I wanted to write a blog post about how important it is to maintain a learning attitude, including different tactics I use to keep healthy learning habits. A skill so necessary in the current climate of uncertainty, but also quite expected in the age of information.
It became apparent quite fast that it was going to be too much for a single blog post. So I decided to focus on the idea that ignited it all—the benefit of taking notes.
Taking notes must be the simplest but most important activity for me when I try to learn a new skill, no matter the method or media I am using. It is the closest thing I have to a maxim. “Thou shall take notes.”
It is obvious why we take notes in school or college. We need to have a record of a lecture. But why should we be taking notes when learning from a book or a video, which nowadays are the most common source for informal learning? With these, you can easily go back to the source.
The purpose of note-taking is just in part to keep a personal record. One of its significant benefits is to re-interiorize what you are learning. In this day and age of multi-tasking, we are so accustomed to the idea of having different simultaneous sources of information, that we tend to absorb things in “auto-mode.” At least this was my case. It was very easy for me to lose focus, even when I was not doing anything else. I went through a chapter of a book, and I knew that everything made sense, but I was not able to explain it. If I re-read it, I would realize that everything was already in my head.
To avoid this disorganized influx of information, and to fight against falling into this “auto-mode” without realizing it, don’t let any critical idea go without extracting it on a document. I like to think that by doing this, the information not only falls into a memory bucket. Instead, other sections of our incredible brains re-process the contents, which helps to index and classify them. At the end of the session, I would organize the notes and read them; and I would re-read them when I wanted to continue with the process. Just the act of organizing your notes might help you analyze if what you register, in both your notes and your memory, makes sense. When reading electronic books or articles on a laptop, even the action of copy/pasting text and organizing it into logical and understandable pieces seems valuable.
Yes, it takes way more time. But it is vital if you want to consider what you are trying to learn seriously. It is also indispensable if you are not practicing immediately the things you are learning—which is the best way to interiorize knowledge and essential for practical skills. Likewise, if you are learning different subjects at the same time, or if you’re learning something entirely new for you. The notes themselves will serve as a record for future inquiry. And, as an extra benefit, they will be instrumental if you are planning to share your newly acquired knowledge with other people.
Of course, these notes will look different on each occasion. When I’m learning software, most of my notes are shortcuts (again, it is a practical skill, you only learn those doing them). When I was learning basic music theory for guitar, I made diagrams instead of notes.
Additionally, when I was learning French (I’m still doing it), I took extensive notes to keep my own little and personalized guide of grammatical rules. Furthermore, I also took notes every single day when doing exercises, transcribing all audios from my book and writing all the solutions to my flashcards. All of this was done by hand, to avoid any intromission of the auto-correct (including false negatives). This was essential to exercise listening and writing at the same time.
I mentioned before that notes can be useful if you want to transmit your knowledge. However, you should not share your notes, nor should you accept notes from other people. Do not deprive yourself or others of the experience. Somebody else’s records are the information already filtered by that person’s mental models, including their assumptions, judgements of value, etc. It is the intellectual equivalence of feeding by regurgitation. In addition, the act of teaching can be beneficial for the learning process because it forces the individual to challenge their understanding of a topic.
Oddly enough, the hardest setting to take notes might be a live classroom. If you hold on to an idea to write it, you might lose a vital piece of the lecture. No teacher is going to stop and give you time to write; after all, they will “share the slides with the class.” Quick sketching might be the best skill to develop for those circumstances, followed by a session devoted to decipher what you wrote and pair it with what was shared. Sketching might not be as useful as notes, but it is way more fun. But that’s a conversation for another day.