Taking Notes

Retaining Knowledge

Throughout my life, I’ve always been drawn to productivity hacks. I enjoy learning how others squeeze 1% more output from their day. Tools, diet, exercise, technology, habits, and focus are common themes in my quest to be more productive. Good stuff. 

Here’s a dilemma for me. I prefer electronic books, electronic notes, and less paper. But I’ve read a few articles that say engaging with information and subsequently writing down key points by hand is a better way to promote memory retention. 

Search and recall

Years ago, I started moving from paper notebooks to digital notes, digital book highlights, and digital to-do lists. I prefer less bulk and I’m willing to forgo the feel of paper, highlighters, and notes. I prefer a library of digital books in my Kindle library over my bookshelf. It’s not that it's a better way, but a preference. 

If I need to recall information, I use search. That’s efficient, but it’s only as good as the information saved. If I wanted to store my thoughts and notes from training classes, books, and meetings in a paper notebook then I would have to search manually through the notebooks for recall. But does handwriting on paper last in memory longer?

Combining the best of both approaches

Maybe the point of handwriting notes and thoughts is to promote better understanding or mastery of a concept. Whereas electronic notes help with archiving knowledge for future recall. If that’s true, then everyone would benefit from using a system that includes elements of both styles. I need to investigate more of the tools that take handwritten notes and digitize them into an archive. 

There’s no right answer. Taking time to develop a method for documenting important information is beneficial, as it helps you both retain and recall it when necessary.

In search of the extra 1%. 

Onward and upward.

Image: Created by Microsoft Copilot on 10/26/24 with the prompt “Draw an image of handwritten notes in a notebook sitting on a desk with other books. Make the notes text notes with a few pictures. Make the pictures hand drawn.”