Improve your digital note taking by a factor of infinity with these tips

So there’s been a lot of interest in digital note taking recently, so I thought it’d be a good idea to share some tips to improve your note taking that I’ve developed through the last semester.<br><br>**Method 1: Convert your digital notes to typed notes while reading the textbook**<br><br>I’m sure most people are familiar with the idea of converting your notes to typed notes, but I saw that most people recommend converting your notes after every class. However, this method is flawed because while reading the textbook, you already have the time to think about the notes, so why not write them down then? For example, I have a class where we have online powerpoints, and I just go through them and add them to my typed notes while reading a book, so I don’t have to waste time typing up my notes after class.<br><br>This method is especially useful for classes that don’t give you a lot of time to write notes down, and allows you to be able to review notes while also reading the textbook, so that you can be more focused on the subject you’re reading about.<br><br>**Method 2: If you’re taking digital notes with a stylus, record audio**<br><br>I saw a lot of people in this sub taking digital notes with a stylus (me included), and I thought that there might be some confusion as to how to review these notes, and I personally use audio and visual cues to review these notes, and some people might not know about these methods.<br><br>So, the first one is recording audio. I simply set my phone up, and let it record audio during class. This is especially useful, because when you get home and review notes, you can listen to audio and be able to see whether you missed anything, or if you don’t remember what a note meant, you can go back to the time and place where you took that note.<br><br>**Method 3: Use your computer for everything**<br><br>While this might not be relevant to everyone, if you have the money, get a tablet that you can use for everything. It’s very useful to be able to take notes on a computer, while also having access to other things like your email, or Google Drive, etc. This is very useful if you ever need to be able to access something on the internet, or if you want to organize and move your notes and files around. It’s honestly so much easier than writing notes down on a piece of paper.<br><br>**Method 4: This one is obvious, but use your professors slides**<br><br>This one is pretty obvious, but if your professor posts slides, use them. A lot of the time, they have exactly what the professor said, and you can get a much more accurate picture of what was said, and you can focus more on participating in class, rather than worrying about whether you caught everything that was said.<br><br>**Method 5: Use your professors slides to speed up your note taking**<br><br>If your professor posts slides, you can take notes on the slides themselves, and that will help you remember the notes more. This is called the encoding hypothesis, which basically just says that when you have multiple stimuli from different sources, like seeing your notes and hearing the professor, you will be able to recall the information more. This will also help you have the information written down more, without having to spend barely any time taking notes.<br><br>**Method 6: Use Anki**<br><br>Some of you may have heard of Anki, but if you haven’t, its basically flashcards but a lot better. The basic premise is that you have “cards” with a question on the front, and an answer on the back, and you have a certain “deck” that you can have these cards in. Anki gets its power from the way that you can space out your cards, so if you get a card right, it will be sent to a later deck, so you can get cards that you haven’t seen before more. This is very useful for testing yourself on the material you’ve learned, and I personally use it to review notes for all of my classes.<br><br>**Method 7: Use the digital version of the Cornell method**<br><br>The Cornell system is basically just a system where you have two columns, one for notes, and one for a short summary of the notes and questions. If you’re taking digital notes, just have two columns, and one should be a short summary of the notes, and a set of questions that you have about the material, and the other should be the notes and summaries provided by your professor.<br><br>This method is very useful because you have all of the information in one place, and it’s very easy to go back and review the material, because you have a set of questions to test yourself, and summaries of the notes, to help guide you through the material.<br><br>**Method 8: Use Canva to organize your notes**<br><br>Some of you may have heard of Canva, but if you haven’t, it’s basically just a very easy graphic design website. If you have a lot of different “sets” of notes, (e.g., digital note taking, textbook, powerpoints), it can be very useful to put all of the different sources together into one thing, and Canva is very useful for this. You can put your digital notes in one column, and the powerpoints in another, or you can put different “sets” of notes on different pages. It’s very useful for being able to go back and look at the notes, and if you get stuck on one set of notes, you can go back to a different set to get a better understanding of the material, which can help you stay focused and not get stuck on one thing too long.<br><br>**Method 9: Use a note taking template, and use different colors**<br><br>Even if you’re on a computer, it’s very useful to use a template to organize your notes. This can be very useful if you have a lot of different things to take notes on, because you can separate all of the different information.<br><br>Using different colors is also very useful, because with digital notes, there’s no need to hassle with different colored pens, and you can just use the format tools to change the color of the text. For example, you can make headings one color, and the notes another color, to help separate different things, and have the most important information stand out.<br><br>**Method 10: Use Trello**<br><br>Trello is an app where you can create different “boards” and on those boards, you can have different “cards”. Each card is like a sticky note, and you can put “checklists” on them.<br><br>This is especially useful for staying organized, because you can have different “boards” for different classes, and then different “cards” for different things, and you can put checklists on them for things like “read chapter 1” or “turn in assignment”. It’s very useful for staying organized, especially if you have a lot of “small” things to do, but you don’t want to write them down.<br><br>EDIT: I just wanted to say thank you to everyone for upvoting this and providing feedback! It’s definitely appreciated<br><br>Also, this is mostly copied and pasted from a comment I made on a different thread, which is why it doesn’t really flow together.