A Learning Secret: Don't Take Notes with a Laptop (2014)

Just picked up a "livescribe" echo from eBay for $30. I don't do well with notes on a computer or tablet but I like the idea of digitizing them and recording a meeting at the same time; and pin point play back. We'll see how it goes.

Started a new school again after 12 years and recently learned about this. Just picked it up along with some bullet journalling techniques and so far it's been great.

Going against what seems to be the prevailing thought in this thread. Here's why and how I take notes primarily on a laptop.

When the lecture, presentation or meeting starts a have a macro that creates a new Evernote note prepended with the date and starts recording into QuickTime. Throughout the exchange, I am typing up quick and dirty first draft notes using a macro to screenshot the portion of the QuickTime window displaying the time elapsed. I also employ symbols/emojis to flag points in the notes that are important‼️, should be returned to and reviewed later , are confusing, raise a question ect... Whenever there is downtime (e.g. interruption or lull in the presentation) I work my way back and start improving the notes: Organizing them into a hierarchy with headings, indentation and boldation. Also, I Hyperlink useful, relevant or referenced URLs.

At the bottom of the document I have a separated section called TAKEAWAY containing a bulleted list of questions to ask, things to follow up on, and key points. I can always ⌘↓ > ↩ to add an item line to this section.

At the end of the exchange, I check my TAKEWAY section and clarify any questions. I stop recording and add the audio file to the top of the document. This leaves me with a reference document I can revisit, clean up, and reference later.

The process of making the note visually appealing and easy to read by cleaning up, formatting, and adding hyperlinks accomplishes a lot of the internalization handwriting does because it forces you to try to convey the kernel of the information being consumed in as well few formatted, organized words as possible.

Furthermore, I'm the type that really values immediately looking up unfamiliar referenced concepts/ideas so I don't misunderstand what/why something is said. As for diagrams, they can usually be incorporated by adding slides of the presentation, taking a picture of the whiteboard at the end, or just googling whatever the diagram was.

With the wonderful world of macros and automation I can change color, size, formatting, add lists; add hyperlinks, multi-media images, timestamps ect... and keep everything in an easy to read, search and share document.

Most importantly my handwriting is bogus. I really couldn't do it any other way.

As another data point, I take notes almost almost solely for increased recollection, I've never really studied them. The physical act of writing down a phrase or idea emphasizes it in my memory to such a noticeable degree that if I lack writing utensils I will mime the action; the physical notes themselves are rarely useful once made. I find this also works in settings that are not live, I am able to work through textbooks significantly faster if I take notes while reading in a similar fashion to a lecture.

I get regular remarks from people who don't know me asking why I'm throwing away the page of notes I wrote down in a meeting - it's because I'll never look at them again. But now the important parts of that meeting will be crystal clear in my head for the next couple months instead of the next couple days.

From my experience, I found that the Livescribe and their ilk depend on a razor/cartridge model. The pen itself might be cheap(the razor) but the refills/special paper (the cartridges) are ridiculously expensive. Any particular reason/hack you found to circumvent the prices?