Outline

Taking notes is an important part of reading when I want to learn well and internalize the content. This isn’t something I learned in school, academics were never my thing. It’s just a system I’ve found that works well to better understand the material in front of me.

My formatting is a work in process. I imagine in five years of consistently practicing I’ll have a full blown pattern, color-coded with symbols. Actually, I have genuine aspirations for my notes to someday look like beautiful code in a text editor.

In the meantime, however, I’m happy with a structure that allows me to get a gist of the topic at a glance. And the key to pulling this off is scanning the chapter ahead to identify the subjects and categories and how the author breaks down their own information.

It’s obvious when I don’t take this brief and simple step — you’ll see a set of bullets immediately rewritten with supporting information. An index will change as I realize it should have been a list. Since it’s for me and the main point is the simple act of reframing to learn better, it’s not much more than an annoyance.

My point, though, is in any situation if I remember to first step back and assess, that time will impact a more cohesive outcome. And the return is so dis-proportionally greater than the investment, it’s almost unfair.