Earlier this week, I was giving a presentation to business leaders about artificial intelligence in the workplace. After my talk, there was a period of discussion when one man said that he was a bit of an ostrich in terms of new technology. He said that he had his head in the sand, rather hoping this AI stuff would all go away. There were some mutterings of sympathy from others in the room when he made his admission.
He went on to say that technology as a whole was an issue. He gave the example of never knowing what app to use to write something on his phone. Sometimes he would write an email to himself, or he may record items in Microsoft OneNote, or perhaps the phone’s Notes app. As he said all this, he was recording our conversation using the voice recorder to transcribe later.
It’s a very common scenario. Indeed, many readers (not you, of course) will have notes on their phone, on their PC in a different program, and on paper. Most phones come “out of the box” with several methods of taking notes. That’s bonkers. It’s like starting work in the 1980s and being told “here’s pen and paper, or you could use this whiteboard for your notes, or here is a blackboard, and if you don’t like them, here’s a Dictaphone”. We were given a notepad and pen, and that was that.
Note taking is an essential part of our work. We use it to help organise our thinking and to assist our memories. Research has shown that note taking boosts our memory. People tend to remember more when they take notes than when they do not. I was reminded of this research this week when one of my colleagues told me of an email he had received from a student. We are about to start the new academic year and the student had written to my lecturer friend to say that she was planning to make better progress this year as she would “now take notes”. The notion that students could have studied without note taking was a strange concept to us…!
However, the student could face the same situation as the business owner who spoke with me earlier in the week. What system of note taking should be used when there is such a wide variety of technological options? The plethora of choice is why people do not take notes readily. Choice leads to “decision paralysis”; we end up doing nothing because we can’t work out the right thing to do.
Indeed, I faced this situation myself in a meeting mid-way through the week. I was taking notes in a template that had been provided. It was the kind of meeting where I was required to take notes to document the discussion. However, mid-way through the meeting, it was important that I showed some images on my computer. I had to turn round my laptop so the others in the room could see. But that meant my note taking method had been removed from me. I was now left with a rapid choice to make. Did I resort to making notes on paper and copy them into the template later? Did I open up the template on my phone? Should I ask permission to use the voice recorder on my phone and transcribe it later? Could I do it on OneNote on my phone? Back in the 1980s, I would have only had one choice – pen and paper – and would not have been stuck as to what to do.
Taking notes at work is such a fundamental part of our daily lives that we often fail to give it any proper attention. For example, which note-taking system do you use? Do you use Cornell Notes, SQ3R, Charting, Mind Maps, Concept Maps, Outlining, or Matrix Notes – to name just a few? Or do you just scribble on a page or randomly type notes on some digital system?
If you do these things, you may well be wasting your time. Random note taking can harm your memory, rather than help it. Research on note taking shows that when we have a structured way of taking notes, we remember more than when we do not take notes. But there is also research that demonstrates if we take random notes, we remember less. That’s because our brain goes into the mode of “I don’t need to make an effort to remember this”. The researchers called it “intentional forgetting”. The problem is that the lack of structure in the notes means we cannot find things or work out what the scribbled words actually mean.
Note taking needs taking more seriously. Have you ever been on a training course on how to take notes? Were you taught it at school? It seems absurd that such an essential skill is something that we just assume everyone can do. In the world of increasing choices on note taking methods, that assumption ought to be challenged.
Only this week, the Zapier website discussed note taking methods and systems in a bid to help people work their way through the confusing arena. I also devoted an entire chapter to note taking in my book, Studying Online.
But, what did I tell the admitted ostrich about note taking? I suggested he ditched every app on his phone that could take notes apart from one. Just because the choice is available to you does not mean you have to use all that is available. Work out what method of taking notes is best for you, decide on the technology that does that best for you, and then chuck away everything else. Make a choice and stick to it…!
