this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2025
34 points (100.0% liked)

Ask Lemmy

35101 readers
2112 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions


Rules: (interactive)


1) Be nice and; have funDoxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them


2) All posts must end with a '?'This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?


3) No spamPlease do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.


4) NSFW is okay, within reasonJust remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].


5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.


6) No US Politics.
Please don't post about current US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world or !askusa@discuss.online


Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.

Partnered Communities:

Tech Support

No Stupid Questions

You Should Know

Reddit

Jokes

Ask Ouija


Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I've been learning things for a long while but I still don't have a reliable set-in-stone technique for getting things into my head.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] platypode@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Writing notes by hand has been proven to be more effective than typing. Take notes by hand as you go through the source material, then rewrite them (still by hand) into a neat, organized document. Index the document and store it. The act of writing out and engaging with the information to reorganize it will go a long way towards improving recall later, and if you do forget you’ll have a quick reference ready to brush up. Bonus points if you add a section to the neat document linking it conceptually to other knowledge, as that builds even more pathways in your brain to that information.

[–] Inkstainthebat@pawb.social 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

A lot of people have suggested writing by hand so I'll consider doing that instead of my laptop then. Any advice on handwriting notes

[–] emb@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

The Cornell system is pretty famous note-taking method. I also saw while checking for the Wikipedia page for that, there's a partial wikibook on Note-Taking with some various tips and links, and a Note-Taking article that outlines several methods.

But my advice would be not to stress too much about how you're taking notes. Writing helps with memory, but from what I can tell it's really the act of taking the information, choosing what to write down and how to re-word it that does the heavy lifting.

So basically, just do it, even though it's imperfectly. Sit down to learn something, and as you read, watch, or practice, decide what's important and jot down something on your paper that you think captures the idea.

Also be wary of the trap of buying nice pens and notebooks. That stuff is cool if it motivates you to actually start taking notes, but can drag you down if you let yourself get too particular about it.