Ask HN: How do you take notes?

I've found that learning a new (programming/scripting) language benefits from solid note taking. I'm very low tech with this: pencil and notebook.<p>Any time I hit something that seems both non-obvious and reasonably important, I write it down. When I make the notes clear and half-way organized, they end up being more useful than the original reference, since they're quicker to read and tailored for what I care about.<p>Early on in learning Objective-C, for example, I was getting caught on one wtf after another, not really grasping it. I decided to take it from the top with my notebook and jot <i>everything</i> interesting down in note form.<p>No kidding, after about ten minutes of this I looked from my notebook to my screen, where source code from an OSS OS X project was sitting, and it was like the climax from <i>The Matrix</i> – I, quite instantly, understood everything. Where once there were blocks of inscrutable code, now I was just reading, and comprehending, a story.<p>So that's great if your brain works like mine. Why is it your notes are so hard to look through?

Currently I'm learning C taking notes using Numbers (iWork) alongside OminiGraffle. I like to create visual diagrams of complicated things, and then dump them into Numbers alongside text. Actually making the diagrams is the best part, because it helps imprint the info into my brain, and it's more fun than simply taking notes all the time. Here are a few diagrams I made recently:<p><a href="http://www.dave-gallagher.net/coding/CDoublyLinkedList.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.dave-gallagher.net/coding/CDoublyLinkedList.jpg</a><p><a href="http://www.dave-gallagher.net/coding/CSwitchStatement.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.dave-gallagher.net/coding/CSwitchStatement.jpg</a><p><a href="http://www.dave-gallagher.net/coding/CTypeAbbreviation.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.dave-gallagher.net/coding/CTypeAbbreviation.jpg</a><p>My goal currently is to create a single Numbers document (like a cheat sheet you could take into exams during college), detailing everything that I need to know in C, and/or things that tend to confuse me. It's a living document, being iterated constantly.

I tried a few full blown apps like Evernote and MS OneNote but you could say that these applications offered too much for me as I don't need fancy stuff like embedding images, I just want text.<p>I also wanted to do something in LINQ (LINQ to XML to be specific). Around that time I was looking at Notational Velocity and it's Windows "clones". So I went and create something really quickly and decided to make it a bigger project.<p>Meet Omnium. (This sounds cool.) As of now it's easy to sync with Dropbox (SugarSync, etc) but I plan to integrate synchronizing with Simplenote and also have some kind of export/import feature so you can use your NV notes/vice versa.<p>It's Windows only because Mono doesn't support WPF (yet) If you are interested: <a href="http://omnium.codeplex.com" rel="nofollow">http://omnium.codeplex.com</a> Please leave a comment on what you think (Codeplex' review system or here) &#60;/selfpromo&#62;

Most of my notes are in an big OmniOutliner (<a href="http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnioutliner/" rel="nofollow">http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnioutliner/</a>) document called Notes.oo3. I find the outline format best for me when taking notes, because if I come to the computer and I want to write multiple things down, I can just write the first bullet for each of them so I don't forget the main ideas and then write the sub-bullets afterwards. Sadly, OO only lets you search the whole document, not just the top-level bullets, so it's a bit hard to find old stuff, but the convenience of bullets outweighs that annoyance. The notes in that file are in two sections: Permanent, for notes I want to keep long-term or which will always exist, like a list of the programming projects I am currently working on, and Temporary, which is like a to-do list.<p>I also use Notational Velocity (<a href="http://notational.net/" rel="nofollow">http://notational.net/</a>) for a few things that don't need to be outlines and can just be a list, because it is easy to search. My ideal note-taking program would be Notational Velocity, with all text in an outline format instead of free text. (I know you can simulate outlines with the tab key, but the indentation on multi-line bullets is wrong, and you can't drag bullets around like you can in OmniOutliner.)

I keep a set of hardcover notebooks. When I start a new book, my notes always begin on the third page. The first two pages are my table of contents. When ever I take note of something that might be important later, I add it to the table of contents for easy reference.<p>I've actually tried many different software applications, but I've found that when I write something down, I'm forced to think about it a bit, and I remember/learn better. With software, its too easy to just copy, paste, and forget. I'm also a very visual learner. My notebooks are full of diagrams, pictures, arrows and other text annotations. I've yet to find a piece of software that easily lets me do that.

This is somewhat tangential to what you're looking for, but I often get a lot of questions in classes about why I'm never, ever taking notes. It's firstly not quite true and secondly something sometimes difficult for people to understand.<p>I think what people often use notes for is as a surrogate memory. There's a desire to search through them for that one gem which will trigger you to remember all that you once knew. Or worse, it's a search for that part where you can just relive whatever experience you thought should have taught you it the first time, but didn't. To this end we have organizers and smart pens and the like. I might be jaded but they all seem like so many fancy gadgets that all seek to solve a very orthogonal problem.<p>I disagree with the "note taking habit" greatly because I think it's in your best interest to learn instead of memorize. By which I mean that if you're truly studying something, the goal must be to enact some sort of change in parts of your life far beyond just what you can regurgitate. It's starkly contradictory to a lot of what everyone seems to practice in education, and my adherence to it has cost me in graded performance, but it's also placed me far above a lot of my peers in both comprehension and success.<p>My goal when learning is building my own, real mind maps. Every thing I ingest has to be processed, extended, applied, and connected to other things. You have to act, not just listen and listen more than notate.<p>In classes that translates to a lot of questions that go beyond the scope of the material and great conversations with professors (in our own time). In information consumption, it translates to a much slower rate of consumption (helped by a lot of filtration) where action items are not just stored up but actively performed while things are still fresh and exciting.<p>In short, I try to maintain a distaste for what you might call "consumption mode flow". Learning is atomic and it takes effort to decompartmentalize the things you read into real effects in your life. That decompartmentalization is the best notation method possible, though. If you want to remember something important, make sure it rubs up against everything you do every day. If it's not so important, why write it down?<p>(Also, for voting purposes, <i>pen</i> and paper is best. I find this style of thought is aided by not being able to erase.)

I use a personal wiki, with sections for each project, and a todo list and inbox of physical papers organized in the GTD fashion. I use delicious.com extensively to track and tag websites.I keep a small moleskine and pen with me at all times and carry around an iPhone, which syncs my todo list with my computer. As I work, I keep another larger moleskine for each project for transient notes, calculations and thoughts.

I have a script that simply touches a file with filename &#60;timestamp&#62; in a directory and cracks it open in vi. I hashtag things in the files so I can grep them later, and keep all the files in a private repo on github. I used to be about pen and paper, but after filling out eighteen moleskins with semi-useful info in them, keeping them in a searchable format on the computer starts to make a lot more sense.<p>For actually remembering information, note taking is a good first step, but I usually don't keep those notes. To actually assimilate knowledge you've got to to take it in, put it in the context of the rest of your knowledge, contrast it with other things, and ultimately use it to produce something.

I think Evernote is pretty decent for this. I just use the web version, but because of the work I do, I have to read a ton of documents online and usually want to refer to them later. Evernote helps because I can use the web clipper to save whatever I am looking at and then tag it and even write some notes on it. Then later I can fire up the desktop application and go through my notes.<p>I believe the mobile versions allow for hand writing but I've never used them.

Personally, I find it tedious and somewhat pointless to handwrite code. I think the best method of approach is to print out something that you're having trouble on, and highlight certain parts. Then, take those highlighted parts and write in the margins.<p>For organization, I just use Simplenote. Notational Velocity on the Mac + the iPhone app results in a great combination that's always in sync wherever I am.

Pencil and paper is often unbeatable.<p>There is a nice notepaper generator (including source code in Python) made by Simson L. Garfinkel:<p><a href="http://simson.net/notepaper/index.cgi" rel="nofollow">http://simson.net/notepaper/index.cgi</a><p>This is very nifty when you have to take notes and want to have an already prepared format for your notes.

I'd like to highly recommend the Rhodia Meeting Book[1]. The front side of each page is broken up asymmetrically into three sections: a general date/description field, a notes section and an actions section. The back side of each page just has the notes and actions section. The books also come in two sizes: 9"x11.75" and a more svelte 6.5"x8.25" which I personally prefer.<p>I've found the simple division into notes and actions is enough and I can jump back and forth very quickly and clearly between the two of them. In addition, if you think of questions as actions, which 99% of the time they usually are (What types of tchotchkes will my boss appreciate a suitably subtle distance from bonus time?), than you're good to go. The remaining 1% of questions are usually more notes anyway (Am I ever going to be pretty?).<p>Like many preprinted notebooks, it's something that you could easily design yourself. But then people would think you're weird, or worse, poor. And I do find them quite fetching, especially the orange ones. Combined with a nice pen (I'm digging the new Sharpie "pens" that don't bleed through pages[2]) that clips handily into the spiral you have everything you could possibly want to build an empire. At least, that's what it feels like.<p>They're aren't available on Amazon with Prime or free shipping so I actually had to leave my cave and go to a Dick Blick art supply store to get them instead of dealing with some semi-anonymous online retailer.<p>[1] Flickr link: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=rhodia+meeting+book" rel="nofollow">http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=rhodia+meeting+book</a><p>[2] They still kinda bleed through pages, but only sometimes and barely. <a href="http://amzn.to/atbrsg" rel="nofollow">http://amzn.to/atbrsg</a>

I'm trying to get off of still using pen and paper, and have been trying to get used to onenote. I'll agree with others that it's a bit bloated, but:<p>1) I like the possibility that I can freely draw and "whiteboard" in it. I like thinking spatially at times. I typically still do most spatial planning/whiteboarding in excel, but I'm trying to see if I can do the same in onenote<p>2) I plan to eventually retain scanned docs with it (it has ocr searching like evernote). This also means I could just pen and paper for notes, then take a picture with em and OCR em in.<p>3) the sidenote feature seems really cool, just hit Windows+N wherever you are to type down something. It's a small step towards pervasive note-taking.<p>I haven't tried mobilenoter/other syncing interfaces with it yet. I'm also looking at org-mode as an alterative, not sure.<p>Things I hate about onenote: it doesn't have the freeform tagging infrastructure evernote has, and is too obsessed with trying to feel like a physical notebook. That said, evernote seems too oriented towards capturing outside information and less focused on one's own thoughts.<p>If onenote had a good delicious-like tagging experience for web bookmarks, I'd probably be sold on it.

I'm in college at the moment, taking a "Computer Systems" course. The last project involved reading a disassembled "bomb" and "defusing" it by figuring out what inputs it wanted.<p>Like danilocampos said, the solid state notes were the key. Having a physical copy of what was on the stack and watching it change made the assignment so much easier.

Nothing beats pen and paper for speed, efficiency, portability , usability, economy, and ease of use.<p>Having said that my backup tool for more complex information, that is shareable, backed-up, and potentially contributable by others is my own personal wiki hosted on my own domain. Dokuwiki I recommend for ease of installation and use.

I use delicious to bookmark the articles, and put in a snippet of the article that helps me remember what it was about.<p>With books, I use sticky colored tabs to call attention to important pages (instead of dogearing the pages) and a highlighter to mark up important paragraphs, with notes in the side if need be.

As a fellow HN reader, I'd tell you to check out our app CourseNotes, <a href="http://www.coursenotesapp.com" rel="nofollow">http://www.coursenotesapp.com</a>, though it's aimed at students, and isn't generally intended for handwritten notes.<p>Oops, that doesn't sound convincing -- guess I'm just awful at sales.

I used to email myself links to articles and HN discussions...which got totally lost in the avalanche of email my inbox gets. I started a posterous account so I could email myself stuff like that and actually have some hope of finding it again. If I want to add some kind of commentary (aka "notes" to myself), I can add it to the email before hitting 'send'. Most of the time though, I just put in a title and link to the article and/or HN discussion -- and sometimes other specific things that led to which I want available and grouped with this stuff.<p>I'm sure there is lots of room for improvement over that. But, so far, for me, that's a huge improvement over my previous method.<p>Good luck with this.

I've also been an avid reader forever and I've started feeling like Gloria from White Men Can't Jump, " I'm filled with more useless goddamn information than any human being on this fucking planet!" so now I do what I (rather grandiosely) call Rapid Prototype Reading. I read until I hit an item that I can act on in some way and I stop and either use the info or practice "doing" the item. So even if I don't finish reading I still get memorable value from it.<p>I also use a digital tape recorder that i re-listen to at random times for general interesting info. And sometimes call my Google phone and let them transcribe to email.

There are two tools that I really like -- Zotero does a great job of organizing references, keeping related things together, and has a decent search capability. The target audience is academia, but it works just as well for other kinds of use cases. I also keep a personal wiki running on my laptop to take down notes and organize my thoughts. I've tried a bunch of them and Confluence from Atlassian is my favorite. It has the ability to embed all kinds of different media and it's $10. Xwiki is pretty good too.<p>edit: bad grammar :)

All of the comments here seem to be about which tools are used to take notes. That's an interesting part of the problem, and it may be what the OP was looking for, but I'm more interested in finding out which notes you keep and how you organize them and use them later than what format or tool they're stored in. When you're reading or learning something, when do you stop and think "I should make a note of that"?

I use mindmapping each time a subject needs a bit of attention (ie: preparing a phone call, keeping the history and overview on a project, etc).

<i>I spend a lot of time consuming information (HN, books, blogs, Mixergy interviews and Twitter) but have nothing to show for it.</i><p>How you take notes doesn't really matter much (you will develop and refine your own style over time) but, I hate to say it, most of that stuff you listed is superficial. It can be fun but it is mostly valueless.<p>Books, academic papers, and face-to-face time with experts are really the only way to gain deep interconnected knowledge. Read a book, take notes, read the book's wikipedia page (I actually do this before I read the book), follow the wikipedia references, look for other analyses online, start working through each of the book's "works cited", rinse, repeat.<p>Information fed to you (rss, twitter, social news, etc) is not super relevant or deep and comes with a ton of distractions. You have to have to have a focus and actively seek out the most relevant and most valuable information.

I use vim. Markdown anybody? HTML would make some cool notes... You can edit text files on anything :-)

Some notes about Note-taking:<p>Write it down<p>- 1. "copying" the information<p>- 2. using your own words<p>1. is great for storing information,<p>2. is better for <i>learning</i> (and recall) !<p>Spending all your time in class doing 1. is often a waste of time (lecturer should provide handouts instead).<p>"Never memorize what you can look up in books" - Albert Einstein<p>Having an "extra copy of your books" written down in your notes is not very useful - write a summary and your understanding instead.<p>A personal wiki can be a great tool (as an alternative to Evernote and OneNote):<p>- Tiddlywiki is very simple, mediawiki is very powerful, PpcSoft iKnow is personal Wysiwyg wiki (with automatic linking and storing the data in plaintext "markdown")<p>About Pen and paper<p>- "Nothing beats pen and paper for speed, efficiency, portability , usability, economy, and ease of use."<p>- However, it sucks when it comes to editing, re-organizing, copying, sharing and <i>re-finding</i><p>(Disclaimer: I'm the founder of PpcSoft)

Creating a Mindmap is what works best for me.<p>I started on paper, but there are superb pieces of software for this as well.<p>iThoughts HD on iPad is excellent. Not sure if they have a desktop client. If desktop is a requirement then check out MindNode which is also very good.

I use Tracks the Rails app for Todo lists GTD-style<p>I use plaintext files edited with VIM for web-related notes, and organizing thoughts.<p>And finally I use a LiveScribe digital pen for lecture notes and jotting things down while reading printed papers &#38; books.

I use a wide variety of apps to take notes, but the majority of my notes end up in OneNote or Evernote. OneNote is best for rich notes that include a lot of content (college lecture notes especially), while Evernote is better for info snippets.<p>That said, my favorite tool for saving information is 37signals Backpack. I currently use the free version, which is nice but limiting, but upgrading is rather expensive. I'd love a self-hosted alternative that was cheaper if anyone has any ideas ... but it would need to work as nice as Backpack (drag and drop sections of pages is especially nice).

If your primary interest is in maximizing the amount of information you remember, I suggest you look into Spaced Repetition software like SuperMemo, Mnemosyne or Anki ("<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition</a>). These are online flashcard programs that adjust the amount of time between presentations, so that you see the concepts you're having problems with more frequently than the stuff you've got solidly locked into your memory.

I rarely take notes on anything I read, however, I will often write a reaction to something I read because of the ideas the material sparks (eg. this reply).<p>I also write when I listen to a speaker and often that writing is more notelike. I find the process of taking notes tends to cause me to pay attention to what the speaker is saying and thereby increase my retention. It also gives me the opportunity to doodle should the speaker be boring.

For myself, I tend to use OneNote. Not because I'm an MS fanboy, but because it allows me to keybind WinKey+S to capture one section of the screen and sends it to the clipboard. Most of the time I'm attending webinars with lengthy powerpoints, so doing that lets me pull the salient information out and type out relevant notes next to my partial screenshots. Then it's just subdividing into tabs and subtabs.

I use a program I created called ClueMe (<a href="http://www.clueme.no" rel="nofollow">http://www.clueme.no</a>). If I want to remember something I create a question or a note and add it to a list. Every day I repeat five to ten questions/notes. Works for me. I havent done a complete english translation, but will some day.

I use google docs primarily because it's easy to share with others and because I frequently need to use spreadsheets.

I have a sweet note/reference pipeline yet I don't get much accomplished afterwards.

Notes: Plain text. Markdown format. In SCM. Filesystem is the organization format. Don't have this syncing with iOS, but haven't felt the need.<p>Todos/Questions/Action Items: Plain text, into OmniFocus, via Quicksilver. Syncs with iOS.

C.f Lion Kimbro's free Ebook "How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought you Think" <a href="http://www.speakeasy.org/~lion/nb/" rel="nofollow">http://www.speakeasy.org/~lion/nb/</a>

Notes: plain text, synced with Dropbox. Personally I use PlainText and 1Password on iPhone/iPad.<p><a href="https://www.dropbox.com/apps" rel="nofollow">https://www.dropbox.com/apps</a>

Nytimes has a recent article about Livescribe and some more general points on note taking. <a href="http://nyti.ms/aW0qKA" rel="nofollow">http://nyti.ms/aW0qKA</a>

I made and use Chapters for iPad. Not as fluid as pencil and paper, but I don't lose things and can search for things I vaguely remember.

Some good tips here.<p><a href="http://calnewport.com/blog/category/tips-notetaking/" rel="nofollow">http://calnewport.com/blog/category/tips-notetaking/</a>

vim notes.txt

Paper and pen..

Outliner<p>Anki

Evernote ?

computer: freemind // paper: sticky notes, but, they get hopelessly lost

OneNote. Amazing tool.

Like (it seems) most other here, I use text on paper. I write notes hierarchically, (sub)headings etc. Note that YMMV. How people remember stuff varies -- writing is how I learn.<p>I do the same when planning/thinking (code, todo, what to pack for a trip, etc).<p>I need the pen/paper because they "disappear" and don't take attention from my thoughts. It was like that all my life, until I read the rave reviews and learned Org mode in Emacs.<p>First, I thought "This was stupid. I've put lots of hours into learning Org mode; it would be minutes for a GUI app." Then I realized that I jotted down notes in Org mode as easily as when taking notes on paper! A <i>big</i> win, e.g. for backups and search.<p>Still, I must write notes on paper to <i>remember</i> facts. Org mode only works for organizing and exploring thoughts. (Too many years with a pen, probably.)<p>Edit: I might add: For me, the single most helpful thing to learn is to disconnect from the net.