An Effective Note Taking Technique That Saved Me Hours Of Studying

Learn To Take Notes Effectively

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What if I tell you that after reading this story, you’ll be able to take notes far more effectively than you ever did? And that you’ll be able to learn anything faster and retain more information easily... Well, keep reading because that’s exactly what’s gonna happen.

I read a lot of books, and if you do as well then you know how the ideas that we learn start fading away within days. By the end of the week, we hardly remember anything other than the main idea shared in the book. Is remembering just the main idea worth all the time you spent reading?

Of course not!

You can simply read an Amazon review or watch a summary video on YouTube to know the main idea of the book. Instead, you spend days reading the whole book to learn each concept in detail. What happens next? You forget everything. All your work has gone to waste.

Is there anything more frustrating?

Taking notes while learning is a brilliant way of retaining information. That’s because it’s an Active Process. But do you know you can get more out of taking notes just by doing it in a little different way?

Let’s get into it.

Photo by Andriyko Podilnyk on Unsplash

The Method

The method I am talking about is the one I found in one of Jim Kwik’s podcasts. He calls it the Capture and Create.

All you need to do is divide the page of your notebook into two columns by drawing a vertical line in the middle of the page. Write “Capture” on the top of the right column and “Create” on the top of the left.

Now, under Capture, you take notes. Just the way you normally do.

While under Create, you explore. Use this column to note down answers to questions like, how and where you can use the information. You need to know the purpose of learning something, because when you do so, learning becomes super fast and easy…

Some Additional Tips By Jim

1. Always take notes in your own words. Do not take notes verbatim
2. Prefer writing your notes by hand to typing
3. Use abbreviations, symbols, diagrams, etc while taking notes
4. Filter important information. Mark everything that’s of great importance to you
5. Keep your notes organized
6. Review your notes