For a while I have been thinking about how I work and what I can do to make the best use of my time and energy. One of my biggest problems I feel is how I use the notes I make at meetings and events. Or more to the point how at the moment I don’t use them. Once back at my desk there’s a couple of things that can happen:
- they get written up in my notepad of ongoing work or typed up so I can use them in another form.
- they get turned into a blog post.
- they sit in a pile on my desk until they either get filed never to be seen again or binned.
Unfortunately number 3 is most common. I think the reason for this is because my notes are often sub-standard; they are often just random unconnected comments in an unusable format. This needs to change.
Last week, via @infoactivist, I discovered ILEAD U (Illinois Libraries Explore, Apply and Discover) and followed along with the tweets from the first session of 2011. More importantly, I discovered Beck Tench and her approach to taking notes.
Here is an example of her notes from a talk by @ulotrichous:
This could be my future!
Whenever I plan anything I start with a blank piece of paper, I find it much easier to process my thoughts this way as it is unstructured. At the moment however when I attend a meeting or event I am more likely to have a piece of lined paper in front of me. This compels me to use those lines (because I don’t like breaking rules) and therefore my notes are always linear. Don’t get me wrong linear is not inherently bad but in this case, as it renders the output unusable, it is.
I am excited to try out this new visual approach to making notes – I’ve even bought myself a new Sharpie. All I need now is a meeting to go to…
I’d be interested to hear how you get on with this, sounds like a great idea. I have recently changed my approach to note taking, particularly when attending presentations – I now just jot down the really important points or things to follow up so that I don’t have stacks of unused notes.
When I need to make copious notes (e.g. during meetings) I find the iPad incredibly useful – I find it much easier to type on so can quickly jot down what people are saying and it saves me time typing up afterwards (I used to handwrite notes) – I just read through for accuracy.
I love your note-taking! This sounds similar to what the folks at RSA animate. The have some fascinating short talks by people like Sir Ken Robinson or Daniel Pink. But instead of a video of them talking they provide visual drawings to make their ideas come to life and become more memorable. Maybe you should work part time for them.
Here’s an example of Ken Robinson’s talk on Changing Education Paradigms
Thanks both for your comments.
Jo – I’ll be sure to post some photos of my efforts with the new style here.
Andy – I love that Ken Robinson video! I’m afraid I can’t take any of the credit for the note-taking on display here; it is merely what I aspire to. The embedded image is of Beck Tench‘s notes. You can see more of her art work in her Visual Thinking set on Flickr.
[...] tweets from the #pls11 tag. Below are my notes from the event. If you've read my previous post on making visual notes you will know that I am experimenting with a new note-taking technique. This was my first attempt [...]