As we’re about to begin the planning conferences for 2024 at AWS, I’ve been considering loads 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 plenty of good of us doing analysis and constructing wonderful merchandise. And at each assembly I’m taking notes — numerous them.
The earliest reminiscences I’ve of taking notes are in major college. I might copy word-for-word what the trainer would say or write on the board. Issues like definitions and multiplication tables. Then I’d go dwelling, examine what I’d copied, and finally take a take a look at. In follow, I used to be studying to encode, retailer, and recall data. 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 grew to become more and more extra complicated, 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 traditional 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 might have dedicated this to reminiscence with out essentially understanding the way it truly 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, comparable 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.” 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 while you’re attempting to be taught and retain new data.
Pen and paper
To today, I nonetheless take plenty of my notes by hand. It helps me to keep up focus and internalise the necessary bits. It’s inconceivable to put in writing as quick as individuals communicate, so I’m pressured to put in writing down what I feel is most necessary or make be aware of what I don’t perceive in order that I can ask questions.
The Cornell Technique
I’ve spent fairly a little bit of time over the previous few months studying about and relearning completely different note-taking approaches. Every thing from outlining to thoughts mapping to charting. And what’s labored fairly effectively for me is the Cornell Technique. A easy strategy that has you break up a pocket book web page into 4 components: 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 actual fact (i.e., write a succinct abstract).
What I wind up with are structured notes which are simple 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. Cell Gadgets: Mind Activation Variations Throughout Reminiscence Retrieval, truly confirmed larger retention and recall for topics that used pen and paper versus a keyboard, or pill and stylus. Nonetheless, there’s broad settlement that taking notes, in any type with any enter, helps with encoding, retention, and recall.
As you’ll be able to 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 seek out its manner 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’s plenty of worth within the act of taking notes and actively synthesising data. However we stay in a world with extra information than we might ever moderately count on to comb by way of. That is an space the place ML and generative AI will play an more and more necessary position. A number 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 laptop 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 just’re not already utilizing one thing like Kindle Scribe).
- Close to-instant summarisation.
- Iterating over a complete corpus of notes utilizing an LLM to establish themes, developments, and necessary individuals throughout tons of of pages from conferences, lectures, doc opinions, on-site visits, and so on.
I see this like studying a map. For those who return 20 years, studying a map was a reasonably frequent ability. You’d plan a route, take some notes, then attempt to navigate it. And should 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 best way. You’d know when and the place there can 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 while not having to commit an excessive amount of to reminiscence.
It’s useful. It’s simple. That’s probably not up for debate. However studying a bodily map remains to be a really helpful ability. There’ll inevitably be instances that you just don’t have cell service (otherwise you lose your cellphone, or perhaps you need to disconnect from expertise), and realizing the place you might be and the way to get the place you’re going are necessary. And similar to taking notes by hand, it means that you can take away a few of the noise created by expertise, and to give attention to the necessary 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, numerous 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, numerous them.
Now, go construct!
Observe: I’m genuinely curious how my readers take notes and synthesise data. For those who’re doing issues in another way than me, let me know on Twitter or LinkedIn.
