As we’re about to begin the planning conferences for 2024 at AWS, I’ve been pondering 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 implies that I’m assembly with lots of sensible people doing analysis and constructing superb merchandise. And at each assembly I’m taking notes — plenty of them.
The earliest reminiscences I’ve of taking notes are in main college. I’d copy word-for-word what the trainer would say or write on the board. Issues like definitions and multiplication tables. Then I’d go dwelling, research 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 concentrate on 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 pressured me to rethink observe 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 might have copied the next definition verbatim: “The traditional function of mitochondria is oxidative phosphorylation, which generates ATP by utilising the power launched throughout the oxidation of the meals we eat.” And when finding out, I’d have dedicated this to reminiscence with out essentially understanding the way it really labored. What would have been extra useful would have been to learn the definition, then write it out in a means that was significant to me, equivalent 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 observe taking simply isn’t as efficient if you’re attempting to be taught and retain new data.
Pen and paper
To this present day, I nonetheless take lots of my notes by hand. It helps me to take care of focus and internalise the vital bits. It’s not possible to jot down as quick as folks converse, so I’m pressured to jot down down what I feel is most vital or make observe 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. The whole lot from outlining to thoughts mapping to charting. And what’s labored fairly nicely for me is the Cornell Methodology. 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 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 are simple to learn, organise, and revisit, as a result of it’s extra than simply writing one thing down, however with the ability to return and assessment questions and problem assumptions.
A latest research by Kuniyoshi Sakai, titled Paper Notebooks vs. Cellular Gadgets: Mind Activation Variations Throughout Reminiscence Retrieval, really confirmed greater 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’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 seek out its means 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’re energetic with the textual content as an alternative of simply studying it drives this course of.
Utilizing ML and generative AI
There’s lots of worth within the act of taking notes and actively synthesising data. However we reside in a world with extra information 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 vital function. Just a few examples that come to thoughts are:
- Utilizing a transcription service with speaker identification to complement the notes you are taking throughout a gathering.
- Utilizing laptop imaginative and prescient and optical character recognition (OCR) to transform your handwritten notes into docs which 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, tendencies, and vital folks throughout a whole lot of pages from conferences, lectures, doc evaluations, on-site visits, and so on.
I see this like studying a map. For those who 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 should you took the route sufficient occasions, you’d recall it. You’d bear in mind a fountain or the color of a particular home alongside the best way. You’d know when and the place there can be site visitors or building, and the alternate routes to get round it. However lately, we simply use our telephones. We observe turn-by-turn instructions from street-to-street while not having to commit an excessive amount of to reminiscence.
It’s useful. It’s simple. That’s probably not up for debate. However studying a bodily map remains 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 perhaps you need to disconnect from expertise), and realizing the place you’re and the best way to get the place you’re going are vital. And similar to taking notes by hand, it means that you can take away among the noise created by expertise, and to deal with the vital 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, plenty 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 a beautiful second or perception or imaginative and prescient or phrase, to know you had it, then lose it.” My recommendation: take notes, plenty of them.
Now, go construct!
Be aware: I’m genuinely curious how my readers take notes and synthesise data. For those who’re doing issues in another way than me, let me know on Twitter or LinkedIn.
