3 Ways To Strengthen Your Note-Taking Skills

When we take notes, we are recording information down to better memorize it or have it be referred to later.

Since we have been literate, humankind has been practicing this for ages! However, as with most things, there are certain ways to do things effectively to yield better results.

So whether you are a student or a working professional, here are some useful tips that you can consider when it comes to taking notes effectively:

Now this may be obvious thus, frequently overlooked but it’s important to know that you will be taking notes before you do it!

It may seem to be an overly cautious act, but how many times have we made spontaneous notes, only to realize none of it makes sense when we refer to it later?

Hence, before you start taking notes, ascertain the setting you are in and prepare the note-taking medium that suits your purposes the most.

For instance, if you need to produce a meeting report immediately after, a laptop may be more suitable compared to lecture notes, where you are most likely going to retain the information better if you take the notes by hand.

Another obvious tip, yet most of us do not do enough is to practice active listening. When we say this, we don’t mean transcribing word for word.

Rather, we encourage you to actually listen to what the speaker is saying and pick out the important points that would help you summarise what is happening.

Not every sentence has the same weightage so learn to pick and choose important points. This may require trial and error but once you pick up this skill, taking notes will be a breeze to do!

More often than not, our initial notes are most likely going to be quite messy, especially when we are writing them in shorthand!

So it can be helpful for you to rewrite the notes so that it can be clearer and more legible. It’s also pretty rewarding to see your notes all clean and easy to understand!

Not only that, by reviewing your notes, it might even jog up extra points that you might have missed during the note-taking session! As usual, through reviewing your notes, it can help you retain the information longer as well.

In the end, these tips may seem obvious but we hope that they remind you that it requires one to be present to execute note-taking to its fullest! Stay tuned to an upcoming blog post where we teach you different note-taking methods!

-

What are your tips to note-taking? Did we miss some? Let us know in the comments below or DM us @mosseryco on Instagram!

Thank you @lyn.spiration for her lovely artwork!