The Art of Note-taking

High School teaches you a lot: who to befriend; how to adjust your books (definitely weighing less than a feather) in the astonishingly, unrealistically gracious space of your dearest school bag; the importance of handmade notes.

Bingo. Here's my point. Notes. Why are they even important when everything is literally in the textbooks? Wouldn’t it be a waste of paper? Notes are anything, anything, but a wastage of paper. From enhancing memory to making revision a piece of cake, notes have a myriad of advantages.

Now, I’m not the best at giving top tier advice, but as a note-taking enthusiast (since 6th grade), here are a few tips and tricks that I follow while in the middle of a lecture or class.

Coming to my first advice, avoid writing big chunky paragraphs of complex information together. Does your textbook make you sleepy? I bet it does. Ever pondered about the cause? Well, I blame those atrociously gigantic paragraphs of knowledge. Your brain probably takes one look at the lengthy material about, let’s say, ‘The Big Bang Theory’ and says,

“Yeah, we ain’t doing this, buddy. Not today. Maybe some other day.”

Here’s the undeniable fact: that day will never come, not until it’s way too late.

When it comes to topics with intricate details, ensure that you use a method which makes it way for you to grasp the particular concept. These methods can be using flowcharts (if a series of steps are involved) or, my personal favourite, using bullet points. You can use different shapes for categorizing information, for example, stars for important points, dots for supporting points, squares for extra information, etc.

Secondly, you, in most cases (unfortunately), will not have all the time in the world to write complete sentences. Framing full sentences takes time, and this time is essential for you to note anything you find vital. Not using this time can lead to problems like missing out on key points and catching up on incomplete data (the worst kind of problem). To make sure you’re swift enough to jot down all the information, use abbreviations and symbols. However, make sure to use them in such a way that you can understand what you’ve written.

We’re all painfully aware of the fact that life is not all sunshines and rainbows, so who says your notebook has to be? I know how aesthetically pleasing those sample notes pictures can look on Pinterest. However, here comes my final advice. Am I saying “Do not waste your time decorating your notebook, making it all pretty”? No. What I’m saying is “Do not dedicate most of your time, during lectures or classes, to making your notes look good”. To sum it up:

Time spent on revising notes > time spent on beautifying.

My point is, if you don’t take notes in the first place, what will you even glorify with flamboyant colours? I suggest utilising the class time for jotting down the crucial information, and adorn the notes while you’re revising or re-reading them.

Explore the various methods of taking notes and then decide what you’re the most comfortable with. You can do so by selecting a video of your choice and jotting down information from it. Depending on how many times you had to pause the video, how many times you had to rewind, how much time did it take for you to set the page up, you can decide the best suited method for yourself. In the end, the best advice I can give you is do what works best for you. Good luck ahead and happy note-taking!