| Notes cover a lot of ground--from school lecture notes, reading notes, to something as simple as a todo list? Notes are writing, and writing has a purpose. I don't know what your purpose is, so I can only respond literally to your questions: > "what kind of notes" I take several kinds of 'notes'. I like to draw, so I have a sketch book. I have several different formats. Small notebook for drawing from life, including watercolor sketches. Medium size notebook for 'visual ideas' or organizational ideas (patterns of thought and their visualizations). When I'm designing something I always use black pen & markers on letter size loose leaf paper. This way I can later scan these notes if something turns out to be very useful. When I'm researching a philosophical topic I often make a text document for each book I'm reading. At the top goes a summary of the book and my interest. The next half are verbatim quotes. I find for my interest in philosophy a direct quote is more useful for my writing. I will follow the quote often with questions or my responses to those ideas. I also make a point of listing new words and their definitions if provided. If I'm trying to learn a technical/programming topic the kinds of notes don't matter too much since I'm trying to get into code asap or something that I'm enabled to do by the research. Outlines are useful. > "organizing your thought" Not easily answered on the face of it, and highly dependent on the subject matter. If you asked me last month or next week I might have a different answer, but I think for me everything starts with a blank piece of paper and a pen and then becomes code or text files. I'm not in school currently. Memorization for tests is not an objective, and so my methodologies reflect this fact. YMMV Good luck. |