For most of my academic career, I have been a furious notetaker. I filled up numerous notebooks with handwritten notes, pages and pages of bullet-points and headings.
But after my first year in college, I basically gave up the practice completely. Here’s why.
The Downsides of Linear Note-Taking
First, what do I mean by “linear” note-taking? I am referring to the classic way to write notes — bullet points straight down the page, sometimes under headings and subheadings. Essentially, creating an outline for whatever it is you’re learning.
This process feels productive. Compared to others in the class who are simply typing on copies of PowerPoint slides or online shopping, you feel like a hard worker. Your hand hurts at the end of class and there’s visible output indicating your mental effort.
Or so you think.
The truth is, the amount of notes you take has almost nothing to do with the mental work you’ve actually put forth. This is especially true for linear notes because it is often just a regurgitation of what was already given to us. How often have you written down a PowerPoint slide, one that you’ll still have access to after a lecture, word for word? That is not thinking, it is stenography.
Unfortunately, linear notetaking “works.” It is repetition of information, and if you look back on it enough before an exam, tests will be unchallenging. Congratulations, you can reproduce what your professor lectured about over the course of last month by filling in multiple choice bubbles with facts you reminded yourself of the night before.
Where, in this process, is intellectual curiosity? Where is knowledge? True understanding is regrettably absent in this way of “learning.” Linear notetaking transforms us into parrots who will forget all they’ve been parroting the week after the exam. We are left with the feeling of hard work, a sense that we’ve earned the grade, and absolutely nothing that sticks in our heads.
An Alternative to Linear Notes
The way to escape this trap is to take ownership of your own learning process. This starts with actually engaging with the material, not just writing it down. Listen to the lecturer, be present for their anecdotes, and let your mind chew on what is being communicated.
At first, it might look like you’re doing less work. But what’s really happening is that you’re no longer off-loading effort onto your page. Instead, the work required to understand the material is happening in your head.
True learning can only happen when we struggle with new information and ask ourselves questions about its meaning and relevance. Wrestling with content, thinking about it, is a much better strategy to accomplish this than sheer reproduction.
Just as we don’t get stronger by lifting the 2lb weights, we can’t get smarter under a light cognitive load. Learning and studying should be difficult. Not because of time spent on flashcards, but because of effort unleashed to understand a subject beyond mere memorization.
Note-taking thus becomes secondary to learning. It is a tool to express the breakthroughs made in your head, not to reproduce information without a second thought. This means your notes are likely to reflect your thinking process. They will be connected, grouped, likely differently ordered than the professor presented the information.
I went all in and switched to drawing mind-maps on an infinite canvas app. Rather than writing down every little detail, I created mental models that acted as scaffolding for details to fit snugly. I actually began to understand the connections between different sections of material and fit ideas together in my own way. Thus, many details began to fit naturally into my cognitive map of a subject. I had less to memorize, because now that I understood the basic structure of the topic, the details just…made sense.
Ultimately, this way of learning saved me lots of time. Gone were the long lists of flashcards to memorize. By putting in cognitive effort in the classroom, I digested material through my brain rather than my hand. Funny enough, it tended to stay there.
Linear note-taking kept me at a lower level of knowledge and expertise, while making me feel like a diligent student. Changing to a learning style that required more mental investment was a process, but one that I am glad I chose to go through. People may see my notes now and think I’m either lazy or maniacal. But what they don’t see is a brain that is working through content and making information its own. This is a brain that is creating an understanding that well surpasses a temporary remembrance for test day.
For more information on making the switch to a deeper form of learning, I’d recommend Justin Sung. I found his YouTube videos as a first-year college student and enrolled in his study course over the summer. It really helped!