I went to a meeting the other day. (Hmm.  I really go to meetings at least thrice a week.  But, you’ll see why this one was slightly different in a jif.)  One that covered material with which I was not as familiar as I felt I needed to be. Which meant, of course, I needed to take notes.

I admit that I rarely take notes by hand nowadays. After all, with my armada of laptops and tablets, I have the means at my disposal to type what I hear at about 100 words per minute (wpm). When I used my fountain pen (What? You don’t use a fountain pen?), I could barely cover 25 wpm. If I were to use a tablet without an external keyboard, then my ability to codify my thoughts would be limited to 30-to-40 words per minute.

 

But, the key point in taking notes is to retain information. Or, perhaps to transfer the information learned to other souls. In the former case, it means we need to lock away the data learned in our long-term memory. In the latter case, to describe the information learned in a way that others can use the data.

Since most of the meetings or lectures I attend nowadays build upon the armada of information I already retain (in my brain; my computer data banks also store data [indexed and classified]- but I need to assimilate that data into knowledge), I can use a laptop or tablet to take notes.  I already have a sound foundation in the material and am looking only for a few tidbits.  (I will discuss below what happens when that is not the case.)

Nevertheless, there is another reason to take notes.  Taking notes forces us to pay attention to the matter at hand.  And, since many a time, my attendance at a meeting was mandatory- despite my knowledge that I would yield nothing to advance the cause nor would the discussion aid me in my (or my client’s efforts), I still needed to pay attention. My attendance at the meeting would send a signal to others that this was an important meeting, one where the client was spending (significant) money.  That message wasn’t lost on  my client’s staff members- they would take notes, pay attention, contribute, etc., as well. Those actions wouldn’t happen if I just sat there- I needed to take notes. (Pretty smart of my clients, wouldn’t you say?)

Yet, the key point we must remember is the average note taker is extremely poor at completing the task. The keyboarder may take down too much information- yet, still miss 2/3 of the relevant data. The hand-writer often misses vital, key points as they busily take down what they hear.

But, back in my school days, my notes were really “notes”. If someone planned to copy what I was doing, they would be flabbergasted. Those notes would make no sense to anyone but me. Sometimes, I just scribbled down the first word in the sentences uttered; other times, it was key words. I also jotted down any diagrams that may be useful. That covered my classroom hours of 8:30 to 4:30 every day.

 

Obviously, those notes needed amplification. Which is just what I did. When I got home, I ‘transcribed’ my notes. From those first words or key words into full sentences. I used two fountain pens- one with black ink and the other with red, so I could highlight key concepts. I did that for about 4 years. Until I got my Smith Corona Coronomatic 2200 for my bar mitzva. When I began typing my notes- in black or red ink.

From then, throughout my college, grad school, and professional school days, I followed that routine – transcribing my notes via handwriting or typewriter. (There were no personal computers during my education days.)

Problems only arose when I failed to transcribe the notes that self-same day. It became too hard to remember the verbiage employed in class- since my short-term memory was really short-term (8 hours or so). Thankfully, that situation was a rare occurrence.  I didn’t have family emergencies or special activities that intervened.

Oh, yeah.  That meeting I just attended?  I used my fountain pen to take notes at that meeting. Just like during my college and earlier days. Transcribing the notes that night- but this time, onto my computer screen. Where the data entered is indexed and collated with all my other collected documents. (Oh- and I shared those notes with those who needed them.)

My process – the one I developed by the fourth grade, turns out to be the ideal way to take notes, too. Drs. Robert and Elizabeth Bjork, who lead the UCLA Learning and Forgetting Lab (Psychology) have been studying the ways we can retain- and forget- information in our brain for years. (This husband and wife team is the recipient of the James McKeen Cattell Fellow Award, the Association of Psychological Science’s highest award.)

Their data suggests that we should not work hard to take notes in class, but to complete them after class. That way we can recall the information, which is much better for learning and memory than just writing down what’s put on the blackboard, verbatim. The bonus- we also get to pay better attention in class.

The Bjorks indicate that when we study, wait, and study again, we learn and recall more and better. We are not just playing back our memory, we actually make the information more retrievable in the future. The longer we wait between study and re-study, the better we do. In my case, the lapse between hearing and learning it the first time and retrieving the information for transcription ranged between 10 and 4 hours (the later classes had shorter time lapses between hearing and note-taking. My process- at least for me (and I have a most intriguing memory) would not let me wait beyond the end of that day to transcribe my notes. Because they would be gibberish to me by then. The lecture, the data acquired, only resided in my short-term memory- and I needed it moved into my brain’s long-term storage.

It not just the Bjorks who propose these methods. Kenneth Kiewra, of the University of Nebraska, calls his developed process SOAR- (S)electing, (O)rganizing, (A)ssociating, and (R)egulating learning, is how he describes it. After taking notes, the writer selects important information (that was the red ink portion of my notes). We need to organize those notes so we can discern where they fit in the big picture.

The association part is why I didn’t just put away my notes on the shelf. I reviewed my notes the weekend before an exam- which meant reading and insuring that I understood the material. I developed mnemonics to readily recall salient information, to associate the data to my own experiences.

Which leads to the regulation portion. To make sense of the data and develop a deeper knowledge of the material. In my case, when I didn’t “get it”, I researched the point(s) of confusion.

Now, if I could only erase some of that information.

After all, our brains only have so much storage.

And, my pitch…

Have you bought my book?  So you know how the new tax law affects your personal and business situations?  Not yet????