How to Accelerate Your Learning by Taking Better Notes

Simple tips backed by science

Have you ever listened to a presenter so hard, but within minutes after the presentation, you found it difficult to remember what he said?

Whether you’re taking down notes during seminars, a college student, or a consistent member of the Board of director’s conferences, note-taking is a very effective skill that will enhance your creativity and make you a fast-paced individual among others.

Note-taking is a workmate and catalyst to the brain that can help you learn new ideas faster, retain concepts, and share information excellently.

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”

— Mahatma Gandhi

Determine the presentation and prepare adequately

Before you attend any meeting, have a clear understanding of your goals towards that meeting.

Here is what I mean, for a college student, the main purpose of attending lectures is to get knowledge about things that will play a role in your future. For career guys, they attend round table meetings where they discuss ideas, share fresh innovations, and plan the next step to move forward. For athletes, training sessions are to gain instructions that will help improve your fitness and pace — Which means you’ll likely get quick tips you can apply in real-time.

“The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows”

— David Ausubel

As a college student, before I get to class I make sure to read (or sometimes skim) all previous materials assigned by the professor. I try to familiarize myself with the topic before getting to class so I know what to expect.

A 2004 study by Spies and Wilkin found that the law students who read a legal case before they got to class displayed a superior understanding of the topic than students who did not have any form of preparation before class.

Most importantly, for good note-taking, you need to accurately pack all the things you’ll need to learn. Make sure you have:

• Multicolored pencils and pens.
• Sticky notes.
• Highlighters and
• Your textbook

With your brain set to the right frequency and a positive attitude to acquire something from every presentation, you are definitely more likely to learn.

Handwrite your notes

So, there has been this long-lasting debate about what medium fosters effective note-taking. Should you go techy style or remain old fashioned pen and paper?

Scientists, entrepreneurs, and professors have been evaluating various methods of note-taking. Therefore, the straight answer is old school Pen and paper.

Ditch the laptop

Though taking your notes using a laptop might seem accurate to the eyes, it doesn’t to the brain. To speed up the learning process ditch the laptop and take your notes the old school way — pen and paper.

An experiment tested both groups of note-takers (pen and laptop users) exactly half an hour after the lecture, which left them without the opportunity to review. The psychological scientists decided to explore this concept further and conducted a second experiment in which these students would be given a week to review for the exam.

Even after a week of review, the students who took notes in longhand were found to do significantly better than the other students in the experiment, including the fleet typists — those who transcribed the lectures.

Overall, it seems those who type their notes may potentially be at risk for “mindless processing.” The old-fashioned note-taking method of pen and paper boosts memory and the ability to understand concepts and facts.

As research has proven, handwriting is better for retaining what you write, but first, you need the right tools.

While taking notes with your hand, paraphrase them into your own style, make them easy for you to grasp and understand under short periods.

Draw your notes and make them colorful

Now I know you might be thinking that drawing on paper is for little kids. But it might sound silly but research shows if you draw something you’re more likely to remember it later.

During a study, partakers were given a series of words that were easy to draw (for example, “apple”) and were either asked to draw the word or write it down. To guarantee partakers consumed the same amount of time either writing or drawing, they were given 40 seconds for each word and asked to fill the entire period. So they could write or draw the item over and over.

When partakers were later tested on how many words they remembered, drawing helped them to remember twice as many as writing.

Designer Mike Rohde popularized “sketchnotes” with his books The Sketchnote Handbook and The Sketchnote Workbook. Rohde uses the term sketchnotes to describe the way he draws shapes and pictures among his notes to help him better take in the main ideas from conference talks, rather than trying to note down every little point.

To improve attentive listening and effective retention, make use of different bright colored inks for headings, and subheadings when taking notes. Purple is always aligned with the left margin line, a yellow highlighted box is always used for summaries and important equations or quotes, etc.

Make effective use of abbreviations

During presentations, there is a high tendency that the presenter is going to rush words and probably won’t spend much time on important aspects. Since presenters usually cover a large amount of information during presentations, it can be difficult to write down every vital information they say.

This is why using symbols and abbreviating long phrases is highly recommended in your notes as possible when speed is essential. Using abbreviations can be tricky so you have to remain consistent and remember what they represent.

Eliminate distractions

“No phones or devices allowed in my class, please”. This is a sentence my lecturer will always utter at the beginning of every class.

Keeping your phone away from you during presentations is a good strategy that will eliminate distractions and help you remain fixed. The aim is to stay close to the subject matter and making that note worthwhile.

So yeah, we all have that friend we love to sit with at every event. But I suggest that if that friend is going to talk to you about irrelevant things at that point, you should consider sitting with someone else.

The Takeaway

Note-taking is a skill that is needed by everyone in all works of life, everyone wants to summarize, revise, and recollect what was said during the last class. When taking notes try as much as possible to write clearly, notes are useless when you can’t read them.

Don’t jam-pack words into a little corner on the sheet of paper, try leaving spaces in margins and near key concepts in your notepad.

There are various methods used in note-taking, pick a method you’re comfortable with and put in your best to make it work. For perfection, sit back after presentations, revisiting your notes. While doing this check for clarity, missed spelled words, organization, and summarize key concepts you might have missed out during the class.

Here are the four steps you want to remember:

• Determine the presentation and prepare adequately
• Handwrite your notes
• Make effective use of abbreviations
• Eliminate distractions

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