The best way to take notes to make you super productive

I’m going to tell all of you a little secret – I rarely, if ever, make notes. As much as aesthetic notes are incredibly pleasing to look at, they’re also incredibly ineffective. This is because they are a form of passive recall, which is less effective than active recall. Passive recall methods are things like re-reading, highlighting or making notes. Active recall methods (such as flashcards or quizlet) are far more effective because they force you to try to remember the information – just like you will during a test! Luckily, I’m going to share my method for making notes that use active recall (and are still pretty!)

What I use notes for

There are 3 situations where I make notes, and there are 3 different methods for them.

• In class – these notes are made quickly and in bullet point form and contain any information that may not be in the textbook. I make these types of notes just to fill in any gaps in the knowledge found in my other school resources – powerpoints, worksheets and textbooks.
• Debating – you don’t need to know about these notes, other than the fact that they are incredibly messy as I usually only have 15 minutes to prepare for a debate (I usually do the WSC format). These are also in bullet points, but are completely irrelevant to my revision.
• Revision – finally, what you’ve been waiting for! These are the notes that I make to learn about a subject in a very efficient and organised way. Unsurprisingly, they are also made in bullet points

Identify what you have to learn

Find a syllabus, a subject outline or a specification to help you work out what you have to make your notes on. This is just to make sure that you’re not learning any irrelevant or useless information, as well as to make sure that you’ve covered everything on the curriculum so that you won’t get any horrible surprises in the middle of the exam. I like to copy and paste the syllabus into my notes so I can make sure I’ve covered everything.

Ditch the paper

Although most people like to make their notes in a notebook or on paper, I avoid doing this unless I’m studying an essay-based subject or another subject where I have to write a lot. This is because when I make my notes, I enter a perfectionist mindset where even the slightest smudge or misspelling makes me need to correct it, out of a desire to make my notes look perfect. Not only is this mindset reductive (instead of making notes to learn, I’m making notes to make them look aesthetic), but it also means that I lose time correcting errors and re-doing notes. If you have the same problem as me, I’d advise you to make notes online rather than on paper. As an extra advantage, they’re also accessible anywhere and you don’t have to carry around heavy notebooks when you want to revise

Use Notion!

Notion is just about my favourite software because it’s so incredibly versatile – one use it has is note-taking. I make my notes on Notion for many reasons:

• Ease of access – I have the app on my phone and the page pinned on my laptop, so I can access my notes just about anywhere.
• Customisability – let’s be honest, we all want pretty notes. It might be one of the things that motivates you to study! Notion has a ton of customisability, and I have to admit that I prefer it over Google Docs because it looks much nicer.
• Sharing notes – Notion also lets you share a link to your notes to just about anyone, which is incredibly useful to me as I often like to share my notes with friends.
• Utility – I use Notion for most of my organising, so it makes sense to keep everything in one place.
• Ease of use – although people say Notion is difficult, once you’ve got your pages set up, it’s incredibly easy to use, especially for something as simple as making notes.

Bullet points are your saviour

I have to confess that when I first started making notes and taking revision seriously, I wrote them in full sentences. This is one of the worst things you can do, as the extra words and connectives are completely useless to your learning. Bullet points are incredibly useful, as they enable you to summarise and write the information faster, rather than wasting time on crafting sentences.

Incorporate active recall

Active recall is your best friend when it comes to revision, and when you want to make notes, you can still incorporate elements of active recall. What I like to do is first read a small section of what I need to study, then check the subject specification to see what definitions and concepts I need to know. Then, I make notes from memory; I try to define the keyterms and explain the concepts in an in-depth way. Finally, I re-read the section and my notes to make sure my notes are correct and detailed enough.

Remember that notes aren’t the only way to revise though – you can also use mindmaps, quizlet sets, and flashcards to study for an exam.