Physical before digital.

“You have to make your own condensed notes. You learn from MAKING them. A lot of thinking goes into deciding what to include and exclude. You develop your own system of abbreviations and memory methods for the information.”

Unless you’re Jimmy Neutron — note taking is a skill that should be practiced even after formal education ends.

The question of how I personally take notes has came up a lot during the quarantine period and I feel this is a solid opportunity to elaborate on the topic.

I’ll begin with the phrase “physical before digital.”

1. Jot down ideas and notes in a physical notebook. Handwriting does not matter as long as it’s legible and can be transcribed to digital form. Leave no space blank.

2. Take whats valuable and transcribe it to a cloud based note taking platform at a later time. This is where you expand on topics and organize things for future reference.

What notebook do I use? 

I’m a big fan of Karst’s Hardcover Notebook — these are a blend of luxury construction with an environmentally aware thesis. from waterproof recycled stone.

These are made from waterproof recycled stone using 60% less energy than regular tree-pulp paper notebooks to be produced.

Don’t use Google Docs.

Instead try out Notion — they’ve just launched a new free version which allows you to organize your projects, work notes, and todo lists in a simple fashion.

Notion takes note taking and provides a life organization tool that leaves Evernote and the rest in the dust.