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

I tended to be in the top of the classes I was in and as far as I&#x27;ve seen my method was somewhat different.<p>I also only take notes on paper, but more importantly, I throw all my notes out as soon as I finish writing them.<p>For me studying is the act of writing the notes. The purpose of notes was never to read them later. That&#x27;s why writing on paper is important to me. It&#x27;s not about the qualities and convenience of the storage medium. It&#x27;s about the experience of writing itself that makes me dislike digital notes.<p>When it&#x27;s time for exams I go back to the primary source, whether it&#x27;s a text book, lectures, or handouts, and I write a new set of notes. I throw those out when I&#x27;m done also.<p>You might think it&#x27;s inefficient, which it is only in terms of ink and paper. In terms of time and effort, at least for me personally, the act of putting pen on sheet is 10x as effective as reading in building comprehension and retention. From anecdotal observation, I get done in a few hours of taking new notes what my classmates do in days of binge reading.

I&#x27;m 53 and work in IT for a &#x27;funky&#x27; learning&#x2F;media company, ranking among the seniors in both age and position.<p>I have a customised Cornell Notes* Word doc template, and I run off batches of 5-10 sheets to take to meetings and training sessions. My colleagues typically turn up with their tablets, surfaces, laptops, phones and &#x27;multitask&#x27;, however a few have started to adopt my method - it&#x27;s been particularly useful for client meetings where I have been able to later confirm sub-points or asides mentioned by customers - sometimes months later. It&#x27;s also very easy to drill down through Quarterly reviews and link chains of historic comments &#x27;on the fly&#x27; - for example, being able to confirm that so-and-so first mentioned something about a similar technical issue on a different system 12 months ago.<p>My &#x27;Cornell&#x27; style has developed an element of mindmapping on the pages, which makes it easy to track conversations or sections of meetings that break off into side discussions&#x2F;brainstorming.<p>The biggest benefit is that the structure of all notes is consistent, so not only can I find things very quickly, but others can interpret them too - this is a particularly powerful way to allow teams to share, compare and <i>understand</i> someone else&#x27;s notes, even months after the meeting or training took place.<p>Edit: I also believe it looks very professional in customer meetings when everyone from the same business is taking notes in a similar way, using identical stationery.<p>I&#x27;ve been working this way since the mid 1990s and find it beats all forms of tech.<p><i><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cornell_Notes" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cornell_Notes</a><p></i><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lsc.cornell.edu&#x2F;notes.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;lsc.cornell.edu&#x2F;notes.html</a>

Sounds like the <i>actual</i> learning secret is &quot;don&#x27;t take verbatim notes&quot;, and the only relevance of the laptop is that it makes it much easier to take verbatim notes. I&#x27;ve pretty much only ever taken notes with a laptop, but I <i>always</i> take notes in the &quot;digest and summarize&quot; style, never recording the speaker&#x27;s words verbatim, and it&#x27;s worked great for me. (It wasn&#x27;t a conscious decision; it&#x27;s just how I take notes.)

In lectures, note-taking at all should be avoided, most of the time.<p>Most lectures cover material that is presented very clearly in accompanying materials, books or the internet. The idea I could do a better job than those authors while listening to the stuff for the first time is ludicrous. And at least for me it doesn&#x27;t help recollection or focus to write notes while listening, and many students report they can take notes without the information passing through their brains. Other people swear they have to take notes to focus.<p>There are exceptions of course, for example if the information is new and any other available material is worthless.

My current (digital) handwritten note setup:<p>- iPad Pro with (Gen 1 :sadface:) Apple Pencil.<p>- Screen protector that gives a significant amount of friction to the screen so that it feels closer to paper. [1]<p>- Goodnotes 5 or Notability (I use both--depends on the circumstances). [2]<p>- A rule: iPad is solely a reading&#x2F;studying&#x2F;note-taking device. No keyboard, no social media apps.<p>- Bonus: Twelve South BookBook case.<p>[1] ClearView Paper-Like Screen Protecter for Apple iPad Pro 12.9-inch (2015&#x2F;2017) [Made in Japan]<p>[2] I generally prefer GoodNotes over Notability, however, Notability has side-by-side notes and recording. These features are supposedly in the pipeline for GoodNotes, but have yet to materialize. GoodNotes handles large PDFs better (Notability crashes). They both have passable desktop clients for quick cmd+F searching of handwritten notes.

Thank goodness I learned this freshmen year in college, also the first time I was allowed a laptop in class. I starting taking notes with pen and paper as soon as I could write fast enough. I was successful in school, and I really think a large part of it was recording so many notes. I noticed that many classmates that stayed on laptops often were bad students. And the times I did take my laptop to class I was worse for it.<p>This article aligns with most of why I thought note taking was good. It definitely has a mechanical nature that typing just doesn&#x27;t match. Also you don&#x27;t want notes that are just transcription, you want your own thoughts recorded on the page. Something I think they missed though was diagrams. Typing may result in a perfect transcription, but most lectures contain a visual component. Being able to quickly copy a graph or diagram is extremely useful. When taking notes via typing, there is no good way to do that without a touch screen and some skill. I&#x27;m much more likely to remember a diagram I drew than one I looked at.<p>I love how they gloss over the internet connectivity portion, but I also find that to be a huge component in reality. Sometimes I need to &quot;space off&quot; for a few seconds to digest an idea. When taking paper notes, I end up doodling boxes or lines. When typing, I inevitably get distracted by some shiny thing designed to steal my attention.<p>I do note in the workplace who brings paper and who brings a laptop to a meeting. Sometimes you need a laptop to present or look up information. But if you are solely there to listen, people who bring paper pay the most attention.

I&#x27;ve never been fond of note taking in general, I found that I retain the most knowledge when actually trying to make an effort to listen, and actively trying to conceptualize everything mentally while the teacher is talking, instead of occupying myself with writing notes.

My issue with this has always been that my longhand is terrible, and writing under pressure makes it worse.<p>Longhand notes (which I do frequently for the RPGs I run, so practice isnt the issue) are nigh unreadable. I literally have dozens of notebooks (not full, but at least 30 - 50 pages each is pretty common ) of notes I struggle to read and organize.<p>Being able to write with speed and br able to read them is why an elementary school teacher recommended that I try using a computer to write on back before laptops were a thing, and it remains a big reason I rely on them for work notes now.

I was physics&#x2F;CS undergrad and did very well academically. I didn&#x27;t really take notes much though. The strategy that worked for me was to read the book ahead of time, then the lectures were more to help digest material I was already familiar with. And for those giant auditorium-sized lecture classes, I just skipped class completely and only read the book. In fact I found taking notes to be distracting - how can I pay attention when I&#x27;m trying to copy everything down?

The article mentioned that one of the problems is too verbatim taking of notes on laptops. A friend who works as a translator mentioned that when she translated a conversation, she could not remember any details of what she translated afterwards. Yet after translating an article or technical documents, she learned a lot on the subject. The difference for her is that translating a conversation is mechanical verbatim process, translating an article requires conscious efforts.

I frequently still use notepads for notes, I find it actually helps me retain information.<p>Additionally, when reviewing shortly after a meeting, I find that I can better suss out the truly important action items. Especially if things need to be delegated.<p>This isn’t to say I never take notes on my computer. (Notepad++ is wonderful for this), but I find the physical note taking to be incredibly beneficial for organization of information.<p>Additionally, there may still be a certain social impact where people feel that you’re “paying attention” when taking notes on a physical pad, vs they feel they’ve “lost your attention” the second you start to type away on a device.

Here is what I discovered in my experience if this helps someone, completely anecdotal.<p><i>Paper vs Computer</i><p>1. Paper:<p><pre><code> - Ability to spread things out, to take stock of a big project, simultaneous refer back, draw between two pages etc. - Faster draw diagrams etc, partially fixed, see article about thing student who used latex&#x2F;inkscape to draw. - Faster to connect up different ideas. </code></pre> 2. Computer:<p><pre><code> - Search: When I need to go back to find that idea (&#x27;keyword&#x27;), when you have hundreds of sheets is super easy. - Faster to type. - Easier to organize, I just copy paste and create folders etc. I use Latex and org-mode. </code></pre> <i>Few Tips</i><p>1. Cornell&#x27;esque techniques definitely help when revising and organizing.<p>2. Taking some notes actually helps you to focus better. Reduces random day dreaming, skipping crucial info (which leads to rest of lecture&#x2F;meeting being harder to understand) etc.<p>3. Take condensed notes gives me time to listen and makes short notes.<p>4. But especially in Math related areas, there is no way to assimilate information in one sitting. I often used to hear a random English sentence, only to later realize that some word there had a specific mathematical meaning and it had much deeper meaning than I initially understood. Over-simplified example, xyz is a group. Group here being group theoretic group.<p>5. Video Recordings of classes and reviewing them and then scribing watching the videos helps a lot, esp for the likes of Advanced CS&#x2F;EE courses.<p>6. Writing is learning, verification and long term information storage at the same time. One of my advisors once told me, when I asked him how do you store so much information about various papers etc, &quot;Thats why I wrote that book&quot;.

I used a Wacom Bamboo Spark[1] during my Post-grad and am really impressed by it. You write on regular paper using a special pen (ball pen) and the notes get synced to their app called Inkspace. Your own hand-writing , regular paper. No dependency on Livescribe refills or special papers. FWIW, I explored iPad + Pencil but it was too costly for my needs in 2017.<p>[1]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.in&#x2F;Wacom-Bamboo-Digitizer-Tablet-CDS-600P&#x2F;dp&#x2F;B010PKT5U0&#x2F;ref=sr_1_5?crid=YSNG9JB4VZJ8&amp;keywords=bamboo+spark+wacom&amp;qid=1561442315&amp;s=gateway&amp;sprefix=bamboo+spark%2Caps%2C281&amp;sr=8-5" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.in&#x2F;Wacom-Bamboo-Digitizer-Tablet-CDS-600P...</a>

I never took notes. It mildly disturbed my high school teachers, and greatly disturbed my college professors. Until the first tests&#x2F;grades, when I did fine. Then they realized that I was actually listening, and getting the concepts. As the article said, the cognitive processing is what matter more than the actual notes you take.<p>Now I fully admit that if I had taken notes, I may have been an A student instead of a B student. But I just found the note-taking process to be a distraction from listening.

This is actually something that I&#x27;ve been saying about myself for years - which I discovered through my own observations when I was in high school.<p>Long story short, I was in a &quot;dual-enrollment&quot; program which allowed me to take classes at a local college at night while going to high school during the day. I was able to graduate high school with over 30 college credits. One of the courses I took was psychology 101. I didn&#x27;t particularly like this course (just wasn&#x27;t interested compared to other subjects) and I ended up goofing off most of the time taking some notes on my laptop&#x2F;iPad.<p>Needless to say, this affected my grades and I was at risk of failing the course. In order to study for the final, I ended up going through the book and taking notes of key terms and concepts - writing them down. I was able to get a real understanding of the content and ended up getting 100% on the exam and passing the course.<p>My lesson; my personal comprehension goes way up when I physically write things down. Now I keep a notebook that I use every day (a bullet journal). In many cases, I duplicate what I&#x27;m doing in my project management systems, but I am able to visualize what I need to do much more efficiently.

This is actually not true for me. I recently entered medical school after 20 years being a programmer. I find that typing notes while listening to the lecture is best for me. Then after I return home, I re-read the notes and retype it again without referencing it to see how much i remember.<p>I tried writing my notes by hand but I found it too distracting. I write decently fast but I find myself missing the points of the lecture because I am trying to remember them in order to write them.<p>For me typing my notes is more convenient and not distracting at all since I&#x27;m a fast typist and the act of typing is instinctive for me. I find typing allows me to concentrate on the lecture by listening and yet being able to put the lecture points in writing fast enough.<p>I tested both methods prior to one of my midterm exams, I get a much higher grade on the subjects where I listen to the lectures while typing my notes than on the ones I listen to while writing by hand. Most of my exams are 2-3 hr handwritten essays.

I&#x27;ve heard students about using 1 shared google doc where the &quot;multiplay&quot; with their notes, so that they all chip in and even elaborate on certain questions.

Or better: take classes where they e-mail you the slides afterward. Taking notes is archaic.<p>Just my personal experience, but taking notes was always horrible for me -- as my brain was busy trying to think &quot;how do I write this down in a way that will make sense&quot; as the article suggests, I was <i>missing</i> the next few sentences from the lecturer and getting progressively more lost.<p>And when the lecturer is making a point, it&#x27;s not always clear until <i>later</i> whether it was an irrelevant tangent or a main element that will be on the test later.<p>Taking notes <i>in class</i> distracts from effort that could be better spent learning and comprehending.<p>On the other hand, taking slides from classes and transforming them into your personal notes and study guide at your own pace -- <i>that&#x27;s</i> immensely valuable.

(FYI -- article is from 2014 -- I was wondering why this was being studied again, when it seemed well established, both anecdotally and in literature).<p>Anytime I took notes by typing, I&#x27;d forget it seconds after finishing. But writing by hand forced me to think about what I was writing. The only thing that trumped that in cementing my understanding was actually having to explain what I learned to my classmates&#x2F;peers.<p>I wonder how recall from writing compares to typing out flashcards (e.g. Anki) and then using spaced repetition techniques to memorize concepts.

I probably think this is true for school, that using laptops is not as productive for taking notes, but I didn&#x27;t find writing down notes on paper in classes particularly pleasant either.<p>Past my school life into employment life, the situation is much different. I take digital notes on many tasks, I search through them like in a database when I need to recall something. I don&#x27;t get distracted for note taking in environments that sitting through long lectures encourage. I still take notes on paper sometimes, but write a lot less down.

I&#x27;m actually looking to switch to digital from handwritten notes. Just need to find a (phone) app that lets me write and take photos for diagrams at the same time (anybody know any good ones?) instead of having to be switching between the notes and the camera. I&#x27;ve done handwritten notes for years but they have several problems for me: they get lost, i end up with notes scattered across whatever pieces of paper where closest to me, my fast handwriting is awful and i can&#x27;t read it after some time, they end up getting &quot;transcribed&quot; anyways (which takes a long time).<p>Usually my workflow is: take notes, if I can avoid things I know are in the book, I will, then a week or so before exams I&#x27;ll read everything (book+notes_ and make flashcards in Anki. I know I can do 25 pages (of a book) a day comfortably so I&#x27;ll time it appropriately. Then I proceed to cram for a day or two until I can realiably do the whole deck with ease. This usually takes me less time (1&#x2F;2 usually) than the reading&#x2F;making hence why I want to switch to digital notes, to avoid a step. Most of the material that&#x27;s tested for usually doesn&#x27;t need to be memorized, which irritates me to know end, but what can I do. So I cram so I can promptly forget.<p>I find concepts are either understood or not understood, they do not need to be memorized. Things that are usually tested for (at least where I live &#x2F; for what I&#x27;m studying) tend to be facts&#x2F;procedures. At the end of the year I extract these from my notes &#x2F; anki cards for future reference.<p>One other thing I do is the flashcards are written exactly how I will answer the question 90% of the time, sometimes in my own words, sometimes extracted right from the book. Before when I studied in English I didn&#x27;t do this because I&#x27;m comfortable with the language, but because I&#x27;m studying in another language now, often the wording is the hardest part (also in part why reading takes me so long). This way I don&#x27;t have to worry about that. Also this makes exams go lightning fast. I&#x27;m always first to leave.

Okay, so I started an MS (OMSCS) a couple years ago, and I had to relearn now to study. So I&#x27;ve gone through this process recently.<p>So far I&#x27;ve managed to get usually the top score or very close to the top on all my exams across 5 classes. In my most recent class I got the top score of 96 on an exam where the median was in the 60s.<p>All I do is take hand written notes (albeit digitally on an ipad) during lectures. Then before the exam, I review my notes. That&#x27;s it! My recall with this approach has been great.<p>I admit though, having the lecture videos online is a massive help for this method. I watch at 1.5x and frequently pause it if I miss something, or re-watch a section if I didn&#x27;t understand it the first time - then take my notes. I always had trouble with real-time lectures in my undergrad.

I took notes on my laptop using OneNote - far better than Microsoft Word.<p>I used color for headings. Added bullets and numbers even when it wasn&#x27;t dictated that way. Added acronyms - mnemonics to the headings. Marked out filler content while writing or immediately after class. Summarized, rewrote important parts in my own words. Marked areas where I&#x27;d have to reproduce verbatim.<p>Finally, for exams, I read using my Nook eBook reader instead of the laptop because: The glossy screen is tiring. And there are many distractions on my laptop - browser, games, movies...<p>Finally, while reading, I actively set questions and answered them after reading. This question method&#x27;s far better than re-reading multiple times.<p>With all these, five hours was all I needed for a semester&#x27;s worth of work.

Pro-tip: if you are like me, never take note and divert all your attention to the lesson.<p>Getting copies of notes or reading the actual book can easily replace any note taking. Being distracted from the actual explanation because I&#x27;m using my attention to write, is a net loss.

I am curious if this applies to the workforce. I spend a lot of time in meetings taking notes using OneNote. Some colleagues use Evernote, while others use pen and paper. Then there are some that take no notes at all.<p>Yet, when we discuss things the next week (weekly meetings are common where I work), some people seem to not remember anything about the prior week&#x27;s meeting.<p>I use my laptop to quickly look up last week&#x27;s notes and reference those while discussing weekly progress. Others do OK with one or two subjects (from memory), but lack detail or flat out do not recall other discussion points.

I did both, wrote and typed, and wrote on my iPad pro with the stylus. The best results I got when taking notes and studying on real paper. I believe the cognition&#x2F;perception bias comes from the unnaturally glowing panels and the lack of complex haptic feedback like that of a rolling pen or scratching. Any indirect input that comes combined with the visually perceived knowledge makes memorizing more effective, I guess. Glowing visuals are less comfortable for me, perhaps they overload the eyes in a way. Reading on actual paper feels less &quot;heavy&quot;.

I still use a paper notebook at work to track my day to day action items. It feels so gratifying when you simply check a task as complete. I tried using a tablet for that matter, I just felt like I ignored my action items as it felt they were out of reach. I have to always look for them in the tablet, when in the paper the page is looking at me without me have to look for it.<p>In addition, I work in secure labs and electronics are a big NO, notebook on the other hand it simply works. My 2c. Pen and paper it is still relevant and it always will be.

Going against what seems to be the prevailing thought in this thread. Here&#x27;s why and how I take notes primarily on a laptop.<p>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&#x2F;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.<p>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 ⌘↓ &gt; ↩ to add an item line to this section.<p>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.<p>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.<p>Furthermore, I&#x27;m the type that really values immediately looking up unfamiliar referenced concepts&#x2F;ideas so I don&#x27;t misunderstand what&#x2F;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.<p>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.<p>Most importantly my handwriting is bogus. I really couldn&#x27;t do it any other way.

Sometimes I feel like I&#x27;m forced to take verbatim notes on my computer, even though I know that&#x27;s bad for my learning.<p>Specifically, I&#x27;m reading a very detailed textbook on databases. I feel that if I don&#x27;t take notes I will forget most of the content in the textbook because the textbook is so information dense, but at the same time, whenever I take notes they end up being word-for-word copies of the text because the textbook is already so concise&#x2F;word-efficient.

I did my final year of college three years after my first three years. In the first three years I took paper notes and got terrible grades. In the fourth year I used a laptop. The laptop however was not great, so it had no internet and I just used a full screen editor window to take notes, so no distractions, and no verbatim writing because I couldn&#x27;t type that quickly.<p>Everyone learns differently. You just have to find what works for you. But no internet is key.

When I take notes I take them with a laptop precisely because of the increased speed it provides. Usually I find that note taking in general is actually counter productive because it diverts my attention away from the lecture. As a result I want the note taking process to have a low cognitive burden so I don&#x27;t miss what my instructor is saying.<p>I usually use Emacs Org-mode for my note taking and then refactor my notes once class is over.

In person, taking notes on paper always works better for me. And when I’m on the computer (Zoom conference or Skype), notes on the computer feels more natural.

I would always take notes on paper as others have said as I think it helps with retention, at least for me.<p>Even then I would only take notes of equations to memorise them and things that the lecturers said that were even not explained properly or absent in the handouts&#x2F;slides. At my university there were recordings of the lectures but I was too lazy&#x2F;didn&#x27;t want to waste my time looking up exactly what they said.

What worked best for me in school was longhand notes and then nightly typing the notes up. (Though I seldom revised the notes the same night or week.) For finals I would spend a lot of time revising my notes and comparing notes with my friends. I found that my friends who had taken notes on their laptops had more notes, but it was exceedingly rare I actually missed anything important.

Any good suggestion for a handwriting to digital transcription workflow? I&#x27;m peripherally aware of specialized notepads that do this, but don&#x27;t know how well they work. I guess scanning paper notes for conversion would be another option. Having a searchable, org-mode integrated record that can include diagrams would be awesome. Is OCR for cursive writing pretty reliable?

But in the age of fast. Seems like going slow and putting more effort into hand writing notes pays off in learning. As a side note analogy if you drive via GPS you will not remember they way as easy if you drive without via analogue map.<p>How about if you take notes on laptop put that into spaced repetition software like Anki &amp; Supermemo compared to hand written notes memory retention?

I would think writing in itself is not the key, rather the effort to take the note itself in how it creates stronger connections to form clearer memories. If you had a laptop and had to create diagrams in software describing the lesson, I would have to believe this would be at least as effective if not more if it engaged more of your brain to accomplish this.

For me the best way to take notes in lectures is&#x2F;was a Boogie Board Sync which is sadly not available any more.<p>It is the best of both worlds. You basically have a zero latency touchscreen that can save your notes to PDF.<p>Even the best Tablets today have latency, most are designed more as touchscreen. Writing gets tiring and distracting really quick.<p>I wonder why the Boogie Board Sync was discontinued.

For me the best was using a Surface and One Note. It allowed me to load the slides right into One Note, and write notes right on top of them. Hand written if necessary, but preferably typed for legibility.<p>Now, this isn&#x27;t without issues, as being on a computer allows for easier distractions. But as long as one stays focused on the class, it can work quite well.

I&#x27;m trying to get into the habit of writing messy mindmaps, then redrawing those as a process to understanding the material. One single glance at a Mindmap a week later and I reactivate the concepts and understanding. Especially important for building internal context (how the components relate to each other)

Just picked up a &quot;livescribe&quot; echo from eBay for $30. I don&#x27;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&#x27;ll see how it goes.

I usually take notes on paper as well.<p>Then I either scan them directly to PDF or take to effort to re-write them, if the information is to be better structured or shared with others.<p>Besides all the benefits mentioned by others, it is also a good way to rest my wrists from just typing.

&gt; high verbatim note content was associated with lower retention of the lecture material. I think this a key finding&#x2F;point. And other connotation to this idea would be that, whatever you learn, write them down in your words.

I honestly never believed that digital devices are good to take notes, especially if you have to reflect them. Digital devices distract you on so many levels, it is hard to believe people even started doing it.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sequoia.makes.software&#x2F;conference-tips&#x2F;#-take-notes-on-paper" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;sequoia.makes.software&#x2F;conference-tips&#x2F;#-take-notes-...</a><p>d:o)

another learning secret: take courses where the teacher gives you printed notes of the content he will present, and write down the occasional comment&#x2F;clarification during class.

<i>Moreover, high verbatim note content was associated with lower retention of the lecture material. It appears that students who use laptops can take notes in a fairly mindless, rote fashion, with little analysis or synthesis by the brain. This kind of shallow transcription fails to promote a meaningful understanding or application of the information.</i><p>The study sort of assumes that taking notes at all is necessary, but I think the conceptual understanding vs. rote memorization idea suggests that taking notes should be questionable also.<p>Jordan Peterson has 3 minutes of advice for taking notes conceptually rather than verbatim: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;lMvvdz7YJ-Q" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;lMvvdz7YJ-Q</a><p>I take notes in text files every day. I do it for work, I do it for exercise, I do it for cooking and grocery shopping, I do it for planning my day, I do it for self improvement.<p>Writing it out is the simplest form of explanation - I&#x27;m explaining the concept to myself. I&#x27;m analyzing it to make sure I don&#x27;t have any logical holes in my thinking, and then I can refer back to it. If I try to explain the concept to another person, and they point out a logical hole or they otherwise can&#x27;t grasp the point, I go back to my text file and try to find the missing pieces and add them in.<p>I like this because I always have the concept at the ready. Maybe I don&#x27;t encounter the topic for a few months or years, and I go back and read the text file on the topic and it&#x27;s like the neurons organized around the topic all come to life again - but the best part is that there are all these new neurons that I&#x27;ve picked up that apply to it, and the text file gets a little bigger.<p>It also helps me compartmentalize. Once I&#x27;ve written something into digital stone, I can switch contexts knowing I&#x27;ve pushed the concept as far as my mind can take it for the moment. Later, I can come back and pick up where I left off after my subconscious has had time to chew on it.

If we assume 1) taking notes with a computer is faster (not always the case), 2) lecture time is limited (i.e. fast paced, not recorded), 3) abundant time after to review notes, then taking notes with a computer is usually better.<p>You are only presented the information once. There is a reason stenographers record court and lectures. I prefer to handwrite notes on my own time, sometimes twice or three times, for my final copy I study from. If you are smarter than me, you can get away with less notes (or get them from me).<p>In business meetings if you frantically record every detail, people think you might be a lawyer so this may not apply.

I&#x27;m not surprised. Besides, if your note formatting requires the tiniest bit more than linear ASCII, any computerized interface will be a big let-down.

I took a bunch of notes on my laptop, but never used any of them in studying for finals. I just used other people&#x27;s outlines.

I wonder if this holds up for those that grow up only typing.<p>It might because writing makes you slow down a bit. But would be interesting to see.

Does anyone know if there is data on the effectiveness of handwriting on paper, versus a tablet, e.g. the reMarkable?

I&#x27;m not sure that this study means that one should not take notes with a laptop (as the article&#x27;s title would suggest). Everyone works differently: just because there is an average tendency for people to perform better when taking notes by hand, doesn&#x27;t mean that you shouldn&#x27;t use a laptop if your own experience shows that it works better for you.

The only notes I take are questions I want to pose to the speaker. The rest happens in my head.

So, the actual issue is that transcription doesn&#x27;t correlate with retention, and people who type tend to fall into the trap of transcription more easily.<p>There&#x27;s nothing wrong or inferior about taking notes with a computer vs a notepad so long as you&#x27;re not transcribing.<p>But, &quot;Don&#x27;t take notes with a laptop&quot; is punchier.

<i>How I&#x27;m able to take notes in mathematics lectures using LaTeX and Vim</i> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19448678" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=19448678</a>

My learning secret is don&#x27;t take notes, ever.

What if I want to take notes but not contribute to deforestation and issues with the environmental impact of using paper in 2019?