As we’re about to start out the planning conferences for 2024 at AWS, I’ve been considering quite a bit about how I take notes. In the identical vein, the method of placing collectively a re: Invent keynote takes months, and it signifies that I’m assembly with a variety of good people doing analysis and constructing wonderful merchandise. And at each assembly I’m taking notes — a number of them.
The earliest recollections I’ve of taking notes are in main college. I’d copy word-for-word what the instructor would say or write on the board. Issues like definitions and multiplication tables. Then I’d go house, examine what I’d copied, and ultimately take a check. In follow, I used to be studying to encode, retailer, and recall info. When you consider it, it’s a bit like S3.
However this was memorisation, not synthesis.
As I continued alongside my academic journey, and the subject material turned more and more extra complicated, it pressured me to rethink observe taking. It was much less about being a scribe, and extra about listening, observing, and comprehending what was being taught. For instance, the youthful me might have copied the next definition verbatim: “The basic position of mitochondria is oxidative phosphorylation, which generates ATP by utilising the power launched in the course of the oxidation of the meals we eat.” And when learning, I’d have dedicated this to reminiscence with out essentially understanding the way it really labored. What would have been extra useful would have been to learn the definition, then write it out in a approach that was significant to me, corresponding to: “Mitochondria are the energy plant of the cell. They generate a lot of the chemical power wanted to energy the cell’s biochemical reactions.” Perhaps even diagram the method within the margins. That is synthesis. This denotes understanding.
And there’s analysis to again this up. Particularly, that verbatim observe taking simply isn’t as efficient whenever you’re attempting to study and retain new info.
Pen and paper
To at the present time, I nonetheless take a variety of my notes by hand. It helps me to take care of focus and internalise the essential bits. It’s inconceivable to jot down as quick as folks communicate, so I’m pressured to jot down down what I feel is most essential or make observe of what I don’t perceive in order that I can ask questions.
The Cornell Methodology
I’ve spent fairly a little bit of time over the previous couple of months studying about and relearning completely different note-taking approaches. Every part from outlining to thoughts mapping to charting. And what’s labored fairly properly for me is the Cornell Methodology. A easy method that has you cut up a pocket book web page into 4 elements: 1/ title, 2/ notes, 3/ key phrases/questions, and 4/ abstract. And no, it’s not as a result of I labored at Cornell for the higher a part of a decade, however as a result of this methodology encourages you to doc your thought processes (i.e., ask questions), synthesise what you’re studying in real-time (i.e., take notes), and summarise all of it after the very fact (i.e., write a succinct abstract).
What I wind up with are structured notes which are straightforward to learn, organise, and revisit, as a result of it’s extra than simply writing one thing down, however with the ability to return and evaluation questions and problem assumptions.
A current examine by Kuniyoshi Sakai, titled Paper Notebooks vs. Cellular Units: Mind Activation Variations Throughout Reminiscence Retrieval, really confirmed larger retention and recall for topics that used pen and paper versus a keyboard, or pill and stylus. Nonetheless, there may be broad settlement that taking notes, in any type with any enter, helps with encoding, retention, and recall.
As you may see from the picture above, I’m an enormous fan of analog note-taking. For me, analog helps with memorising, synthesising, and summarising. As quickly as I write one thing down with pen and paper, it additionally appears to search out its approach into my mind – one thing that doesn’t occur with digital. I even use the Cornell methodology when getting ready for conferences; I summarise the briefing doc in my pocket book, and it instantly sticks. The truth that you might be energetic with the textual content as a substitute of simply studying it drives this course of.
Utilizing ML and generative AI
There may be a variety of worth within the act of taking notes and actively synthesising info. However we dwell in a world with extra knowledge than we may ever fairly anticipate to comb by means of. That is an space the place ML and generative AI will play an more and more essential position. A couple of examples that come to thoughts are:
- Utilizing a transcription service with speaker identification to complement the notes you are taking throughout a gathering.
- Utilizing pc imaginative and prescient and optical character recognition (OCR) to transform your handwritten notes into docs you can simply share with others or retailer in a central location. (Assuming that you simply’re not already utilizing one thing like Kindle Scribe).
- Close to-instant summarisation.
- Iterating over a whole corpus of notes utilizing an LLM to establish themes, tendencies, and essential folks throughout tons of of pages from conferences, lectures, doc opinions, on-site visits, and many others.
I see this like studying a map. In the event you return 20 years, studying a map was a reasonably widespread talent. You’d plan a route, take some notes, then attempt to navigate it. And when you took the route sufficient instances, you’d remember it. You’d keep in mind a fountain or the color of a selected home alongside the way in which. You’d know when and the place there could be site visitors or development, and the alternate routes to get round it. However nowadays, we simply use our telephones. We observe turn-by-turn instructions from street-to-street with no need to commit an excessive amount of to reminiscence.
It’s useful. It’s straightforward. That’s probably not up for debate. However studying a bodily map remains to be a really helpful talent. There’ll inevitably be instances that you simply don’t have cell service (otherwise you lose your cellphone, or possibly you need to disconnect from know-how), and understanding the place you might be and how one can get the place you’re going are essential. And similar to taking notes by hand, it lets you take away a few of the noise created by know-how, and to deal with the essential bits.
I’m genuinely curious to see how analysis will evolve within the subsequent 10+ years as we proceed to review what works finest for digital natives.
Take notes, a number of them
I’ll depart you with a quote from the author Anne Lamott: “[…] one of many worst emotions I can consider, [is] to have had an exquisite second or perception or imaginative and prescient or phrase, to know you had it, then lose it.” My recommendation: take notes, a number of them.
Now, go construct!
Observe: I’m genuinely curious how my readers take notes and synthesise info. In the event you’re doing issues in another way than me, let me know on Twitter or LinkedIn.
