Poor note taking can sneak up on you.
Have you ever gone to a class, sat there feeling completely lost, and come out thinking:
”Da hell… why did I even show up?”
Yep, poor note taking will do that to you.
Reluctant to study?
It could easily be because you know the notes you took were not as helpful.
So why even bother to open the books to study? Do this over time and just like that note taking gets added to reasons why students like you procrastinate.
Here are fundamental strategies to take your note taking to the next level.
1. Note taking strategy: play the one-takeaway game.
Immediately after a class ends, ask yourself this:
”What is one take away from this lecture?”
If you answer this, you’ve begun the step to store what you learned in your long term memory.
If you can’t answer that you’ve lost and you should shake your head in disappointment.
Literally.
2. ”In your own words” is a must-have note taking strategy.
When the professor talks, don’t simply write verbatim; instead take what they say and paraphrase in your own words. This will do two things at once:
- Force you to truly listen, not just passively write.
- Help you faster relate to your note when you review later.
If you ignore this and write verbatim, you’ll still have to preprocess what was said in the lecture into your own words and chances are you’d have forgotten by the time you get to it.
So write in your words from the beginning.
Practice, practice.
Your future self will be forever grateful to you for doing this.
3. Abbreviations can up your note taking approach.
It’s your note, not a term paper.
Or a published book.
So feel free to replace words:
- people with ppl
- underestimate with under8
- hibernation with hybnatn
Anything too long with something short and quick. If you can write it faster and understand what it means, go for it.
Okay, you’ve got the three major strategies to switch up your note taking approach. Now let’s turn to three of my favorite tools to change your note-taking game.
​1. Cornell Notes
Developed in 1949 at Cornell University. This is a pretty cool note taking technique. This works both for the classroom and for studying outside the classroom.
From Cornell:
The Cornell Note-Taking System was originally developed by Cornell education professor, Walter Pauk. Prof. Pauk outlined this effective note-taking method in his book, How to Study in College. source
You can:
- Go through the cornell note taking training module online.
- Download this pdf for an example cornell note taking as shown above.
2. Notion
Notion is an incredibly cool productivity tool that’s been getting all the rave in the past year.
It’s one of the tools listed in our top 3 productivity tools for students in 2022.
To be honest, Notion can feel intimidating to learn at first. But once you get a handle of it, you should be gold. I recommend starting with this basic intro video if Notion feels like your kinda thing.
You can download ​this Notion lecture template.
3. Rocket smart notebook
If you prefer note taking on paper, this one’s for you. You can purchase the Rocket smart notebook from Amazon.
Or you can check out Livescribe Pen (a little on the pricey side). I’ve used this in the past and it’s magical. You take notes, it records the lecture, and you can jump back to aspects of your note and press play to hear the recording at the same time. Just fabulous!
No matter what tool you use, always remember:
At the end of the day, thinking about what you write and writing in your own words will transform your note taking more than any single tool will ever do.
A note-taking tool by itself is not enough. The trick is in applying the note-taking strategies through the tools.
Otherwise you risk taking a crappy note. And opening yourself to all the pitfalls of poor note taking.
Happy note taking!
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