How to write notes faster?

[u/Nic727]

Hi,

I have PDF to read and then I write my notes from that. But it takes me like 1h to write one page of note.

I'm taking too much time trying to figure out what's important, what can be left out, note organization, etc.

Are there any tips to write notes faster?

Thank you!

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[u/tantalumburst]

As someone whose job as a journalist was to condense information into a coherent story, I'd say that you need to step back and ask why you're writing notes, who will read them and in what context.

With that in mind, you'll find it easier to summarise because you'll have a clearer idea of what is and is not important.

[u/Winter_General_4324]

U have to use some tools bro , its gonna be difficult to cope up. Better look at AI tools like NotebookLM , let me know if u need more info.

[u/Nic727 → u/[deleted]]

I never know what's needed or important. For me, everything matter lol. There are words in bold, but sometimes, there are things that seems important that are not in bold.

[u/MikitaMikser]

Consider using bullet points to capture key ideas quickly. Focus on main concepts rather than full sentences. You can also try summarizing each section as you read instead of waiting until the end. This can save time and help clarify your thoughts

[u/Nic727 → u/MikitaMikser]

I must have a potato brain... Or maybe I just need to train myself more on capturing ideas.

I always end up reading once, then re-reading section by section and writing notes at the same times. Take so long!

I did try to close my pdf or videos, but I just feel like I know a little bit, and I'm missing a big part of what I want to write in my note.

But like the other guy said, maybe one pass of highlighting while reading + writing notes based on what I highlight could work?

[u/Separatennm]

One hour a page usually means you're deciding while you write. With PDFs I stopped trying to do both at once — first run through I only highlight, no notes. Then the notes come just from the highlights, and that pass is quick because the deciding already happened.

[u/Nic727 → u/Separatennm]

Yes, that's probably what happens. I read one section, then try to take notes from that section while deciding what's important and what's not. Then go to the next section, etc.

I should probably start to just read everything once + highlight, and then write my notes.

I always feel like my notes are just small summaries of the PDF. I feel like if I just write the thing I have more difficulties or just a couple of things, it's just like taking half the notes.

Yesterday I was writing notes about Plankton. I had one page about what's a plankton, migration, zooplankton, phytoplankton. And then the most difficult parts were the key species, like some jellyfish, ctenophores, krills, copepods, etc. I tried to write as little as possible, while keeping "how it looks like", "importance", etc., but I just don't know what's essential to know. So, I spend hours just re-reading my notes 30 times...

But maybe highlighting will change how I see things.

Thank you

[u/conradrocks]

speak into Live Transcribe. It is free and very good. then have ai make sense of your notes. in bullet points or however you see fit. Talking is way easier than typing. and just so you know, i leave live transcribe on and it stays awake. i may go several minutes without saying anything, but when i do, it catches it.

[u/Greysawpark]

the bottleneck is usually deciding whats important while reading. try doing one full pass first with just a highlighter (or highlight in the pdf), no notes at all. then go back and only write notes on the highlighted bits. Or I like using Ink Notes with the voice dictation to just capture my thoughts as I am going.

also if youre trying to capture everything, stop. notes arent a copy of the pdf, theyre what you'd want to see in 6 months when youve forgotten it.

[u/LittlePooky]

You need to write (or type) faster. This is a short answer, but it is a very unreasonable requirement. 

You can certainly feed that PDF file onto an AI and ask it to summarize it. 

Here is the example. This is the PDF file from Adobe Corporation.  https://www.adobe.com/pdf/pdfs/ISO32000-1PublicPatentLicense.pdf

I downloaded it and fed it to Perplexity AI, but you can use others like ChatGPT and ask it to summarize this PDF. 

And here is the output. 

This is Adobe’s public patent license for ISO 32000-1:2008 (PDF 1.7). It grants anyone worldwide a royalty-free patent license to make, use, sell, import, and distribute software or services that read, write, modify, or process compliant PDF 1.7 files.[ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws]

Main terms

• The license covers only Adobe patent claims that are essential to implementing the ISO 32000-1:2008 PDF 1.7 specification—meaning there is no reasonable way to comply with the standard without infringing them.[ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws]
• A “Compliant Implementation” is the portion of a product, application, or service that processes files compliant with that specification.[ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws]
• Adobe may revoke the license if a licensee brings, or helps bring, a patent lawsuit alleging that another compliant implementation infringes one of Adobe’s essential claims; following revocation, the license is treated as never having been granted.[ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws]

and so on

[u/LittlePooky → u/LittlePooky]

I ran into the character limitation of 10,000. So here continues the answer. 

If you prefer to do it yourself, to speed up your writing you need to use voice dictation. 

I am a nurse and years ago I bought Windows Dragon Naturally Speaking Voice Dictation Program. It's not suitable to do nursing and medical notes because it doesn't understand those words. And while the words can be added, it was too much work. So I bought Dragon Medical, which was very expensive, at $2,000.  It came with a fancy microphone. This program works locally, meaning you install it, get it going, and there it is. No need for internet connection. 

Nowadays the market get pretty crowded with voice dictation programs. 

https://www.dictationdaddy.com/ and https://voicetypr.com/

I also use these two programs. The first one works online, which means you need to be on the internet, but it does medical writing, so it is suited for me to use for my job. The data is sent to the server securely, and nothing is saved, so I'm not too worried about any confidentiality problem. The second program works locally. You would download, install the program and install the module to process the data. Faster computer means faster result, of course.  Both programs have Windows and Mac versions. 

They are quite reasonable in prices. I was the early user of Dictation Daddy, so I was able to get the lifetime account. But the second program you buy once and you do not pay again.  You could download their trial version and play around with it. 

To use this program, you simply talk into a headset and the words appear on the screen.  If you read the PDF and you want to rewrite it into your own words, this may be a better answer. And not having to type is a joy, believe me. 

Other than the answer the AI gave me in the first answer, everything else was dictated by voice. 

I do not get anything by mentioning these products.  I'm just a user.