As we’re about to begin the planning conferences for 2024 at AWS, I’ve been pondering 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 a whole lot of sensible of us doing analysis and constructing wonderful merchandise. And at each assembly I’m taking notes — a number of them.
The earliest reminiscences I’ve of taking notes are in major faculty. I might 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 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 complicated, 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 position of mitochondria is oxidative phosphorylation, which generates ATP by utilising the power launched through 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 word taking simply isn’t as efficient while you’re attempting to study and retain new data.
Pen and paper
To at the present time, I nonetheless take a whole lot of my notes by hand. It helps me to take care of focus and internalise the necessary bits. It’s not possible to jot down as quick as folks communicate, so I’m compelled to jot 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 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 part from outlining to thoughts mapping to charting. And what’s labored fairly properly for me is the Cornell Methodology. A easy method 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 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 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 evaluation questions and problem assumptions.
A latest examine by Kuniyoshi Sakai, titled Paper Notebooks vs. Cellular 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. Nevertheless, there’s broad settlement that taking notes, in any kind 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 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 energetic with the textual content as an alternative 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 knowledge than we may ever moderately anticipate to comb by means 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’re taking throughout a gathering.
- Utilizing laptop imaginative and prescient and optical character recognition (OCR) to transform your handwritten notes into docs that you may 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, tendencies, and necessary folks throughout a whole lot of pages from conferences, lectures, doc opinions, on-site visits, and many others.
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 if you happen to took the route sufficient occasions, you’d recall it. You’d keep in mind a fountain or the color of a particular 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 nowadays, we simply use our telephones. We observe 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 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 cellphone, or possibly you wish to disconnect from expertise), and understanding the place you might be and the right way to get the place you’re going are necessary. And similar to taking notes by hand, it means that you can take away among the noise created by expertise, and to concentrate on 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 greatest for digital natives.
Take notes, a number 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 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!
Notice: I’m genuinely curious how my readers take notes and synthesise data. In case you’re doing issues in a different way than me, let me know on Twitter or LinkedIn.
