As we’re about to start out 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 loads of good of us doing analysis and constructing wonderful merchandise. And at each assembly I’m taking notes — plenty of them.
The earliest reminiscences I’ve of taking notes are in major college. I might copy word-for-word what the instructor would say or write on the board. Issues like definitions and multiplication tables. Then I’d go dwelling, examine what I’d copied, and finally take a take a look at. In observe, 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 turned more and more extra advanced, it compelled me to rethink notice 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 could have copied the next definition verbatim: “The traditional function of mitochondria is oxidative phosphorylation, which generates ATP by utilising the vitality launched in the course of the oxidation of the meals we eat.” And when learning, I might 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, comparable to: “Mitochondria are the energy plant of the cell. They generate a lot of the chemical vitality wanted to energy the cell’s biochemical reactions.” Perhaps even diagram the method within the margins. That is synthesis. This denotes understanding.
And there’s analysis to again this up. Particularly, that verbatim notice taking simply isn’t as efficient whenever you’re making an attempt to study and retain new data.
Pen and paper
To this present day, I nonetheless take loads of my notes by hand. It helps me to keep up focus and internalise the necessary bits. It’s unattainable to jot down as quick as individuals communicate, so I’m compelled to jot down down what I feel is most necessary or make notice 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 properly for me is the Cornell Methodology. A easy strategy that has you cut 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 very fact (i.e., write a succinct abstract).
What I wind up with are structured notes which might be straightforward to learn, organise, and revisit, as a result of it’s extra than simply writing one thing down, however having the ability to return and evaluate questions and problem assumptions.
A latest examine by Kuniyoshi Sakai, titled Paper Notebooks vs. Cellular Units: Mind Activation Variations Throughout Reminiscence Retrieval, really confirmed increased retention and recall for topics that used pen and paper versus a keyboard, or pill and stylus. Nevertheless, there may be broad settlement that taking notes, in any type with any enter, helps with encoding, retention, and recall.
As you may 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 might be lively with the textual content as an alternative of simply studying it drives this course of.
Utilizing ML and generative AI
There may be loads of worth within the act of taking notes and actively synthesising data. However we dwell in a world with extra knowledge than we may ever fairly anticipate to comb by means of. That is an space the place ML and generative AI will play an more and more necessary function. A number of examples that come to thoughts are:
- Utilizing a transcription service with speaker identification to complement the notes you’re taking throughout a gathering.
- Utilizing pc imaginative and prescient and optical character recognition (OCR) to transform your handwritten notes into docs that you may 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 whole corpus of notes utilizing an LLM to determine themes, developments, and necessary individuals throughout a whole bunch of pages from conferences, lectures, doc evaluations, on-site visits, and many others.
I see this like studying a map. If you happen to 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 for those who took the route sufficient instances, 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 could be site visitors or building, and the alternate routes to get round it. However nowadays, we simply use our telephones. We comply with turn-by-turn instructions from street-to-street without having to commit an excessive amount of to reminiscence.
It’s useful. It’s straightforward. That’s not likely up for debate. However studying a bodily map remains to be a really helpful talent. There’ll inevitably be instances that you simply don’t have cell service (otherwise you lose your telephone, or perhaps you need to disconnect from know-how), and understanding the place you might be and easy methods to get the place you’re going are necessary. And similar to taking notes by hand, it permits you to take away among the noise created by know-how, and to give attention to the necessary 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!
Observe: I’m genuinely curious how my readers take notes and synthesise data. If you happen to’re doing issues in another way than me, let me know on Twitter or LinkedIn.