How To Take Notes
The Process
Consistency
If all your notes are in spiral bound notebooks or 3x5 cards, that’s OK, but pick a system and stick with it.
Detail
Cite your sources. You need enough to remember where something comes from.
Summarize
Do not re-create source materials.
- Record facts
- Summarize and reduce scope
- Fit your notes into your whole understanding (synthesis)
An hour long meeting? One page of notes. Don’t overdo it.
Myths
I Don’t Need To Take Notes. I Can Remember Everything Just Fine
Note down what you will not remember
- Bit counts
- Packet headers
- Tiny specific interactions
You can find these details via
- Reading white-papers
- Reading RFCs
- Reading forum posts
- Doing labs
- Finding outputs
- Collecting packets
- Collecting debugs
I Don’t Look At My Notes After I Take Them
Don’t take notes on stuff you’ll remember, take notes on stuff you’ll forget.
Learn what kinds of details you forget.
The notes aren’t for you six months from now, the notes are for you, six years from now.
I Can’t Take Notes Digitally, I Need To Write Them Out
You can take handwritten notes, just OCR them into digitals. The AI is decent at this.
If typing is painful consider a much nicer keyboard and something like Dvorak
References
MIT - Notes and Notebooks - Mayfield Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing
Berkeley - Academic Skills Resource Library | Athletic Study Center