In a student’s life, one of the most important skills they must be familiar with includes notes taking. Taking good notes comes with multiple benefits, but the most important one being they will be able to ace their academics. For other reasons, read ahead to know more.
Keeps You Alert
When you practice notes taking, especially during lectures or studying, it helps get rid of the lethargy. It keeps you active and more focused, which means you will end up grasping more. Even adults make use of this practice during meetings and more to ensure they don’t miss out on anything important. You can keep a separate book for each subject and ensure you jot down the points neatly. This will help you go back to them for a quick revision.
Keeps Your Mind Engaged
Sometimes what happens is that after a long day at school or after a heavy lunch, your concentration goes astray. But you have notes to rescue you and keep your mind engaged. When you are taking notes, you are compelled to listen carefully and write things down. You are engaging multiple senses, so you don’t lose focus.
Helps You Remember Better
It is simple. Writing things will help you remember better. If you want to cut down your studying time and remember everything you learn in school, start taking notes. This will help you remember things well and lessen your study time. A win-win situation. And, if any surprise tests come your way, you can ace them too.
Helps You Organize Information
Let’s say, you make a habit of taking notes. So, when you are doing the same in class, maybe your teacher tell you the next point is very important. Therefore, without fail, you can highlight that point and ensure you don’t forget anything. You will also be able to organize things as very important and less important.
You Can Get Your Doubts Cleared
When you work on taking notes, you can make a note of doubts too and get them cleared after the class.
Keeps Away Any Distractions
When you make it a habit to take revision notes every day, you will be able to keep away any distractions and ensure you never lose any focus.
Enhances Listening Skill
To ensure you take proper notes, it is important that you listen carefully without any interruption. And when you do this regularly, you will be able to enhance your listening skills.
Now, that you are familiar with all the advantages of taking notes regularly. Let’s understand which is the best way to takes notes. Remember, choose the method that works best for you,
Only Jot Down The Important Points
If you are a slow writer, the best way to takes notes is to write down all the important points and dates. This will ensure you enjoy all the above-mentioned benefits and helps you remember the important points from the lesson. Writing down only the important points is the best way to take notes for a slow writer.
Don’t Write Full Sentences
When it comes to taking notes, you don’t have to write the entire sentence. Let’s say, your teacher is explaining Chandragupta Maurya. Now, instead of writing The founder of the Maurya Empire was Chandragupta Maurya from 321 – 297 BCE. He built one of the largest empires in the Indian Subcontinent.
You can write Maurya Empire – Founder – Chandragupta Maurya from 321 – 297 BCE – one of the largest empires – the Indian Subcontinent. Here, you are removing the unnecessary words and writing only the important words. This helps you save time. However, when you are using this method, make sure you understand whatever is written even later or you can go home and convert them into proper notes. In that case, have a single notebook for the class and subject-wise notebooks for writing them properly while at home.
Sticky Notes
You can use sticky notes in the textbook to write whatever your teacher explains. For this, let’s say, your teacher is teaching you an English poem, Dust of the snow. The poem goes like this;
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
- Robert Frost
Now, the teacher explains the first para. You can use a sticky note there and write the explanation there that the snow explains the bitter mood of the poet and the crow symbolizes fear and bad omen in the poem. You can just paste the sticky notes next to the lines in the poem. Sticky notes will not spoil the textbooks and will provide you with an organized line of explanation for a poem and even a chapter. You can make use of this trick for mathematics too.
Write Whatever You Listen too
When a teacher is explaining something, keep writing things down. This will help you keep proper focus and ensure you don’t miss out on anything. However, with this, since you are only writing whatever you listen to and are unable to segregate anything at that moment, you must go home segregate whatever you have written to ensure that you only have important points remaining with you in the end.
You Can Also Make Columns
Before the class starts, make columns of all the topics, including the subtopics. So, when your teacher talks about anything in that particular column, fill it out.
Remember, taking notes is very important. Make sure you follow a method that is suitable for you. Notes-taking is easy and can also improve your handwriting and help you understand more.