I would like to take better notes when reading books. Considering getting a kobo with stylus system, but most my books epubs, not sure compatibility, would appreciate advice. I also have a samsung z fold 3, and I find the pdf markup in samsung notes app to actually be really good, but I'm not sure I wanna convert my books to PDF just for markup reasons. Yet to find good android app for marking up epub, after briefly looking into epub and based on my basic understanding of ebook formats, I believe it's kinda simply a too hard technical problem to build an app around.
Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information
281–290 of 297 posts
Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information
#282I have tried at times to take notes by hand during lectures, but I write too slowly to keep up with everything I want to write down. So this leads to bad hand-writing and unfinished statements, etc. If I could press "pause" on a live lecture then I would be more inclined to take notes by hand.
Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information
#283I'm going to challenge the question - if I've got something written down, why would I need to memorize it? Maybe in school where closed-notes tests are a thing, sure, but nowhere in the 'real-world' tests one's ability to memorize in the strict sense. I write things down for a reason and that reason is not just accessory to memorizing it. I put things on paper precisely so I don't have to put them in my brain. To kee…
The speed of recalling information from your brain vs looking it up is the important thing. Suppose it takes you 1/100th of a second to remember some formula or protocol but it would take you 10 minutes to look it up. Now suppose you are faced with several dozen such situations each day.
Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information
#284Earlier quoted context omitted.
The interesting part is, should we combine notes and SBS? in my condition, I write note for fetch information in future, redo this part again to add them into my Anki become a repetitive work. how can you organise both side together?
This is strictly specific to my workflow, but: - My notes contain all the knowledge I have accumulated. - I extract new knowledge that is worth being remembered from my notes into my SR system so as to add it to my long-term memory (there is some knowledge that is good keeping in a file but that doesn't necessarily need to be learnt by heart). - After a few months, I remove that knowledge from my SR system because I…
wow, thank you for your so detailed reply! extracting needed knowledge sounds very useful.
Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information
#285I can attest to this and took all of my notes on paper in college. However, once I started a real job I realized that this strategy doesn't scale to all situations. In college, I needed to be able to recall all of the information I had ingested: it was low-write, high-read. In the workplace, there's much more information, but I'm unlikely to need most of it: it's high-write, low-read. I need to be able to reference t…
It's come to the point almost the opposite is the case: I actively try not to remember most information but try to make sure it's registered somewhere as plain text so that I can find it easily should I need it. People are surprised I can answer them so quickly when they ask about some trifle from last year - but it's only because I managed to register it (e.g. by refusing to proceed on the basis of an oral request a…
How does what you remember influence your personality?
Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information
#286I wonder if we've done comparative work between paper writing and writing in something like Obsidian for not retaining the full work but effective downstream use? What I mean: When I write something I remember all of it, ironclad, written on my soul levels of remembrance. When I type something, I don't get that, but I get something akin to a pointer. I don't remember the content but I know it's stored in Obsidian/Doc…
IIRC doing just the latter messes up your brain.
If you're interested in retaining your cognitive function long-term and avoiding early onset dementia, maybe do both.
Write things down when you hear them, then copy the important bits over to Obsidian at the end of the day.
Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amazing, all of this "skyrocketing" and "zero to top" stuff. And all of that thanks to your "little system". Do you also have a weird old trick for losing weight that doctors don't want us to know about?
Did you get the impression the OP was trying to sell you something?
Psychological studies show that people derive pleasure from policing social norms, and I'm no different. In this case: "Don't brag". So I made fun of OP's writing style.
Of course, deriving pleasure at the expense of someone else reflects poorly on me. ...but then: I'm cool with that. The world (especially HN) is full of people worshipping and trying to become statues. In order for that world to be bearable for everyone else, every statue needs its pigeon, and, apparently, that's my place in the universe.
Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information
#288I could never take notes in school or in college. I tried many times but I just forget about them and never check them anyway, and if I do they are pretty useless because my understanding of whatever I'm learning changes pretty quickly so if I look at my notes 2 days later they won't make any sense to me.
Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information
#289I'm going to challenge the question - if I've got something written down, why would I need to memorize it? Maybe in school where closed-notes tests are a thing, sure, but nowhere in the 'real-world' tests one's ability to memorize in the strict sense. I write things down for a reason and that reason is not just accessory to memorizing it. I put things on paper precisely so I don't have to put them in my brain. To kee…
> if I've got something written down, why would I need to memorize it?
The extreme example is this: would you rather see a doctor, or see someone capable of doing med school?
Externalizing memory has greatly expanded what we can "remember", but access is very slow compared to the jello in our skull. Plus, it won't be incorporated into your deeper thoughts. Don't externalize memory which shapes your thinking to be better.
Re: Writing by hand is still the best way to retain information
#290If you're in charge of other people, it's worth noting that some very common cognitive problems like ADHD, Dysgraphia, and Dyslexia negate these benefits in some affected people. The cognitive load of making legible marks can become high enough to become the focus, rather than the actual content. Pressuring someone already struggling with working memory to do things like this, is counterproductive, if not demoralizin…
Interesting I was diagnosed with ADHD and always felt the teacher was stupid for making us hand write because I spent more time focusing on the writing than remembering what I had written down (and I thought this was likely the case for most people)… but never knew these two things could be related.
I had the same problem, and unfortunately continued taking handwritten notes well into college, despite the fact that I literally never referenced my notes. I never knew what the point was, only that if I didn't take notes I'd be "breaking the unwritten rule".
The only point of creating any sort of reference material is to increase the likelihood that you'll be able to recall the information later. Handwritten notes are one of the many possible ways to do this. I find that re-designing an abbreviated textbook and splitting all information into tables is the only way that I can reliably learn, but I didn't think of that in school and thus struggled some with grades.