Ask HN: How to take notes?

Cheatsheets and blog posts are what helped me most.

It's a truth that teaching is the best way to learn; even if you never "teach" the course you're learning it's useful write down key points as questions (along with their answers in your notes) and compose an exam from the material you just learned as though you're going to use it to test someone else's knowledge. Then take the exam you created, first right after you're done with your learning session and then again the next day before you start with your next session. The act of recalling from memory what you've learned is key to locking in information for long-term retrieval. (And your collection of practice exams make for a great way to cumulatively test that you're recalling everything you've learned.)

This and many more tricks were learned by reading "Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning" -- https://www.amazon.com/Make-Stick-Science-Successful-Learnin...

I try very hard not to get caught in bikeshedding the perfect note system over actually writing things down. This is very much in the “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of doing literally anything at all” territory.

Features i find are actually helpful:

- keep a link to the source where you found the information summarized in the note. A url, a DOI and an equation number, whatever.

- when you can, physically recopy the data in the note. Retype the code, write ideas out long-form.

- ELI5 (explain it like i’m five) or up-goer [0] the contents of a collection of notes. Or at least write summaries or abstracts about a collection of them. Recapitulating information instead of blindly saving it makes you digest it better.

- Rubber ducking works. Go pester your partner, your pet, the potted plant, whatever.

[0]: https://www.splasho.com/upgoer5/

I dump my notes in three categories:

- Links that I find interesting which I'd like to archive: https://bollu.github.io/todo.html

- Short pieces that are accessible to folks with background. This goes on the blog: https://bollu.github.io/. Visualizations of theorems, which are far scarcer than I like on the internet, also go up on the blog.

- Long form notes from books and courses goes into a notes repo where I write up stuff in latex: https://github.com/bollu/notes/blob/master/algebra/main.pdf [This is an example of the notes I've been taking while attending AGITTOC: Algebraic geometry in the time of covid]. The latex file: https://github.com/bollu/notes/blob/master/algebra/main.tex

- The blog and links are powered by latex-enabled markdown. (i) blog https://github.com/bollu/bollu.github.io/blob/master/README.... (ii) todo: https://github.com/bollu/bollu.github.io/blob/master/todo.md

All of these tools are motivated by a principle of being fast and easy to edit; Otherwise, I literally can't take notes because it doesn't feel as fluid. So I have symlinks to README.md and todo.md in my home folder, and similarly for whatever course I am attending currently. I edit very little, I write down the idea I am interested in and then git push.

I feel this system works well for me. I'm able to go back and review ideas that I had seen before and polish them up. It's fast, easy to write, upload, and share.

I've tried using other elaborate methods [org-mode, evernote, ...] but none of them had the simplicity of:

1. Open a plaintext file, wherever you are [I am always in a position to open a plaintext file, whether from my IDE or from the command line]. 2. Start writing 3. $$$

So I strongly recommend some system that is as simple as "open a file and start writing".

Hope this hepls.

A strategy that's helped me: After you've decided what topic you want learn follow these steps. 1. Quickly familiarize yourself with the topic. I usually watch a quick video on the topic (<10min). This helps you familiarize yourself with terminology, concepts, and why it's important to learn. 2. Next find a cheatsheet. Print it out if you can or grab a notebook. You want something that's already done some of the leg work for you. If you can't find a cheatsheet, go back through the tutorial video and in a notebook, write out concepts they mention, leave some space between them, you'll fill in details later. 3. Follow along to more in depth guide. Be it a tutorial video, course, written document. When going through your course, in your cheatsheet or notebook fill in concepts that you've missed and add short notes to your cheatsheet. This will help you learn more because you'll memorize concepts as you write notes along with it. Don't rush and after you've written something out, close your eyes and actively try to recall what you've written. Active recall is one of the best methods for memorization. Also, these cheatsheets can sit on your desk and you can reference them when you begin to code something in the language you've just learned.