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KISS, an acronym for keep it simple, stupid or keep it stupid simple, is a design principle noted by the U.S. The KISS principle states that most systems work best if they are kept simple rather than made complicated; therefore, simplicity should be a key goal in design, and unnecessary complexity should be avoided.The phrase has been associated with aircraft engineer Kelly Johnson. Next time you go to the store, share your shopping list on Keep and watch as items get checked off in real time. No need for text messages back and forth. Get things done together, faster. The notepad alarms of the reminders can be repeated daily, monthly or yearly. Write notes with finger (handwritten note taking & drawings). Take audio notes using the voice recording notepad. You can set private note locks for specific notes or checklists without having to lock the entire app. Share your recorded notes with other apps.

Do you ever find yourself searching for that one note that you know you wrote down somewhere?

Perhaps, it is a last-minute frantic search for a piece of information that you need. Or you have been endlessly searching for days for that missing document.

https://downtfil229.weebly.com/macbook-pro-13-2019-music-production.html. You need to keep your notes in one place.

Where are Your Notes?

A complete time management system includes many productivity tools. One of the most important of which is a good note-taking tool.

You need the ability to capture notes and pieces of information. Equally as important as capturing the information is the ability to recall or finding specific notes at a later time.

A common trap is to write notes everywhere. Notebooks, pads of papers, Post-Its, and so on. This leads to too many tools, and a very complex note-taking system.

‘If you keep all of your notes in one place, then you only have one place to search later.”

Simply put, the more places you take notes… the more places you have to look later when you need a piece of information.

A better solution is to record all of your notes in one place, one tool. Not only does this simplify your system but it makes you more efficient both in writing notes and retrieving them.

Here are 5 Reasons You Should Always Keep Your Notes in One Place:

  1. Reduced Cutter – If your desk is covered in notebooks, pads, and loose pieces of paper, then you are taking notes in too many places. Having one note-taking tool reduces physical clutter and helps you keep your workplace clean.
  2. One Place to Note – You don’t have to carry multiple tools or notebooks. As well, you don’t have to even think about which tool to pick up when you need to record something. You have one place where you record important information.
  3. Easier to Search – When you have one notebook, it is easier to search for notes. You don’t have to recall “where you wrote that down.” As well, you can have one method of organizing and search your notes. (Made even easier if you are using an electronic method/app.)
  4. You Will Take More Notes – Note-taking is a skill. The more you do it, the better you get at knowing when to capture something important for later. With one place for your notes, you will be more proficient with your note-taking tool.
  5. One Standard for Your Notes – With one place for your notes, you will quickly find that you develop one format for your notes. It doesn’t matter if it is electronic or paper-based, you will begin to document information in a standard look and feel.

One Place for Your Notes

The fewer places you take notes, the fewer places you have to search when you need them again.

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It really doesn’t matter if you use an electronic solution such as Evernote, or a paper-based one like a Moleskine notebook.

Choose the solution that works best for you.

Whichever note-taking tool you choose, always keep your notes in one place.

Question: Where do you take notes? Are you falling into the trap of using multiple tools and systems? You can leave a comment by clicking here.

Related

Note-taking is an incredibly powerful tool for learning.

Notes extend your memories. I’ve explained before how writing can be seen as an external enhancement of your brain, allowing you to think more complicated thoughts and solve harder problems. Notes you keep, therefore, act to expand your memory.

Notes enhance your focus. The act of taking notes ensures your mind isn’t wandering. Even better, notes can facilitate deeper processing of the material, which has been shown to improve memory than when you pay attention only to the superficial details.

Unfortunately, note-taking is often easier and more natural when you’re listening to something, than when you’re reading.

Why Taking Notes While Reading is Harder

Keep it write notes keep things 1 8 2020

Taking notes while listening is generally easier because, while listening, your hands and eyes are free to jot down notes. On the other hand, switching away to take notes while reading inevitably interrupts the reading flow.

This interruption leads to a trade-off. Too few notes and you give up the powerful cognitive enhancements that note-taking provides. Too many notes and your reading speed slows to a crawl.

What should you do?

How to Take Notes While Reading

I’d like to explain my thinking process of taking notes while reading. Follow these steps and you can find the right way to take notes for your situation.

Write

Step One: Why am I Reading?

The starting point of any note-taking technique has to be the purpose of whatever you’re trying to read. Why are you reading it in the first place? Why are you trying to take notes? What are you hoping to achieve?

These questions matter greatly, because different purposes are better served by different methods.

Consider two different situations. In one, you’re studying from a textbook. You want to take notes because the textbook is too long to easily review, and you want to prepare for an upcoming test based on the material it contains.

In the second situation, you’re a journalist, doing research to write a piece. You’ll go back to your sources when you write the final article, so your goal with taking notes is to make this job easier on yourself later.

In my experience, these two situations suggest different note-taking techniques, which I’ll go into shortly.

Before that, start by asking yourself why you are reading what you’re reading. In particular, ask yourself:

  • What am I trying to remember? (Alternatively: What do I think I’m going to forget?)
  • How am I going to use this information? (e.g. on a test, cited in an essay, as background for deeper thinking, etc.)
  • What do I plan to do with the notes later? Will you be studying off of them extensively? Keeping them in your records, just in case, but otherwise not looking at them again? Or maybe you’re just taking notes to stay focused, and it’s highly unlikely you’ll look through them after?

Think about your answers to these questions as we go through the next steps.

Step Two: Facilitating Focus

The first purpose of notes should be to enhance your concentration on what you read. This is especially true when taking notes from written material, because, in most cases, you’ll be able to go back and read the original source in case your notes were incomplete.

You want your notes to do the following:

  1. Make it easier for you to concentrate on reading. A small amount of note-taking can prevent your mind from wandering.
  2. Focus your mind on the right level of information. Are you trying to meticulously store details from a text? Or are you trying to get the gist of the argument put forth by the author? How you take notes also reinforces what you pay attention to.
  3. Create a document that you can reference later to review, study or find information. Notes can also serve as a cheat-sheet for finding things you later forgot.

A few strategies I do to take notes while reading that helps with this are:

  1. Jot notes in the margin. These aren’t particularly searchable (if the book is text, not Kindle), but they allow me to reiterate the main idea, so I can convince myself I understood it.
  2. Keep a small notepad on the side, take breaks each section to jot down the main ideas. This, again, helps force me to focus on what are the higher-level ideas.
  3. Creating flashcards. In the rarer situations where memorization of details is important, then a simple strategy can be to just create flashcards while you take notes. If I’m learning a language, anatomy or am given long lists of details I need to master, this can be better than trying to write them down and transfer them to flashcards later.

The important thing to keep in mind is that text, unlike live lectures, is usually searchable later. So your notes, to be effective, should strive to enhance your focus first, and only secondarily, be a document that is pretty and easy to review.

Step Three: Review or Recall?

If you expect to have to study the same material multiple times to fully master it (say it’s for an exam) then, you can save time by integrating your note-taking and retrieval practice efforts.

Retrieval practice is a well-supported practice that greatly enhances your memory compared to simple review. This technique is simply to try to recall as much as you can from the text, either by having prompted questions and answers, or just writing as much as you can on a blank page.

Retrieval works far better than review, where you look at the notes you wrote down multiple times. This is because review merely aids recognition, which isn’t very useful for most practical applications. Retrieval, in contrast, practices your ability to summon up memories when you need them—exactly the ability you need for tests and real-life situations.

Therefore, if you expect to study the material multiple times, it may be in your benefit to use the Question Book Method. This method simply encourages you to take your notes as questions, rather than as statements. Then, when you review your notes, you can answer those questions instead of just reading the information—aiding retrieval and making your studying time more efficient.

Side note: One trap students can fall into when using this method is copying down a bunch of irrelevant details as questions, and missing the big picture. A good way to avoid this is to limit yourself to one or two questions per section, thus forcing you to restate the main idea. If you really do have to memorize the details, flashcards with spaced repetition, is a better tool.

Step Four: Creating Clues for Future Searches

Sometimes the goal of notes isn’t to facilitate your memory, inside your brain, at all. Rather, the goal is to create an easily-searchable document that can help you find things you thought were important later.

I use this with writing all the time. I take notes, not so much to help me pay attention or memorize the facts, but to serve as anchors to find later if I’m looking for a quote, factoid or reference.

Digital note-taking systems like Evernote, make this easiest. Although, even the simple note-taking features on Kindle can work quite well. If I know I’m reading a biography and I need examples of the person doing something specific, I might highlight and tag any of those examples with a keyword so a simple search will bring up all the relevant passages.

Similarly, if you’re reading something you plan to use for a specific purpose, you can even put little sticky tags on the book to mark passages that refer to that. Say you’re reading a book on marketing, but you’re mostly interested in pulling ideas to try for your own business. You could put these tags on the book so you can easily flip through later if you need inspiration.

Keep It Write Notes Keep Things 1 8 2020

Final Question: Paper or Digital?

A question many students ask me is whether they should take paper or digital notes.

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For classes where my goal is to study, I tend to prefer paper. There are studies supporting the use of paper versus computer note-taking, although the reasoning behind this might be that it’s harder to copy notes verbatim on paper, so you’re forced to think about the information while taking notes. Keykey 2 3 – typing tutor practice. Provided you aren’t taking verbatim notes, then, whichever option is the most convenient for you.

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For texts where my goals is to reference later, I tend to prefer digital. Searching digital documents is much, much easier than printed ones.

The truth is, however, if you follow the above steps, you can find the right answer for your situation based on what makes you feel the most comfortable.

Quick Summary of How to Take Notes While Reading

Here’s a quick summary of what to do in order to take notes while reading:

  1. Figure out your purpose.
  2. Choose a technique that maximizes your focus on what is most relevant for your purpose. There’s many different ones (jotting in the margin, separate notes on paper, Question Book Method) for different purposes.
  3. Decide whether to optimize for review or retrieval practice. For docs you don’t plan to extensively study, review is the obvious choice. For texts you need to master perfectly, the Question Book Method (for big idea) or flashcards (for details) saves time.
  4. If you do need to go back into the text again and again, create clues in your notes that can help you find what you’re looking for faster.

Above all, however, pick a method that you feel most comfortable with. The variety of different ways to take notes exist because there are many different reasons you want to read something and remember it. Experiment with them until you find the way that works best for you!





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