Kwik Brain Episode 13: How to Take Notes for Rapid Recall

Welcome to Quick Brain, bite-sized brain hacks for busy people who want to learn faster and achieve more. I'm your coach, Jim Quick. Free your mind. Let's imagine if we could access 100% of our brain's capacity. I wasn't high, wasn't wired, just clear. I knew what I needed to do and how to do it. I know kung fu. Show me. What is the best way to take notes for faster learning? Now, we all know that there's a learning curve, but there is also a forgetting curve. You tend to lose information, about 80% of new information, within the first 48 hours, and that's tragic. You listen to a podcast, you read a book, you go to a conference, you learn something really important, but a day or two later, most of it is gone. So how do you, how do you fix that? So how do you take notes to help your retention. How do you do it? What is the best way of taking notes? There's everything from the Cornell method to mind mapping. I'm going to share with you one of my favorite methods and go deep into this. And it's so easy to learn. It's so simple, yet it's extremely, extremely powerful. So you'll want to take notes as you're listening to this while you're learning on how to take notes. It's like Inception, you know, it's a dream. Inside of a dream. And so it's very meta. And so how do you take notes? And you're— as you're taking notes, how do you take notes about taking notes? Well, let's first talk about the principles of quick, effective note-taking. First of all, good note-taking is active. We learned in the very first session of Kwik Brain: How to Learn Anything Faster that one of the most effective ways to learn something is to be active and not passive. And so we're going to do a whole episode on active listening. That's a big part of taking effective notes, is active listening, but being active in your note-taking. So activity is very important. Number 2, I would say one of the commonalities of great note-takers is, and having taught this everywhere from Caltech to Harvard University, is having a purpose, knowing your purpose for taking notes in the first place. Another one is having some kind of hierarchy or prioritizing mechanism in there, whether it's underlining or highlighting. There's some kind of textual hierarchy where you can show what's important versus not as important. Good note-taking is also organized, as you can imagine, because when information is organized, it sets us up for better recall. And also, we know that taking notes, it's better to take notes on your own words versus the words verbatim. And they did these studies. They wanted to find out one of the best ways of taking notes versus the worst ways. And the worst way of taking notes was actually not taking notes. But the second-to-last way of that— the worst way of taking notes was actually taking notes verbatim. Verbatim. And because if you have 20 pages of scripted notes, you know, there's a lot of fluff in there. And so it's not— and it's not as easy to remember, obviously, as something that just focuses on the keywords and the key ideas versus complete sentences. Great note-takers also, they have a system for saving time. They have systems, they have abbreviations, they use symbols and, and very methodologies and tools to be able to go through and take notes quicker. And also great note-takers, one of the qualities that I recognize is they filter important information versus fluff. Okay, going back to reading and taking notes and listening for a purpose to solve a very specific problem versus just random information. Now, before we get started on this, I want to address a question that we get in our Kwik Brain Facebook group often. Jim, I take notes when I listen to the podcast. Is it better, is it okay for me to type out the notes digitally, or is it better to handwrite my notes? And this is a question that we get asked a lot, almost daily. And I'll tell you what the answer is. Research suggests that handwriting is much more effective versus typing and working something digital. And there was a study conducted in Princeton University that showed note-takers actually retain information better by taking notes by hand. And so writing notes by hand forces you to synthesize the information, which helps you to remember it, which helps you to recall it. So I always recommend a notepad and a pen because when we take notes by hand, we typically can't keep pace with all the information being presented to us. As a result, our brains are forced to quickly synthesize the information into 2 categories. It's like, this is important, so write it down, or Or this is not important, so don't write it down. And that's one of the benefits. Some people suggest that actually the visceral part, just like touching a physical book versus using a digital pad to be able to read, also helps information stick much better. So essentially, that's what it's all about. When you're forced to mentally prioritize information, it sticks better. Now obviously, there is some kind of compromise here because You know, you could use a tablet or a stylus and get the memory benefits from handwriting onto your pad and also the convenience and the collaborative benefits of being digital also as well. But there was scientists that actually wanted to study this. They set up an auditorium of people and half of them took notes on a keyboard and half of them actually took notes handwriting them while someone spoke. And they wanted to figure out who would remember the most and who would retain the most. And they tested them afterwards, and turns out the handwriting won hands down. Handwriting completely won out, and people understood more, they retained more, they remembered more by writing by hand. Okay, and so here's the method that I want to teach right now. Now that you understand the principles and you understand why it's important to be able to write it down using your hand when possible, I call it capture and create. Capture and create. So what you're going to do, and I'd like you to do this now if it's safe, but I want you to take a piece of paper or a notebook, and I really encourage you to have a Kwik Brain Academy notebook, right? Something where you could write all this information down. And this, when you're done with it, which you'll never be done because you're always learning and you're always growing, it'd be a textbook for you, an owner's manual for your brain to succeed. And so what I want you to do is I want you to put a line, a vertical line down the page, the center of the page going straight down. And it's a very simple tool. Again, I call it Capture and Create. On the left side, I want you to capture information, and on the right side, I want you to create information or create your notes, if you will. Now here's the thing and why this works, and I'll explain the difference between capturing and creating. On the left side, what you're doing is you're capturing information, you're note-taking. You're taking notes on the left side. So when I'm talking about all these things during— and you could actually go back and re-listen to the show— when I'm talking about how the best note-takers, their qualities, the habits they have is they're active and they're taking notes with purpose and they're underlining and highlighting and giving some hierarchy and they're organized and they're taking notes in their own words, for example, and they're using abbreviations and key ideas and filtering and all that. That's what you would capture on the left side, your note-taking. Now, on the right side, you're creating notes. And what I mean by that is you're writing your impressions of what you're writing on the left side, your impressions of what you captured on the left side of the page. So this is where on the right side, what you're doing is you're asking questions. Your feelings about what you're capturing is what you're creating. Questions that you have about this subject, how you're going to teach it, or how you're going to use it. And so the idea here is a lot of people, they have trouble focusing because the information is either presenting too slow or they're not interested. And what this is is also a focusing tool where some people doodle. Instead of doodling and having your attention go elsewhere outside of what you're learning, focus it on the right side. And that's kind of the right side metaphorical creative brain. So your left side is your logical, you're capturing, it's linear on the language. But on the right side, it's like your right brain. It's imagination, it's creativity, it's associations, it's the whole system, if you will, is on the right side. So again, on the left side, you're taking notes. On the right side, you're making notes. On the left side, you're capturing information. On the right side, you're more creating those notes. And here's the big tip, T-I-P. TIP, when you're doing this, the T stands for think. So I want you to think about as you're taking notes what you want to retain the most. The I in TIP is identify. You want to identify the most relevant information because when people are talking, whether it's on a podcast or it's in a textbook or it's in a lecture, not all information has equal value. And so you're going through it and you're thinking what's most relevant, and then the P in TIP is as you go think, identify, is to prioritize the information. You know, once you've identified what's relevant, prioritize that information and focus on the things that are most important. Now, a bonus tip is to review your notes. Review your notes. You want to review it right after class. You want to review it right after the podcast. Later that same day will help you to retain much, much more effectively. And what you could also do as you're looking at your notes, you could fill in the blanks. You could actually summarize your notes. You could test yourself on what you learned. You could teach it. Remember we talked about FAST and the T stands for teach. When you teach something, you get to learn it twice. And what you could do is memorize those notes using one of the many techniques that we cover in this Kwik Brain Podcast. And so I would encourage you to do that. And I'll post some notes also in our Facebook group and in our summary notes. But remember this, you want to take notes. You want to post pics of your notes on social media so that our community can be able to see it. In our private Facebook group. Also, if you post on Instagram or Twitter or on Facebook, make sure you tag me @JimKwik because I would love to see your notes from this session. Hashtag Kwik Brain, K-W-I-K Brain. And so remember that capturing, creating notes is one of the best ways to retain and apply new information. It gives you such an incredible advantage to help you catch up, keep up, and get ahead because it's a must-have tool for any faster and smarter quick brain. Want to double your brain speed and memory power? If you'd like to learn rapidly and get ahead faster, I'd like to give you my brand new Kwik Brain Accelerator program. You will discover exactly what I teach my clients to learn, read, and remember anything in half the time. There is no charge. It's my gift to you for being one of our subscribers. That's kwikbrain.com, or simply text the word podcast Text to 916-822-7246 and we'll send you a direct link. That's 916-82-BRAIN. Growing up struggling with learning challenges from a childhood brain injury, it's been my life's mission to help you have your very best brain so you can win more every single day. Now, want more Kwik Brain? Here are 4 ways to fast-track your results and lock in what you just learned into your long-term memory. Remember FAST. F-A-S-T. The F stands for Facebook. You're not alone on this journey. I invite you to join our free private online group. There you can connect with me, your fellow brain lovers, links to resources, and even submit your questions for me to answer in future episodes. Go to kwikbrain.com. That's K-W-I-K brain dot com. The A stands for Apply. Act on what you learned today. Remember, knowledge is not power, it's potential power. It only becomes power when you use it. So use what you just learned. The S stands for subscribe. Don't miss the next episode and other free brain training. And finally, the T stands for teach. You want to learn faster now? The key is to lock it in right away by teaching it to someone else. When you teach something, you get to learn it twice. Here's a simple way to do that. Leave a review on iTunes. Leave a review with your biggest takeaway from this episode. You could also post and share this podcast on your social media. It helps us spread our mission of building better, brighter brains. And of course, tag us so our team can properly thank you. #KwikBrain, K-W-I-K Brain. Mine is @JimKwik, K-W-I-K, on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. So What does FAST stand for? Facebook, apply, subscribe, teach. I'll see you in our next episode of Kwik Brain. Until then, remember, you are faster and smarter than you think.