How to Make Notes and Save Time

the truth is that while everyone tells us to study no one teaches us how to study the reality  is that smart note-taking techniques will help you get your work done quickly and leave you  with enough free time to lead a balanced life so in today's blog we are going to talk about  how to make smart notes to save time and have the highest output we're also going to talk  about whether you should take notes on a laptop or on a notebook how to make the best notes in class  both in theory subjects and in numerical based subjects and finally we are going to talk about  how to make notes from your textbook and some special time-saving tips so let's get going hey everyone this is Smartly Learner and you're Reading Blog and

 let's first break one myth you don't have to make your notes pretty  you just have to have them organized and now for rule number one is always  go to class it'll take twice as long studying to make up for what you've missed attending class  is the biggest time-saving tool there is but just attending class is not enough  you have to take good notes note taking is an art form and here are some proven  note taking techniques first let's talk about the big question laptop versus notebooks so tell me in  the comment section below which one you prefer do you prefer to break notes directly onto a laptop  or a notebook and now let me start by giving you the pros and cons of both a laptop is  increasingly becoming common and most students can type faster than they can write in fact  we've almost forgotten how to write what's more you can store all the information in one place  but laptops have their own challenges in math science economics or engineering-based subjects  there will be a lot of numbers and equations which kind of become challenging on a laptop and  the second biggest problem is notifications but overall the biggest challenge of using laptops is  when you make notes you're going to just end up writing everything that the teacher says verbatim  formatting tends to be time-consuming and this has proven to result in lower test scores overall  so I recommend notebooks I love notebooks and if you're like me you're going to keep one for every  subject I prefer these larger size notebooks so that you can write comfortably use a couple of  colored pens maybe one or two but like I said you don't need to make your nose pretty you just use  the pens to highlight important information and here's the strategy if you want to keep your notes  organized for a long time then at the end of every week type out summaries of your handwritten notes  that way you go over them once again and you also retain them in one place this is exactly what I do  when I'm researching topics for you I first read I research online then I make mind maps  and I write it in my notebook and I finally put it all onto my laptop that way my ideas are  finely distilled and crisp question number two how to organize all the material now you get  sheets you get assignments there are notebooks so I recommend keep one folder and one notebook per  subject put all outlines assignments printouts etc in that one folder and before we talk about how to  make notes in theoretical subjects talking about theory subjects the teachers tend to just ramble on and on and it takes dozens of hours to listen read and figure out the big ideas or key takeaways let's dive into the details of how to do all of this while attending class technique number one the devil is in the details write the date and the title of the day's notes while saving notes on your laptop create a separate directory for each class save your doc in this folder with the date and the file name now while using a notebook try to use that second color pen or highlighter or writing sort of for key sort of emphasis lines in the class itself develop your own shorthand if you're writing I use esp for especially mt for mountain and the ohm symbol when I want to talk about the resistance you tell me your special the secret shorthand that you use to make notes in class and leave me a comment below use asterisks make certain parts bold as the teacher emphasizes them or maybe you want to underline them  maybe you want to draw boxes around important formulae or you want to make an arrow to indicate  cause and effect relationships remember your notes are for you alone they can be secret  they can be coded they can be a bit messy it doesn't matter as long as you understand them that  is all that there is remember your notes don't have to be pretty they just have to be organized  technique number two is qec question evidence conclusion the main challenge of note taking  in theory, subjects is deciding what to write most teachers present big ideas in the form of questions so step number one identify the question and label it well highlight it with a second color or bold text or draw a box around it example in a literature class this might be something like who was the greatest novelist of the 20th century notice my shorthand step number two after the question comes to the points or reasons i call them e for evidence jot down all the reasons in bullet points and finally look for the conclusion c how does the teacher conclude the argument in the margin write q for question e for evidence and c for the conclusion  do this for every question the teacher discusses remember

 writing is not the outcome of thinking it is the process during which thinking takes a place so don't write every word the teacher says verbatim write in bullet points and you are final notes of the lul in the class when the teacher goes off  on a personal anecdote use this time to hurriedly go back and clean up your notes record conclusions and clarify questions if there were too many ideas make a quick mind map for yourself because you're bound to forget a few of these things when you finally sit down to revise a few days later pro tip number two is to spend five to ten minutes after the class gets over this is the key if you read your notes right after class you will absorb them and make corrections and additions to these  little moments make a big impact now let's talk about how to make notes in a mathematical subject  in class now in mathematical or technical subjects the note taking strategy is actually much simpler the strategy is to record as many sample problems as possible teachers have a tendency to cover various types of difficult problems in class make notes of all the steps this will help you when you  get stuck but how do you do that you're always short of time so here is my four point technique  first priority record the problem statement and the answer second priority  question the confusing ask questions when you don't understand a specific step  is it annoying a little bit does this improve your understanding absolutely yes so raise your hand  be confident and ask away third priority record the steps of the sample problem  and fourth priority annotate the steps and if you have time write a little explanation on the side  this way your notes will be your bible to go back to if you get stuck in any of the problems later on when you're practicing next let's talk about how to make smart notes from your textbook now  while reading your textbook remember that the questions can come from any part of the chapter in fact, teachers are very clever aren't they so usually, most chapters in textbooks are arranged into topics and subtopics at the end of each subtopic ask yourself to question what is the big  question e evidence in between write a few bullet points of evidence or proof and c  finally, write the conclusion q e if the question or conclusion is not clear to you while the class  is going on ask the teacher and when you're studying at home go back and ask the teacher  as well another thing you can do is leave a little space for them and you can come back to it later one final tip prepare memorization aids as you study has a deck of flash cards per subject and keep making them on the go whenever you encounter a concept a formula a chemical equation or anything that you think you might forget to make a quick flash card and add it to your deck and every day while passing by your deck just randomly pick up one flash card quiz yourself and put it back easy time saving super smart note taking tips only on chat so try out these techniques  and I guarantee you that your performance will skyrocket instantly and meantime