How I Take Notes for Self-Learning ☕️

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Even though I’ve left college a few years ago it’s funny how I still find so much value in taking notes and perfecting the notes I take. A learning journey is never truly over and I’ve been reflecting on the truth of that statement as I make my way through individual learning opportunities, finding new books and topics to explore and diving into whatever pursue my curiosity leads me to.
As you become more independent and detach yourself from the methods you’ve learned for the sake of efficiency and academic success, you discover what works for you and what helps you establish your pace, your process, your technique. And suddenly you are no longer following the crowd and doing what everyone else is doing which, in a way is simply… basic. As you fine tune the process and learn more about yourself, you finally become able to draft the most advanced and wonderful notes, like a personal encyclopaedia you’ll feel so much joy creating.
And I find some curious things now. For instance, the importance of changing your mindset about how notes should be taken. While in college I was so focused on creating beautiful, well-written notes, I now understand the value of looking at this little repository of knowledge as a personal, customised collection of memories and key concepts, laid out in whatever format helps me remember it better. It makes sense to me only and instead of selflessly catering to other’s methods or techniques, I’m making sure I am jotting down this simplified account of my knowledge for my eyes only.
As I’ve been taking more notes and engaging in this mindset I also notice that repetition is key - my class or meeting notes aren’t supposed to be read like an essay or a poem. I no longer have to make an effort to try and find synonyms when trying to convey my ideas and come up with a perfect literary piece. Repeating words (even if it’s not Shakespeare) is fundamental for memorisation. As you find the same word or idea repeated multiple times in the same paragraph, maybe in a slightly different context, you’ll identify key ideas about that word instead of having to navigate through different meanings, synonyms and pronouns and try to interpret the meaning of your jumble of words.
Another thing I have learned to do is, in the same way, value my words and my summaries a bit more. Maybe creating a contents page or table of contents for my notes, slipping that in my notebook or binder to help find my way through what I’ve written, my conclusions, my questions and concerns. After all, navigating these thoughts is like looking through a map and sometimes you need to be quick, efficient and know where to find information on the go. So having this map nearby can be incredibly valuable.
Sometimes the biggest change is in the smallest things. Shifting your view, turning the page, looking at the world upside down, can be so helpful. Turning your page and opting for landscape notes can offer so much space to help organize your records in a different way, bracketing information, concepts and ideas along the page, structuring your thoughts in a new way.
And as you make these notes personal and yours, creating your secret code, only yours to interpret and develop, can speed up the writing and reading process, which can be especially helpful for visual learners. And there are so many different combinations and colors that you can try to make the notes your own that you are allowed to have a little fun with this.
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