As we’re about to begin the planning conferences for 2024 at AWS, I’ve been considering rather a lot 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 whole lot of good people doing analysis and constructing superb merchandise. And at each assembly I’m taking notes — a number of them.
The earliest recollections I’ve of taking notes are in main faculty. 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 residence, research what I’d copied, and ultimately 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 instructional journey, and the subject material grew to become more and more extra advanced, it compelled me to rethink word 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 could have copied the next definition verbatim: “The basic function 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 finding out, 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 approach that was significant to me, corresponding 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 word taking simply isn’t as efficient if you’re making an attempt to study and retain new data.
Pen and paper
To this present day, I nonetheless take a whole lot of my notes by hand. It helps me to keep up focus and internalise the necessary bits. It’s unattainable to write down as quick as individuals communicate, so I’m compelled to write down down what I feel is most necessary or make word 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 couple of months studying about and relearning totally different note-taking approaches. Every part from outlining to thoughts mapping to charting. And what’s labored fairly nicely for me is the Cornell Technique. A easy strategy that has you break 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 actual fact (i.e., write a succinct abstract).
What I wind up with are structured notes which might be straightforward to learn, organise, and revisit, as a result of it’s extra than simply writing one thing down, however having the ability to return and assessment questions and problem assumptions.
A current research by Kuniyoshi Sakai, titled Paper Notebooks vs. Cellular Gadgets: Mind Activation Variations Throughout Reminiscence Retrieval, truly 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 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 seek out its approach into my mind – one thing that doesn’t occur with digital. I even use the Cornell methodology when making 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 a whole lot of worth within the act of taking notes and actively synthesising data. However we dwell in a world with extra information than we may 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 couple 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 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 complete corpus of notes utilizing an LLM to determine themes, developments, and necessary individuals throughout a whole lot of pages from conferences, lectures, doc evaluations, on-site visits, and so on.
I see this like studying a map. Should 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 for those who took the route sufficient occasions, you’d remember 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 can be visitors or development, and the alternate routes to get round it. However today, we simply use our telephones. We comply with turn-by-turn instructions from street-to-street without having to commit an excessive amount of to reminiscence.
It’s useful. It’s straightforward. That’s not likely up for debate. However studying a bodily map continues to be a really helpful talent. There’ll inevitably be occasions that you simply don’t have cell service (otherwise you lose your telephone, or perhaps you wish to disconnect from expertise), and understanding the place you might be and get the place you’re going are necessary. And similar to taking notes by hand, it permits you to take away a number 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, a number of them
I’ll go away 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!
Word: I’m genuinely curious how my readers take notes and synthesise data. Should you’re doing issues otherwise than me, let me know on Twitter or LinkedIn.