Get Better Advice by Taking Notes

http://lifehacker.com/5270397/get-better-advice-by-taking-notes

by Flemlord • 17 years ago

41 14 17 years ago

pj• 17 years ago

It's not taking notes, it's paying attention. It's listening. It's letting the speaker know that you are interested and value what they are saying.

If you've ever tried teaching someone something, this happens to geeks all the time, someone asks you a question right? How do I calculate the average of all the values in this excel spreadsheet? So you tell them. Then the next day, same question. Then the next day, next week... same question.

People just don't pay attention. They don't want to work. They don't want to work to rearrange their neurons so they can remember things. They'd rather remember what they have programmed to record on TiVo when they get home.

If you don't really value what the person is saying, don't waste their time by making them think you care because you are taking notes.

Take notes if you care. The irony is, if you care, you'd be taking notes without reading this lifehacker stuff. You'd be taking notes so that you don't have to waste that person's time with the same question over and over. You'd actually take the time and put the energy into learning and committing to memory inside your brain what you are hearing.

diN0bot• 17 years ago

true, but being able to write things down goes one step further than mere listening: remembering.

lionheart• 17 years ago

While I used to agree with this kind of black and white perspective on caring I've lately begun to think differently.

As with everything about the human brain, its all in shades of gray. The logical part of you might care a lot, but your subconscious is distracting it with memories of that cute girl from last night, and so on.

I've learned that its very useful to give your higher brain functions some external help. Sometimes this means throwing out all of the snacks when you go on a diet. And sometimes this means taking a notepad with you and taking notes even when you don't really think you need to.

"Pretending" to care by taking notes quickly turns into really caring and paying much more attention to what you are doing than you would otherwise.

ianbishop• 17 years ago

Taking notes at university has become one of those odd analog vs digital tasks where my preferences fall uncomfortably with neither.

I find software leaves much to be desired. I need the ability to tack graphs, formulas, side notes where ever I please, like Photoshop. Yet I need better text editor support, like Word or OpenOffice.

Doing it by hand is fine, but I can't take notes as quick as I can by typing. I have full control over a page, but there is no Ctrl-Z for spelling mistakes which can leave notes disfigured and unsettling to study from.

The solution to all of this would be to copy by hand and then re-type on the computer but this again takes a lot of time. Perhaps something like LaTeX etc. would help but again.. too much time spent on actual documentation preparation when it should be spent on note-taking.

Can anyone relate to what I'm ranting on about?

euroclydon• 17 years ago

When I studied math, I tried transcribing my notes into LaTex, but found that, while enjoyable, it was too slow, and I got behind. Maybe a tablet PC with some type of note-taking software would work, but that's pretty annoying. I like to use PC's for things that humans can't do themselves, like crunching numbers while I sleep.

I got fast enough at hand notes, and found that if I kept my book open during the lecture, that I could skip note taking on a portion of the lecture if it was covered adequately in the book.

edd• 17 years ago

One thing that I have seen others do is to create a kind of footnote system in their laptop document so that any formula or diagram gets a reference number then they quickly grab the pen and paper and jot the formula/diagram down then straight back to the computer. Then after the lecture just digitalise the footnotes. Really depends on how much of the lecture is formulas/diagrams to text I suppose.

jacobolus• 17 years ago

> it was too slow, and I got behind.

This is purely a function of practice. 5 years ago, a friend of mine could TeX math notes substantially faster than I could write them by hand, including reasonably complex commutative diagrams, lots of tricky formulae, etc. A big part of TeX speed is setting up a bunch of personal macros for commonly used symbols (e.g. \a instead of \alpha, etc.).

weaksauce• 17 years ago

I agree to some extent. I have yet to find a note taking killer app. FWIW, most advice says to recopy notes after the lecture to cement the knowledge anyways. That being said, it would be nice to have a better way to do notes.

holaberlin• 17 years ago

Evernote?

http://evernote.com/

Elepsis• 17 years ago

Have you tried OneNote? It's still not great for math, but for a lot of note-taking applications it's excellent - particularly in tacking things wherever you please.

danohuiginn• 17 years ago

Old-fashioned, but there's still something to be said for shorthand. Then you can hand-write as fast as you can type. Type up the notes afterwards, which (as you say) forces you to review them as well.

[I've had good experiences with Teeline shorthand; was able to learn the system in an evening, and from there it's just building up speed. Avoid Pitman's shorthand like the plague]

biotech• 17 years ago

This is a great habit to get into when you really need to remember/understand the material. I have worked at several science and engineering labs; when someone demonstrates a procedure, you better have a damn good memory if you aren't writing it down!

It hadn't previously occured to me do this in the doctor's office, but it's a good idea - the info a doctor gives can sometimes be (or should be) fairly involved. It's worth writing down.

Furthermore, taking notes allows you to process the information on two levels. The technical details (names of things, etc) can be relegated to the notepad and forgotten. Important general concepts can then receive your greater attention. A doctor who gives more involved advice to a note-taker is a doctor who knows that you can handle more information if you're writing some of it down.

joe_bleau• 17 years ago

Funny. Where I work, if I show/explain/tell someone how to do something, I can either repeat the lesson every time the question comes up, or document the procedure in detail and give the person a copy. If I do take the time to document it, then I can simply reprint a copy every time the question comes up.

Now if only I had a way to handle the situation where someone attempts to perform a task, but forgets an important step or two along the way.

jonsen• 17 years ago

The fear of being held responsible could also be a certain factor of the keenness of the advisor; concern for what 'evidence' exactly ends up in that notebook.

Get Better Advice by Taking Notes

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