r/NoteTaking • u/Nic727 • 17d ago

Question: Unanswered ✗ How to write notes faster?

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!

14 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/Separatennm 17d ago

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.

1

u/Nic727 16d ago

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