The Power of Note-Taking: 5 Reasons to Start

In this day and age, being in the present moment can feel close to impossible. Hyper-efficiency has become the universal standard that we’re all expected to reach. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Who wouldn’t want to maximize their efficiency? But there is a fine line between efficiency and a mindless action. Cross the line and you may as well have done nothing. I’ve found that the best way to avoid this is to stick to the good old: giving your all to one specific task. This brings us to reading. How often do we read without actually taking information in? Our mind wonders and our thoughts feel everywhere except on the page. And then find ourselves reading the same sentence over and over again because we simply can’t concentrate. I have advice for this. Take. Notes. I believe that note-taking while reading helps us to be more mindful and truly engage in what we’re reading. In this blog, I’ll give you five reasons why.

1. Making Connections

I’ve always believed that intelligence is about how much knowledge you can retain, but I realized that this is not true. Intelligence is about the connections you can make with what you know. Reading and stories are one of the best ways to teach the mind to make connections. When you enhance this activity with note-taking you are joining the neural pathways in your brain whilst forming new ones. Ever watched Limitless with Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro. It’s the same concept. The information is all in our brains: the trick is how do we retrieve it? The habit of note-taking trains your brain to recognize the familiar and link it to all the knowledge that you thought was dormant in your brain. Try it out! And if you need some science to back this up, click here.

2. Develop a Personal View

Of course life can’t be black and white, but it’s certainly easier when you have a sense of who you are. When you’re note-taking you’re writing down things that reflect how you view the world. Hence, the more you do it, the more you become in tune with how you think and how your perceptions are changing or even solidifying. You become more comfortable with your personal response to new information because you’re more exposed to it. This is a powerful thing because your brain is kept active in a way that you are highly conscious of. You are moving with your thought patterns and not beneath it. If you develop this habit, then it’s easy to stop yourself from falling into a state of mindless and inattentive consumption.

3. You Start Questioning More

This certainly ties in with making connections. You’ve seen those movies where the mathematician is walking and sees something like a leaf falling on a swing and suddenly whips out his notebook and goes on to win a Nobel Prize for some ground-breaking discovery. It sounds far-fetched but this, to me, is the basis of advancement: Interrogating why something is, deconstructing it and eventually building from that. Note-taking encourages us to question things. The very act of note taking is refusing to let something be. Instead, you’re probing it further and you’re digging deeper. If we can form this habit while we read, then we can form this habit in life. And suddenly, we stop take things for face value.

4. You Feed the Scholar in You

Congratulations, you’re note-taking! But now you’ve awakened the insatiable beast: your inner scholar. Now, I don’t know about you but there is nothing more fulfilling than embracing that we are all perpetual students. Suddenly a thriller about a sociopathic housewife inspires you to learn more about human psychology. Or maybe an ambitious fantasy novel with a detailed political system drives you to read the likes of Karl Marx or Kwame Nkrumah. This is the chain-effect of of note-taking, and why it is such a brilliant habit.

5. You Read Actively and Not Passively

This is the ultimate beauty of note-taking. Think of a fisherman saying they want to catch fish. Well, I’d hope that they’re not going to come empty handed to stare at the ocean. They would need to come with a rod and bait, ready for a catch. When you are ready with that pen or highlighter, you are conditioning your mind to concentrate on what you’re reading, to see what you can catch. I like this analogy because it turns reading into a hunt to feed the mind. And like any hunt, presence, concentration and flexibility is essential!

In Summary,

Note-taking is for us to expand our neural pathways by making connections. It helps us understand ourselves a bit better, particularly our views and thought patterns. It helps us ask questions and interrogate the world deeper. Note-taking encourages us to branch out beyond our disciplines and to keep learning more. Lastly, note-taking encourages an active participation in our reading, so that we can make the most of what we are feeding our brain!

I hope this blog inspired you to start note-taking here and there! If you enjoyed this blog, stay tuned for another one on when is it best to note-take and how do you do it!