The best note-taking methods, ranked

As fun as it might be to make pretty notes, is it really the most effective use of your time? Turns out, not all methods of note-taking are created equal! Some are very productive and efficient, while others are just a waste of time. Which one of these note-taking methods do you prefer?

Q&A style

Although I haven’t seen many people use this method, I think it’s still incredibly useful. It’s basically a shortened version of the Cornell notes method. Start by folding your page in half to get two columns. In one, write your questions, and in the other, write the answers. If you’re taking notes during class, just write in the notes on one side, and you can create questions later. I personally like this method, as it means that you have a question bank ready to revise with! It’s also less time-consuming than the Cornell notes method 🙂

Outline method

This is just the classic way of taking notes, with headings and bullet points. It’s a classic for a reason: it’s super easy to use, requires no preparation, and works for most subjects.

Mindmapping

Mindmapping can be super useful for content-heavy subjects like history. It allows you to create links between different topics and concepts, which is also super useful! By dividing the topic into different branches, you can easily organise the information. There’s also two different ways of doing this method: starting from the top and going down, and starting from the middle and going out. Although both can work, I find that by starting in the middle, there’s less of a chance that I run out of space for subtopic headers.

Cornell notes

I have a slight personal vendetta against Cornell notes, but I’ll try to avoid being biased. First, you split the page into three areas: a small column on the left, a bigger column on the right, and a small row at the bottom of the page. In class, you fill in the big column with your notes. After class, you can fill in the small column with questions and key information, as well as filling in the bottom row with a summary of the topic.

Boxing method

This is like a cross between the outline method and the charting method. Basically, you create boxes to categorise your information while taking notes. This can be useful for topics with very clear structures. However, I’d recommend that you only do this if you take notes digitally, as you can quickly run out of space in the boxes if you do it by hand.

Charting method

I rarely use this one because it only works for very specific subjects. Essentially, you create a table prior to the lesson, and during the lesson you fill it in. However, it’s difficult to make a table when you don’t know the information beforehand, therefore this technique isn’t very useful. Also, it only works for subjects that are very, very organised and structured. I rarely use this, but when I do, it’s for my history revision. I wouldn’t recommend this as a note-taking method, but it can be useful to organise information while revising.

Disorganised sentences

If this is how you take notes – why? This is clearly the worst method of them all, as it’s very difficult to review your notes later. In essence, this is like the outline method but without the outline, there’s just unstructured bullet points. Unless you have a lot of time after the lesson to organise your information, I wouldn’t recommend this method to anyone. However, if you are taking notes digitally, this could be okay, as long as you organise your notes later.

There are many, many ways to take notes, and they’re not all equally effective. If you think that your current note-taking method isn’t working, then try one of these! Also, do you agree with my ranking or not? Let me know in the comments of this post if you disagree!