{"id":18750,"date":"2026-10-13T14:35:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T22:35:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/?p=18750"},"modified":"2026-10-13T14:35:18","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T22:35:18","slug":"best-way-take-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/13\/best-way-take-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"The best way to take notes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Is there still a point to taking notes these days?\u2028\u2028 When I was in school, the purpose of note-taking was obvious. Lectures weren\u2019t recorded. So if you didn\u2019t take notes, important information would be unavailable to you when you needed to study.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, that rationale for taking notes seems dubious when you consider the proliferation of audio recording tools, especially when combined with free AI transcription and summarization. Heck, you don\u2019t even need to attend meetings anymore to know what was said!<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this video essay, I explain the science behind why notes still matter, and why technology may not always be our friend:<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The best way to take notes\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yQGzP6LgdYc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What is the best way to take notes?<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The best way to take notes is any way in which you\u2019re fully attending to the meaning of what is said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But, beyond this, there\u2019s surprisingly little conclusive research saying that any particular style of taking notes is more effective than the rest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As part of my research for the video essay above, I dug into the literature on note-taking and learning outcomes. Broadly speaking, there\u2019s evidence in favor of handwriting over typing notes out\u2014evidence that becomes stronger, in my opinion, when you add the likelihood of digital distractions that occurs in most real-world situations with digital notes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Taking notes at all greatly outperforms not taking notes. This includes some popular alternatives like taking photos of the slides.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the basic truth seems to be that anything that causes you to really pay attention while you\u2019re sitting in a lecture is going to improve your academic performance. This should be the priority for most students.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Note-Taking and Cognitive Load<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">One area I didn\u2019t get a chance to dive into in the video essay was somewhat more \u201cadvanced\u201d note-taking strategies, such as mind-maps, linking ideas together, analogies or rephrasing material as retrieval prompts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don\u2019t know of a lot of systematic evidence on these sorts of techniques. But my understanding from theory, and from working with students practically, is that these sorts of approaches are likely beneficial when you find the lecture more or less easy to follow.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2028In other words, our old friend <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2022\/01\/04\/cognitive-load-theory\/\">cognitive load<\/a> strikes again. If material is difficult to understand verbatim copying may be unavoidable, because even trying to paraphrase may be above your limit in the moment. I can certainly recall lectures where I didn\u2019t understand a lot of the key terms, where paraphrasing felt like it was dangerously close to simply making stuff up!<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On the other hand, if you feel like the lecture is, well, a little boring\u2014you might benefit from taking further steps to engage your thinking by generating extra examples, coming up with analogies, visualizations and other strategies to try to engage with and better encode the material.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Notes for Learning or for Record-Keeping?<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To me, the proliferation of technology-enhanced note-taking simply underscores the attention-boosting benefits of note-taking.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a world where it is relatively easy to record a full transcript of a meeting, get AI to summarize it for you, and put it into whatever long-term record system you have, you are freed from some of the recording burden of note-taking. You don\u2019t need to be a stenographer anymore, since failure to record verbatim is easy to fix from a backup.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Instead, in our current era, notes that force you to pay attention to the meaning of what is said and, to the extent you\u2019re capable, allow you to think more deeply about it, should really be the priority.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The best way to take notes may be the method that uses the least technology. I&#8217;ll explain why notes still matter and how to learn better with them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-personal-development","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The best way to take notes - Scott H Young<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.scotthyoung.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/13\/best-way-take-notes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The best way to take notes - Scott H Young\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The best way to take notes may be the method that uses the least technology. 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