5 Unconventional, But Proven Note Taking Techniques

Tired of ineffective note taking techniques?

As an undergrad with a neurodiverse background, I found most note taking approaches unhelpful. Many became even more unhelpful when I started teaching as a professor at Rutgers and the University of Saarland in Germany.

Sure, the ideas behind a lot of note taking strategies seem good, but … they’re not exactly techniques that make sense for all people.

And if you’re anything like me, every time you try some new note taking technique …

No matter what, all of them seem to lead to one place:

You … writing down long strings of notes verbatim.

As a result, the notes are just as boring as the dry information you were already struggling with.

On this page, I’ll share you with some unconventional approaches to note taking that helped me succeed at university and later in my career as a researcher.

I’m confident you’ll find them useful, so let’s dig in.

Note Taking Techniques That Make Information Exciting, Interesting & Easier To Remember

As we go through my favorite note taking approaches, keep in mind that there’s no specific order of importance.

I’ve experimented with each of them. And I find that in each case, it takes time to get acquainted with every single approach.

In other words, if you practice these techniques, it’s important not to give up after one or two attempts.

Spend long enough with each approach so that you can really come to appreciate how they work.

And if you have any questions, feel free to pop them in the discussion below. I’ll get back to you a.s.a.p.

One: Visual Note Taking

One problem that I always find with note taking is that I end up writing long sentences into my notebooks.

That’s fine in certain circumstances.

But many times, I just don’t have time.

That’s why I often make quick sketches that help me understand and remember a key point of information at a glance.

Here’s an example:

In this case, I was learning the International Phonetic Alphabet while taking a course in linguistics at university.

To learn the symbol by rote learning would have taken a long time. But by creating this visual note, I remembered the sound easily. The coffee cup helps me remember that “i” makes the vowel sound in “beans,” which is why I drew coffee.

Obviously, this is a simple example. But you can use visual note taking in a variety of ways, especially for smaller units of info like you see in this example.

Two: Outline Note Taking

When attending lectures or listening to instructional videos, I often just make a dash beside each point and reduce entire sentences down to keywords.

I also use outline note taking when recording my own thoughts.

For sub points, I will indent a little into the page’s interior. It basically winds up looking like this example, which involves simple dashes to outline the larger topic:

The catch with this kind of note taking is you can sometimes puzzle yourself. The main point has been compressed to a single keyword and you can’t always remember exactly what you meant during the note taking process.

For this reason, when I use this approach during live lectures, I ask for permission to press record on my phone.

Many speakers will allow you to record their talks. And when you can record, you can simply release yourself to absorb the information with minimal note taking.

Then, listening back, you can expand your basic outline notes later.

Three: SQ3R Note Taking

SQ3R stands for:

• Survey
• Question
• Read
• Recite
• Review

When I use this approach, it’s not so much that I’m note taking. I’m actually asking the questions I want answered about a book and writing them down as I go.

Sometimes my questions are quite complex.

Other times, they’re very simple, such as “really?” on the flash card above.

If you want to know more about my questioning style, check out my post on using memory wheels are part of your learning process.

The cool think about questioning as you study is that you engage scientifically proven active reading strategies. Not always, but often enough, I don’t have to look back at my notes when I take care to ask questions as I’m taking them from my textbooks.

You can also use reflective thinking to go through your notes and question things mentally too.

Four: Use Flow-Based Note Taking

I often take notes by just “brain dumping” my ideas onto the page.

In the following example, my notes outline several things at once: new story ideas, a location I want to have illustrated, and a list of playing cards I had memorized during the day:

The key here is to make sure you can read your own handwriting.

I have countless notebooks from over the years, and sometimes I have to squint.

In fact, recently I bought a magnifying glass to help me read my old notes.

Although I don’t regret how I took them years ago, I’m more careful now to make sure that they are not only more legible.

Beyond that, I don’t try to optimize. The point of this note taking strategy is to get into flow, and now you know what it looks like.

Five: Doodling While Taking Notes

Perhaps my most controversial suggestion is to doodle while taking notes.

Although it’s only useful in certain contexts, when I need to pay attention while listening to boring topics, I sketch.

In a way, doodling while paying attention to information is like mindmapping, but without having to create a dedicated mind map.

I find it useful because it helps me focus on the information as it flows in real time without giving in to the need for a dopamine spike.

I highly recommend giving this form of note taking a try so you can stick with what you’re listening to, rather than constantly flipping through your computer tabs.

My Best Tips For Turning Notes Into Long-Term Memories

Here are a few additional suggestions to consider if you want to remember your notes.

They’ve helped me a ton over the years.

Understand the Levels of Processing Effect

Speaking of pre-reading and post-reading, one of the best things you can do regardless of how you take notes is read beyond the lecture.

And understand that you get more bang for your buck if you also speak with others about what you’ve encountered in lectures.

Some of my favorite memories of university involve the discussion groups I attended with my fellow students.

In English 1300, for example, a small cluster of us all walked away with the top grades.

Why?

Because after many of the lectures and tutorials, we met to discuss the material further.

I’ll never forget sitting up in the 7th-floor Grad Lounge of the Ross Building.

I don’t think we were aware of it at the time, but think of the unconscious message we were giving ourselves.

A first-year course and we chose the grad lounge as our meeting room for discussion. We treated this first-year course as if it was graduate-level material and that gave all of us a cutting edge.

And while we were there… we took more notes!

Later, in grad school, I recall other student groups with different dynamics.

In one of my favorites, we would each voluntarily read an article to present to the group. In this way, each of us was exposed to additional reading material for which we had no time. Yet, we could still take notes about the key points, remember these and enjoy the effect of priming our memory for future encounters with that text or references to it.

Write summaries

I hated it at the time, but one of my grad school professors always made me write 300-500 word summaries of the books I read for a directed reading course.

(That means, it was not a course with other students, but a program of reading and writing just between her and I.)

From this experience, I learned the power of going beyond note taking. I learned to process the information in my own words, which is incredibly powerful for memory and reading comprehension.

Organize your notes

I often take notes on index cards.

That way, I can shuffle them around, but more importantly, they can be stored in baggies and alphabetized by topic.

I put them in plastic baggies because I learned that elastic bands rot over time and ruin the cards.

A lesson learned, to be sure, and to be expected, because…

Effective Note Taking Is A Process That Develops Over Time

Effective note taking skills are everywhere. There are scientific studies well worth your attention too, such as this Scientific American article about not taking notes with a laptop.

Whatever you do, I suggest that you approach note taking as an art and a science. Make sure that you experiment with multiple styles and track your results.

As you pay attention to what’s happening more consciously, you’ll learn more about what works for you and lean towards your preferences with greater understanding.

But at all times, choose flexibility. Make sure you have on hand what you need whenever you attend a lecture or recording of one so that all your bases are covered.

And above all, remove all stress. So many learners bring so much worry about the game of education that they forget to play it.

But learning really is a game. It’s one you can win too, provided you put your memory first. And provided you have the mental strength strategies we all need to succeed.

And to help with that, I’m confident these note taking techniques – if you give them a try in combination with the bigger picture of your rest, relaxation, health and a Magnetic Memory Palace Network – will force you to remember more without so much as breaking a sweat.

If you’d like more controversial, yet effective ideas for learning, check out my free course:

It gives you a complete set of video tutorials and worksheets that will help you improve your memory.

That way, no matter how you take notes, you’re able to remember them.

So what do you say?

Do any of these note taking technique resonate with you?

Let’s discuss below!