Ah, the beauty of beautiful notes.
They can be found everywhere, popping up on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and many other sites. Looking at these amazing, neat lines of writing may make you think: why would I waste my time doing this? Of course, the question would immediately be followed by: I need this NOW.
To me, presentation is everything. I love the pleasing sight of my notes, charts, plans (you name it), all beautifully organised and colour-coded. It really does bring tears to my eyes. *sniff sniff*
Everyone takes notes differently, so it's important to discover your preferred style. The best part about your notes is that they are YOURS, therefore it's perfectly acceptable to try out a number of styles to figure out what works best for you.
That being said, there are certain basics that I follow whenever I'm experimenting with a new style, which I will be sharing with you in this post.
#1: Titles
I mean, you knew this was coming. Titles are the key to organised notes. Notes without titles are just seas of untidiness.
Your titles should be eye-catching and make your notes easy to identify. Here are some of my favorite titles, although I do recommend you check out sites like Pinterest for more ideas.
#2: Drawings
Whenever possible, illustrate your notes. Science subjects such as biology, chemistry, and physics usually require a lot of chart/diagrams. Try to make these look as neat as possible.
Whenever possible, illustrate your notes. Science subjects such as biology, chemistry, and physics usually require a lot of chart/diagrams. Try to make these look as neat as possible.
#3: Style
For me, style consists of how you take your notes and the level of decoration/detail you want to use. It's important that you don't change up your note-taking style too much, especially if you find your style to be extremely effective.
Example: If you prefer to learn through mind maps/diagrams, then don't switch to writing large paragraphs of notes!
#4: Handwriting
It's hard to make notes look nice if the words themselves are messy. Practice your handwriting!#5: Colours
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| This is an orange colour scheme I tried out once. |
Hi - I like these points and agree with them (and confess that you are a much tidier writer than I am!). Cool you have experimented with Mind Mapping - I know people who ONLY use mind mapping for note taking - their note books are amazing! (A...let me know if you'd like to borrow a Tony Buzan book)
ReplyDelete3 additional points that work for me:
1. I always add the date of the note section; it makes it easier to flick back later (e.g., what was that thing we talked about last Thursday?) to exactly or roughly when a conversation took place or new information was conveyed.
2. Sometimes, I use a ruler to draw a column an inch or so wide on the right hand side of each page. That narrow column is not for note taking, but for writing my reaction, disagreement or to highlight a action-reminder to myself to follow up, check out a link, speak to someone, etc. In other words, external inputs are to the left (3/4 of the page at least) and my "internal monologue" is on the right.
3. Speaking of action-reminders, I try to make them "pop" on notes pages by drawing a circle around a capital (A) just before the action description. Later, this makes it easy to skim and see if there any action items that I have forgotten to complete.
Keep on blogging!