The power of note taking and re-reading

I love taking and re-reading notes. Rereading your notes about an experience after some time has passed offers a whole new level of insight, I believe. I’m trying a new experiment now where I take notes about something in near real time, throw out open questions in my notes, put down working answers, then set an alarm to revisit those notes, questions and answers in a week. I’ll see if another week or month of experiences offer re-enforcement or revision of my thoughts. I’m really excited about this experiment and it’s one more reason I love Evernote.

I keep coming back to notes I took in Evernote more than a year ago about this article, If You’re Not Taking Notes, You Aren’t Learning. Great perspective in there, I highly recommend it.

This is something I want to continuously make small improvements on. Along with running, meditation and blogging! In that spirit, I’m going to put up this blog post short and sweet, just get it up and see if others have thoughts to share. I’m not going to worry about making it a fully thought out set of ideas, I’m just going to post it. I’ve been wanting to make the time to say something deeper all week and as a result, I’ve said nothing. So let’s ship it! I’m a little inspired to do that by this week’s online event, Work Out Loud Week. That’s a really interesting phenomenon, led by some really interesting individuals.

Those are my notes on notes for now!

  • It’s a good idea, Marshall. And thanks for the helpful links to other note-taking posts.

    I find similar benefits from taking notes on my own ideas, especially the incomplete thoughts. Write ’em down, sketch ’em out, and maybe they’ll grow into something when you revisit them. Sometimes I do my best thinking when I try to explain myself verbally, so that’s another time to get something on paper—both the aha moment and the contribution of the person you’re talking with.

    I have an example in mind, but it’s still in the handwritten phase. 😉

  • Thanks Nathan, and great to hear from you. I’m going to pay closer attention to thinking through things when taking notes in real time, too.

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  • brenda35134

    Taking note in the class is very good habit for any one. I am so glad that you write today about the importance of note. I hope this post helps the educators to understand the topics.