Taking notes has always been a challenge for me. Having worked diligently on my handwriting the past couple of years, I realized that a lot of my notes are useless when I re-read them.
I have the same trouble when I’m writing journals, or trying to keep a consistent schedule… Such as dating the pages, keeping a table of contents, and sincerely making use out of my ramblings.
Do any of you have the same problem or do you feel like your notes are genuinely helpful and informative? Are there certain structures/doodles/onomatopoeia that you employ to trigger certain memories/brain responses? My forgetfulness leads me to sometimes leave my notes in places that I will not see them again for easily a year or longer, so sometimes I will resurface notes that I have no memory of from a long time ago.
Exactly the same problem.
Either I take notes quickly and can’t read them later, or I take my time and miss at least half of what’s going on.I record important things on my phone, or use a real voice recorder in a classroom lecture setting.
Right?? The most well-written notes are the least informative, as I missed what the person was saying, or focused too much on verbatim copying rather than paraphrasing or summarizing in my own words.
How do you like to record your lectures? Do you use an app on your mobile?
For informal spontaneous moments I use a recorder app on my phone.
For real lectures, I do have a real voice recorder like this. If I’m up front it would just be on my desk/table. If not I put it someplace up front; End of the white board tray, or someplace out of the way while being as close to the speaker as possible.
Any notes I take are almost universally useless. My attention is now divided between listening and documenting, and I end up doing neither well. If I’m being presented with all-new information, I have zero way of knowing what will need future reference later as I’m taking it in. Anything I write down is just going to be random tidbits.
Learn it after the fact?
