Why You Should Start Taking Notes

One of the things I really like about Medium is when people share what they learn. Whether it’s about the life as a startup CEO, about love, about politics, about self-driving cars, about how to get up at 6am every morning or something totally different, it almost always gives me something to think about. No matter what type of learning it is, I often sit back thinking “oh, I thought I was the only one who felt like that” or — the opposite — “that’s cool, I’ve never though about it that way”.

Two weeks ago we had the pleasure of chatting with @JessicaMah (co-founder and CEO of InDinero) at our last fireside chat at 500 Startups. I could write a long post about all my learnings from those 2 hours, but especially one point Jessica made was really good: Whenever you learn something new, make sure to take notes. At first I didn’t really get it — I mean, we all did that in college and where are these notes now? Her point was that if you spend an hour listening to a talk, 30 minutes listening to a podcast or 2 days reading a book, it’s waste of time if you don’t write down the key takeaways and try to take action on them. It makes no sense to just say “well, that was really exciting” and then move on to the next one.

I listen to podcasts every morning when I go to the gym, but if you asked me what I listened to (and what I learned) three weeks ago, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. I read The Hard Thing About Hard Things about a year ago and I’m sure it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read, but I can’t really tell you why. I can’t remember what made it so good.

So I started taking notes. When I listen to podcasts, when I meet smart people and when I read exciting blog posts or books. I use the Notes app on my iPhone to keep track of my takeaways. It doesn’t have to be more than a few bullet points and sometimes there might only be one or two takeaways. That’s fine. One of the (positive) side effects is that I’m now more focused on actually learning from what I read or listen to. It makes me expect more from the podcast or book I’m consuming and that makes it more interesting to read or listen to.

If you like it then you should out a ❤ on it. (And take notes……)