[glun]

I think you ought to consider whether you should take notes at all. Notetaking is great for remembering actions that you have comitted to doing, or if you need to spread information to people who didn't participate in a meeting. Managers need to do a lot of notetaking.

However, taking notes seriously hinder your ability to engage with the material and build true understanding as you are listening, which would have helped you remember the material right away. If you are in school or are an individual contributor in a company I think you ought to stop taking notes all together.

If you need notes for future practice I would advice you to write them after the meeting/lecture. Actively recalling things from memory is the best form practice.

[westurner]

> In 2009, psychologist Jackie Andrade asked 40 people to monitor a 2-½ minute dull and rambling voice mail message. Half of the group doodled while they did this (they shaded in a shape), and the other half did not. They were not aware that their memories would be tested after the call. Surprisingly, when both groups were asked to recall details from the call, those that doodled were better at paying attention to the message and recalling the details. They recalled 29% more information! https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-thinking-benefits-of...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doodle#Effects_on_memory references the same study.

Related articles on GScholar: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=related:YVG_-PKhNH4J:sc...

[glun]

> dull and rambling voice mail message

This is in no way a realistic study. A dull and rambling voice speaking about some random thing not related to you or your work will make people disengage. Doodling presumably keeps people from totally spacing out.

[westurner]

Many lectures and meetings may be experienced as similarly dross and irrelevant and a waste of time (though you can't expect people to just read the necessary information ahead of time, as flipped classrooms expect of committed learners).

What would be a better experimental design for measuring effect on memory retention of passively-absorbed lectures?

[komali2]

I completely disagree. If I think of something I want to add during someone else's time to speak, I have about ten seconds before that point or question will totally evaporate. Having pen and paper let me actually ask questions and contribute during a meeting.

[yotosser45]

You didn't actually disagreed:

>Notetaking is great for remembering actions that you have comitted to doing

I would say that you use case fits there