As we’re about to start out the planning conferences for 2024 at AWS, I’ve been pondering 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 implies that I’m assembly with lots of good of us doing analysis and constructing wonderful merchandise. And at each assembly I’m taking notes — a lot of them.
The earliest recollections I’ve of taking notes are in major faculty. 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 residence, examine what I’d copied, and finally take a check. In observe, I used to be studying to encode, retailer, and recall data. When you concentrate on 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 advanced, it pressured me to rethink be aware 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 function of mitochondria is oxidative phosphorylation, which generates ATP by utilising the power launched throughout 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 manner that was significant to me, akin to: “Mitochondria are the energy plant of the cell. They generate many of the chemical power wanted to energy the cell’s biochemical reactions.” Possibly even diagram the method within the margins. That is synthesis. This denotes understanding.
And there’s analysis to again this up. Particularly, that verbatim be aware taking simply isn’t as efficient whenever you’re making an attempt to be taught and retain new data.
Pen and paper
To this present day, I nonetheless take lots of my notes by hand. It helps me to keep up focus and internalise the necessary bits. It’s unattainable to put in writing as quick as individuals communicate, so I’m pressured to put in writing down what I believe is most necessary or make be aware 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 few months studying about and relearning totally different note-taking approaches. Every thing from outlining to thoughts mapping to charting. And what’s labored fairly nicely 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 technique 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 actual fact (i.e., write a succinct abstract).
What I wind up with are structured notes which can be 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 latest examine by Kuniyoshi Sakai, titled Paper Notebooks vs. Cell Units: Mind Activation Variations Throughout Reminiscence Retrieval, really confirmed increased retention and recall for topics that used pen and paper versus a keyboard, or pill and stylus. Nevertheless, there’s broad settlement that taking notes, in any type with any enter, helps with encoding, retention, and recall.
As you possibly can see from the picture above, I’m a giant 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 manner into my mind – one thing that doesn’t occur with digital. I even use the Cornell technique when making ready for conferences; I summarise the briefing doc in my pocket book, and it instantly sticks. The truth that you might be lively with the textual content as a substitute of simply studying it drives this course of.
Utilizing ML and generative AI
There may be lots of worth within the act of taking notes and actively synthesising data. However we stay in a world with extra knowledge than we might ever moderately anticipate to comb by. That is an space the place ML and generative AI will play an more and more necessary function. A number of examples that come to thoughts are:
- Utilizing a transcription service with speaker identification to complement the notes you’re taking throughout a gathering.
- Utilizing laptop imaginative and prescient and optical character recognition (OCR) to transform your handwritten notes into docs that you could 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, traits, and necessary individuals throughout lots of of pages from conferences, lectures, doc evaluations, on-site visits, and so forth.
I see this like studying a map. In case you return 20 years, studying a map was a reasonably frequent talent. You’d plan a route, take some notes, then attempt to navigate it. And when you took the route sufficient instances, you’d recall it. You’d bear 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 building, and the alternate routes to get round it. However nowadays, we simply use our telephones. We comply with 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 telephone, or possibly you need to disconnect from expertise), and figuring out the place you might be and get the place you’re going are necessary. And identical to taking notes by hand, it means that you can take away among the noise created by expertise, and to deal with the necessary bits.
I’m genuinely curious to see how analysis will evolve within the subsequent 10+ years as we proceed to check what works finest for digital natives.
Take notes, a lot 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 a beautiful second or perception or imaginative and prescient or phrase, to know you had it, then lose it.” My recommendation: take notes, a lot of them.
Now, go construct!
Word: I’m genuinely curious how my readers take notes and synthesise data. In case you’re doing issues in another way than me, let me know on Twitter or LinkedIn.
