, so that the space is limited to store just the information that is important. If I work on a different topic or fraction of a larger one, I start a new page. The doodles help me to visualize a topic or a structured problem.

Later on I write down everything in Emvi [1] and add more detail, so that I know what I was thinking. The articles can be linked to each other to build deeper knowledge from small fractions of information ("structured by content"). I wrote about this concept on our blog [2]. We also have a few students that use this system in Emvi with great success.

I hopes this helps you to take better notes. Just try a few different methods until you find one that suits you.

[1] https://emvi.com/

[2] https://emvi.com/blog/luhmanns-zettelkasten-a-productivity-t...

Re: Ask HN: How to Take Good Notes?

#12

Post by stevesimmons »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #5

When I was in university, my girlfriend at the time taught me about good note-taking. - Use paper. I could annotate printed PPT slides with the whitespace on 4 per page, but sometimes would overflow onto the (blank) reverse side. Computers have too many distracting notifications. - Write down questions with a big (?) and ask them at an appropriate time. Professors care much more about that than you think, in Western…

My study notes -- like virtually everything I have written for the last 30 years -- are solely in grey pencil [0].

> Use coloured pens

That didn't work for me, for two reasons:

Firstly, with coloured pens or highlighters, switching pens slows down the process of writing too much. Instead I just use pencil, and summarise, focusing on making strong logical connections with other stuff I am learning.

Secondly, I don't read my notes enough that colour makes any difference. I found I retain information best by writing, re-writing and summarising. Actively writing engages all my brain. Just reading notes isn't enough to make it stick.

[0] A 0.9mm Pentel P209 mechanical pencil, to be precise.

Re: Ask HN: How to Take Good Notes?

#13

Post by tasubotadas »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #5

When I was in university, my girlfriend at the time taught me about good note-taking. - Use paper. I could annotate printed PPT slides with the whitespace on 4 per page, but sometimes would overflow onto the (blank) reverse side. Computers have too many distracting notifications. - Write down questions with a big (?) and ask them at an appropriate time. Professors care much more about that than you think, in Western…

What's the story with the PhD in Kora? :)

Re: Ask HN: How to Take Good Notes?

#14

Post by marvinblum »

marvinblum wrote: post #11

I like to do hand writing and drawing doodles for everything I want out of my head for the moment. I use small notepads for this purpose, so that the space is limited to store just the information that is important. If I work on a different topic or fraction of a larger one, I start a new page. The doodles help me to visualize a topic or a structured problem. Later on I write down everything in Emvi [1] and add more…

I'd like to add that I take pictures of the doodles I've drawn and upload them to the articles.

Re: Ask HN: How to Take Good Notes?

#16

Post by AndrewOMartin »

If you want to take great notes, I've got good news and bad news. The good news is that you don't need to worry about doing it right, your aptitude and personal preference will come without any conscious thought. The bad news is that there's no shortcut except for practice, practice, practice.

Having said that, here are some of the specifics that work for me.

- This notebook: Cambridge Jotter A5 Card Cover Wirebound Notebook Ruled 200 Page. A5 means it's easy to carry everywhere. Wirebound means the pages don't flap back on their own and only one sheet needs be open at a time. 200 page is a good balance between how long each notebook lasts.

- Put a DD/MM/YYYY and a title at the top of each page, don't be too fanatical, but contextualising the notes is essential, and it helps search. Abbreviated titles and dates are fine for when the notes of single events stretch over multiple pages.

- Always write notes at everything that could be a meeting or a talk.

Everything else came with experience and I can't really put it into words, though I've always appreciated when I've taken notes under the assumption that my future self will remember nothing of the event, it's been an accurate assumption more times than I care to mention.

Don't worry about chronological order being an imperfect method of organising data, it's a strong practical heuristic.

Re: Ask HN: How to Take Good Notes?

#17

Post by glun »

I think you ought to consider whether you should take notes at all. Notetaking is great for remembering actions that you have comitted to doing, or if you need to spread information to people who didn't participate in a meeting. Managers need to do a lot of notetaking.

However, taking notes seriously hinder your ability to engage with the material and build true understanding as you are listening, which would have helped you remember the material right away. If you are in school or are an individual contributor in a company I think you ought to stop taking notes all together.

If you need notes for future practice I would advice you to write them after the meeting/lecture. Actively recalling things from memory is the best form practice.

Re: Ask HN: How to Take Good Notes?

#18

Post by cygnion »

peterburkimsher wrote: post #5

When I was in university, my girlfriend at the time taught me about good note-taking. - Use paper. I could annotate printed PPT slides with the whitespace on 4 per page, but sometimes would overflow onto the (blank) reverse side. Computers have too many distracting notifications. - Write down questions with a big (?) and ask them at an appropriate time. Professors care much more about that than you think, in Western…

Using a multi colored pen has helped me mark important information and add my personal context. For example, during meetings or brainstorming I'll mark up information using different colors (red- to do, green- new idea, pencil- plain, sequential notes). I found a good one that has all the colors I need and a mechanical pencil [1]. There is overhead of thinking which color to use, but the value of having the context later is much more.

1. https://www.amazon.com/Zebra-Clip-Multi-Functional-Barrel-B4...

Re: Ask HN: How to Take Good Notes?

#20

Post by westurner »

glun wrote: post #17

I think you ought to consider whether you should take notes at all. Notetaking is great for remembering actions that you have comitted to doing, or if you need to spread information to people who didn't participate in a meeting. Managers need to do a lot of notetaking. However, taking notes seriously hinder your ability to engage with the material and build true understanding as you are listening, which would have he…

> In 2009, psychologist Jackie Andrade asked 40 people to monitor a 2-½ minute dull and rambling voice mail message. Half of the group doodled while they did this (they shaded in a shape), and the other half did not. They were not aware that their memories would be tested after the call. Surprisingly, when both groups were asked to recall details from the call, those that doodled were better at paying attention to the message and recalling the details. They recalled 29% more information! https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-thinking-benefits-of...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doodle#Effects_on_memory references the same study.

Related articles on GScholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:YVG_-PKhNH4J:sc...

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