5 Tips for better class notes

It is something we all do when we are in class. Some use their laptop, others still revert back to old-school pen and paper, and you have the techies that use an iPad and Apple Pencil to jot down all of their notes. But whatever device you use, what makes a note good? While we all have been doing it for years now, nobody really has taught us how to do it and how to be most effective.

The funny thing is that there exist a lot of opinions on what note-taking technique is the best. While it is very interesting to dive deeper into the different systems that exist, today I want to focus on a more general approach to note-taking. An approach that you can use for any system. With these five simple tips, you can get the most out of your notes and study more effectively. Here we go.

1 – Prepare for class

I know, you’ve probably heard this a thousand times already. But maybe there is a reason that everybody talks about it. Especially in high-paced college classes, it is key that you prepare before the lecture. As a student myself, I know we barely do this (do we even have the time for it?). But I forced myself to do this for a week and saw significant improvements. With preparation, I don’t mean that you have to read through all of the lecture slides before class or to study that chapter they are going to talk about in detail. I just want you to get some sort of understanding of what the lecture will be about. The question you need to be able to answer after preparation are: What are the main topics, do I already know something about it, or do I think this is interesting? If you already know these things upfront you are better able to follow what the lecturer is trying to explain, and thus, to write down the most important parts that you want to remember of the lecture.

2 – Get in the right mindset

This is probably the vaguest tip I am going to give you today, but it is actually really simple. We all know that feeling at 8 AM in the lecture room, still half asleep, not really looking forward to hearing someone talk for 2 hours straight. Well, I think you already know this is not the state in which you will be most active and put the effort into making good notes right? Getting in the right mindset before class is key to making good lecture notes. Try to feel active, alert, and excited (that last one is the hardest…) before you step into the lecture room. If you have an early morning class, wake up on time, get yourself a nice cup of coffee, and be on time. I know that one is difficult. But if you are lucky a lot of your classes are recorded these days, if that is the case, maybe sometimes it is best to just stay in bed, get some rest, and watch the lecture later on the day when you feel in a better mood to absorb the content.

3 – Get off your laptop

We have all been guilty of this. At first glance, it seems like the perfect thing to make notes on your laptop. You can probably type faster than you write and thus completely transcribe what the lecturer is saying. But how effective is this? Multiple studies have shown that active participation with the lecture content enhances your understanding of the topics and makes studying for your exam easier. Just typing down what the lecturer says without really processing it is a pretty passive task (you could even watch a sports game simultaneously). Next to that, your laptop offers limitless distractions such as email notifications, youtube, social media, etc. which are not ideal when trying to pay attention. I don’t say you can’t use your laptop as a note-taking device. However, be aware of how you use it. Make the process active and make sure all incoming notifications are blocked.

4 – Write down questions

The pitfall a lot of us make is to write down what the lecturer says word for word or to try to summarize it. However, unfortunately, a lot of lecturers these days just read up the exact words on the slides. So you could ask yourself, what is the purpose of my copying the exact content down again on my own piece of paper? Well, I have no clue. Instead of copying try to listen actively and write down the things that are not on the slides (it is even better when you print out/download the lecture slides in advance and annotate them!). To understand concepts better try to formulate questions about what the lecturer is saying. If you cannot find an answer to the question go to ask the lecturer during office hours, when you are a real badass, ask in class. By doing this you are better able to understand the content, and you can even use the questions you formulated to study for the exam. That’s a win-win-win situation (has anyone seen that “The Office” episode?).

5 – Use a note taking systems that works for you

My final tip is to use a note-taking system that works for you and for that specific course. As I already told you there are numerous examples of note-taking systems and even more people telling you which is the best one. In my years as a student I have probably tried the most of them and I have never found one that worked each time. Of course, reading up on the different methods can help to develop your own workflow. But what I recommend is to choose some category of the system and try it for the course and try to adapt the system you are using to the kind, of course, you are following. As you can imagine a business course has completely different material compared to advanced calculus (I still hate that course though). Thus try to find a system that works both for yourself as the course contents and stick with it. I recommend trying different systems first, but settle on one system after a few days, or else you will start to fall behind.

I hope these tips will help you to make better notes and to study more effectively and thus have more time for other stuff. Let me know what you think of these tips, and if you have some tips that work for you, don’t forget to share them with me!