10 Ways to Cultivate a Productive Note-Taking Habit [Your Guide to Lifelong Learning]

We’ve all been there: December 31, posed for another go around the sun. One more year checked off, with all the ups and downs, sorrows and joys, endings and beginnings that it entailed. You’ve laughed, you’ve loved, you’ve lived — there’s plenty to be proud of.

But as you attend your New Year’s Eve gathering of choice, ready to give each other high fives and well wishes, you find yourself being asked that infamous question.

You know the one:

“What are your New Year’s resolutions?”

Maybe you have an answer ready to fire off. Exercise more, take better care of yourself, don’t work as much, lose weight — there are plenty of popular and valuable resolutions to choose from.

Or maybe you find yourself with nothing to say and no clear direction to commit yourself to. You may even dislike New Year’s resolutions, thinking that if you want to make a change in your life, you’re not going to wait until January to do it.

Regardless, the tradition remains. And it’s a powerful one.

The oldest recorded New Year’s resolutions were set by the ancient Babylonians some 4,000 years ago, and they happened to also be the first civilization to hold celebrations in honor of the new year.

There’s something about marking the cycles of life that prompts us to reflect on ourselves, our past, and our future. We resolve to change for the better and put our best foot forward. We shuffle our priorities, look for ways to inspire ourselves, and set out to form new habits and routines.

We may decide to focus on our health, relationships, finances, career, goals, projects, happiness, skills, knowledge, character, or hobbies.

You could write a book, take more pictures of your family, spend more time doing art, make nutrition a priority, correct a recent mistake, make new friends — you name it; it’s a potential focus for building a new habit.

There are always opportunities to improve ourselves and our lives. With one small change, we can set ourselves up to upgrade our performance and achieve better success in whatever realm we choose.

Don’t believe me? Consider this statistic: According to research done at Duke University, habits account for around 40% of your behavior on any given day.

Now imagine what your life could look like if 40% of your daily behavior was made up of practices that improve your life. A positive change would be inevitable, right? In fact, this statistic offers an amazing opportunity for you to harness your habits and transform your life.

It just so happens that effective note-taking is a high-leverage habit that will not only bring a host of its own benefits but also aid you in making other habits incredibly effective as well.

Still don’t believe me? Well, you’ve come to the right place, because in this blog post we’re going to take a deep dive into the benefits of forming good habits, the benefits of note-taking specifically, and also, as promised, 10 ways to build a high-impact note-taking habit that will change your life.

Let’s get started!

Why Taking Notes Is Still Relevant

You may think that taking notes is an activity that only belongs in the classroom. After college, does it really have any use?

My friend, note-taking is a skill that will serve you in any area of your life. Consider the following:

• Builders can take notes on angles, materials, and other observations related to their build site.
• Artists can jot down their creative ideas and inspirations throughout the day and turn them into projects later on.
• Public speakers can note ideas for their next speech.
• Scientists can write down observations, questions, or equations that occur to them as they go through their day.
• Musicians can capture new lyrics or melodies on the fly.
• Designers can take notes on the use of color, lighting, textures, and furniture in any space they enter.
• Writers can keep track of any new story ideas or character profiles that are inspired by something in their daily lives.
• Marketers can take note of the various campaigns and ads used by other companies, as well as any observations of consumer behavior they witness as they run errands after work.
• Entrepreneurs can capture every new inspiration and project idea that they have, any number of which might turn into the next big innovation.
• Homemakers can take notes on their observations and goals for their family, new recipe concepts, or potential activities.

The list could go on, but you get the picture. Anyone can use note-taking to write down their thoughts, observations, and ideas throughout the day. You can keep track of your goals, make to-do lists, and improve your productivity.

I hope you’re beginning to appreciate the benefits of taking notes. You can write notes in your own words on any topic that strikes your fancy. No matter what it’s applied to, anyone who takes notes in their daily lives will experience personal growth.

Of course, taking notes is well-suited to the classroom and classic learning environments, but don’t let that limit you! If you use your imagination, you’ll begin to see the endless applications for this skillset.

And not only are the applications endless, but so are the benefits of forming a daily note-taking habit. Let’s take a look at some of the universal benefits that you will begin to enjoy on the first day of building your new habit.

The Benefits of Forming a Note-Taking Habit

A note-taking habit is one of the best ways to reduce information overload in your life. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by too much information, emotions, or events, then I want to share with you this little secret: writing things down helps immensely. The mere act of putting thought to paper will clear your mind and help you organize everything that is overwhelming you, making it easier to evaluate and come to conclusions about.

Taking notes promotes an active learning process in which you are fully engaged with the topic you are notating. The activity of taking notes forces you to engage in active listening in order to organize the information into your notes. You’ll be more in control of the learning process if you’re recording information, and your own creative process if you’re generating information.

By taking a more active role in engaging with information, you will learn how to prioritize it. To make effective notes, you must draw out and highlight the key ideas and important details, organizing them in a way that makes sense and can be referred back to at a later date. In a single sitting, you must be mindful of your intentions for your notes, which will help you prioritize which information has value and should be recorded.

You’ll also better understand the topic that you’re capturing. Whether you’re sitting in a lecture hall, brainstorming lyrics for a new song, or logging the events of your day, the act of writing things down helps you become more intimately acquainted with them. Clarity and comprehension will increase as you take more initiative in handling these various types of information.

There are plenty of cognitive benefits to taking notes, with increased retention being a major one. On the one hand, taking notes helps supplement your memory and make up for the amount of information you will inevitably forget throughout the day. You can use a notepad as a sort of external hard drive for your brain, backing up information so that it isn’t lost forever when your memory banks decide to delete files.

On the other hand, the parts of your brain related to memory will experience a very tangible change. You can train your memory to be better by using it frequently, and note-taking is the perfect vehicle for doing that. You’ll be reviewing information multiple times throughout the process: when you initially hear or think of it, while you write it down, and when you review it later. You can literally increase your memory’s capacity for retaining information by doing this frequently.

Taking notes also aids your ability to concentrate, pushing back on the shortening attention spans that we’ve developed ever since the internet began adding greater distractions to our lives. Taking notes requires you to slow down and remain focused for a period of time, which will force your mind to center itself. If you’re easily distracted, note-taking is a great practice to encourage you to pay attention to whatever topic you are trying to capture.

There are plenty more beneficial sides to developing a note-taking style, but I’m sure you’re starting to get a bit impatient. After all, note-taking is clearly a wonderful practice, and there’s no time like the present to start!

10 Ways to Turn Your Note-Taking Skills Into a Habit

You should begin enjoying some of the above-mentioned benefits as soon as you begin your note-taking habit. But as with any habit, keep in mind that it will take a while to form.

You’ll have to remain consistent for anywhere from three weeks to several months to truly ingrain this habit into your schedule and make it second nature.

This may seem a bit daunting, especially since New Year’s resolutions have created an association between potential failure and the effort of habit-building. If it seems like every year you hear more about people who have failed in their resolutions than those who have succeeded, banish those anecdotes from your mind.

My friend, you can absolutely succeed at building a note-taking habit. Just take a deep breath, follow these 10 steps, and stick with it until it becomes second nature.

Start Small

One of the common mistakes made with New Year’s resolutions is the instinct to go too hard, too fast. Research has shown that 23% of Americans who make New Year’s Resolutions quit by the first week, while 43% quit by the end of January.

There are several reasons attributed to this, and we’re going to discuss how to avoid falling into those traps.

The first reason why people fail their New Year’s resolutions is that they are too ambitious. They go from the couch potato life to trying to run a marathon.

I get that when motivation strikes, we have the desire to go all in. Go big or go home, as the saying goes.

But this mentality is actually setting you up for failure.

Just as it takes a week or two for your muscles to get used to a new workout regime at the gym, your habit-building needs to pace itself. If you try to go too fast, you’ll only hurt your chances of success.

Instead, start with a daily goal that is easy to manage. You don’t want to give yourself a mammoth note-taking task that will take tons of energy and time to complete.

Start taking notes in 5 or 10 minute increments, and then gradually increase your daily goal as you go.

For example, you can start by taking 10 minutes at the end of your day to write down your observations from the day. Or, you can begin by taking notes on a book you’re already reading. Maybe take part of your lunch break to record new information you came across in the morning.

There are plenty of options, but the key is to start small. Don’t fall into the trap of trying to be a professional note-taker right out of the gate. Instead of trying to put it on like a persona, you need to give yourself enough time to make it second nature.

Have Realistic Expectations

Another reason why people so often fail to follow through on their resolutions is that they don’t have realistic expectations of themselves.

Think about it: “Go big or go home” doesn’t offer any grace for slip-ups. There’s this idea that once you drop the ball, that’s it — it’s over. You’ve failed, permanently, and change is impossible.

But that’s not actually the reality of it. In fact, experts say that missing a day in your habit-building journey is not going to have any noticeable impact on your ability to establish the habit long-term.

It’s entirely possible that at some point you may forget to follow through on taking notes one day; you’re only human, after all. Life sometimes throws us curve balls, dumping more on our plate than we expected.

If your child suddenly gets the flu, your boss hands you a massive work assignment, or your washing machine goes on the fritz and you can’t find time to take notes that day, take a deep breath. It’s not over. Just start again tomorrow.

Building a habit is all about consistency, but you don’t have to be absolutely perfect. Of course, I’m not saying that you can skip days willy-nilly; a behavior is only a habit when it is done consistently.

If you miss one day, dust yourself off, start again, and promise yourself that you won’t miss another.

Break It Into Chunks

Data shows that there’s something about challenging goals that motivate us to reach them. But it’s even more motivating if you break them down into chunks.

There are two major advantages to this. Firstly, you make it easier to accomplish each chunk. Secondly, you get to feel the rush of accomplishing each new milestone.

Chunks make goals more manageable. For example, if you want to spend 30 minutes every day taking notes on a book you’re reading, you could break those 30 minutes into two 15-minute segments.

That way, you can fit those 30 minutes more smoothly into your schedule. It will also be easier for you to concentrate fully since you only have to focus for 15 minutes at a time rather than 30. And finally, you may find the prospect of two 15-minute segments to be less daunting than 30 full minutes, which will give you more motivation to complete them.

Chunks also give you more milestones to complete. Checking items off your to-do list releases dopamine in your brain, making you feel good and boosting your motivation. Every time you celebrate a new milestone, you’re encouraging yourself to continue succeeding.

Choose the Right Method

Make the process of building a note-taking habit easy on yourself by choosing one or more note-taking methods that suit your preferences and needs.

What do you want to take notes on? What subject or subjects do you want to write down?

Ask yourself: Are you looking to record information, or to generate information?

In other words, will you be recording key concepts that you hear throughout your day, or will you be jotting down your own inspirations?

You can also do both, of course! Though since you’re just starting out with forming this habit, I’d recommend that you start with one clear goal and keep it simple. The more complicated you make the process, the harder it will be to maintain.

First, decide whether you’re going to take your notes digitally or old-school. Both have their pros and cons, and it really depends on your preference. There are plenty of great note-taking apps that might benefit you, while going analog with a beloved physical notebook has its own magic.

There are countless note-taking styles that you can choose from. If you’re thinking about taking traditional notes such as those taken by a student in academia, then you might be interested in the outline method, the Cornell method, mind maps, and the like.

But if you’re less interested in taking notes on vast amounts of information at once and more interested in forming a daily habit, then your approach will depend on your goals.

Which brings us back to: What are you trying to get out of your notes? Do you want to increase your productivity? Store information? Improve your mental state? There are methods for all of these.

Daily logs are a note-taking technique that captures and stores information that you come across throughout your day. You can make it as exhaustive or simple as you choose, depending on what you consider to be important information.

Journaling is another type of note-taking. Think about it: You’re taking notes on your thoughts, emotions, and experiences. Doing so not only gives you a record but also clears your mental palette and takes a load off your mind. You’ll find that your control over your mind and emotions improves the more you practice journaling.

To-do lists are a very popular form of note-taking. You can make to-do lists for anything from the day’s tasks to your career aspirations; it’s all about setting and tracking goals. You can use your notes to create a system and an action plan for accomplishing all of your tasks.

Bring It With You

This one is pretty simple: bring your notes with you! Having your notebook on hand, whether it’s virtual or physical, will encourage you to take notes throughout your day.

You’re more likely to do a task when it’s easily accessible. So orchestrate your life to include whatever will make it easier to reach for that notebook.

Keep it in your bag if you want to access it throughout the day. Put it in your lunchbox if you want to make a habit of writing notes during lunch. Or by your coffee pot, if you’re the type of person who drinks multiple cups of coffee per day; you can jot down some notes every time you brew another cup.

Establish a Routine

It’s crucial to be consistent in taking notes on a daily basis until it becomes second nature. Creating a routine is a really helpful way to do this, because you’ll get used to doing the same thing at the same time every day.

It’s easier to forget to keep up with a new habit when you tell yourself you’ll do it “sometime” today. Too often, it will get pushed farther and farther back before getting crowded out by other things on your mind.

Remember, this is a new habit. It’s like a baby behavior that needs special attention. If you don’t keep it in sight, it will fall out of mind all too quickly.

Creating a routine will prevent this from happening. If you make note-taking the last thing you do every day, for example, then you’re less likely to forget. It also frees up your mind throughout the rest of the day because you won’t be constantly reminding yourself to find time for it. Time will already be assigned to it; then all you have to do is sit down and do it.

Piggyback off Other Habits

Experts say that one of the easiest ways to form a new habit is to attach it to one that you’ve already established.

Remember how habits account for 40% of our behavior every day? That means that nearly half of what you do every day is an established habit. Think through your day and try to identify what they are. Then, consider which might be ideal to associate with note-taking.

For example, if you start each day with a relaxing cup of coffee, that could be the perfect time to jot down action items and make a to-do list.

If you go to the gym at a certain time each day, you can spend some of that time reflecting on the day and then write it down afterward.

Dedicate 5 minutes to note-taking before taking your dog for a walk or after dinner. There are so many places throughout the day that you can tuck 10 minutes of note-taking in.

Watch and learn from your experiments. If it doesn’t seem to fit, then simply shift your approach and try attaching note-taking to a different habit. There are plenty to choose from, after all!

Be Creative

Don’t be afraid to add your own flair to your notes. You don’t have to use the same format all the time, or even the same notebook or app. Use sticky notes sometimes if you want, or start writing on napkins at restaurants.

Physical notebooks offer tons of opportunity for customization, which is one of their top appeals. You can draw, color, and add diagrams or sketches to your heart’s content. This is a great note-taking tip for artists or anyone working with more visual material.

Include visual cues if you desire, be it the periodic table or a comic illustrating a conversation you had that day.

Different formats offer different benefits that may suit some circumstances better than others. Feel free to be flexible and use whatever works best for you in the moment. Don’t become so dependent on one way of taking notes that you become rigid and unable to adapt. Remember, notes should work for you, not the other way around!

Review

The entire purpose of taking notes is to have a physical record to better retain information, right? It’s a useless practice if you never refer to them again; if you never review your notes, then all that information will be forgotten a second time.

True, you may say; reviewing is an important part of note-taking. But you may be wondering how reviewing can help when you’re building the habit.

The answer is pretty simple: It’s motivating because it demonstrates how useful it is to take notes. You’ll immediately begin reaping the benefits of building on what you wrote.

If you’re recording inspiration for creative pursuits or potential projects, you can begin putting them into action. Why wait? Pull out that notebook and continue brainstorming.

If you’re recording information, reviewing it will help you memorize it. Looking back over the chapter notes will give you a more cohesive understanding of what it entailed. If you take personal notes in business meetings, you’ll definitely want to look back over them.

Don’t rob yourself of the full benefits of note-taking by skimping on the review process. When you’re taking daily notes as you go through your life, you’re writing down information that is relevant to your life. Don’t just set it and forget it. Keep returning to it and developing new connections and insights.

Have Fun

This may sound cliche, but I promise it’s a valid point! Having fun while you’re starting a new habit can make all the difference. And you want to be able to enjoy yourself while doing this activity; after all, you’re looking to make it a daily part of your life, right?

For your own sake, find things to love about taking notes. As if all the benefits we’ve discussed weren’t enough to paint it in a positive light, you can also customize it to fit your needs and preferences.

There are no real rules when it comes to taking notes, only what gets you the results you want. An effective system produces output but also works smoothly, without any hiccups. You want your habits to be like that: productive and seamless. The result is a thing of beauty.

In the final exam, it’s hard to make bad notes when you’re having fun while doing it. Having fun means that you’re relaxed and enjoying the process, which will do nothing but support you and your habit-building efforts.

Conclusion

Whether you’re taking your notes virtually or analog, in business meetings or while sitting at a writer’s desk, the strategy of building the habit remains more or less the same. There are plenty of different approaches, of course, but what it all comes down to is discipline and the willingness to repeat yourself day after day until it sticks.

Be prepared to have days when you don’t want to do it. Hours may be spent procrastinating, and you may wonder sometimes if it’s worth the effort.

Let me be the first to assure you that it is.

Note-taking puts power back in your hands. Instead of relying on your faulty memory, you can record information where it will be accessible to you forever. It’s the easiest way to ensure that you’ll never lose a brilliant idea. And of course, making lists has never been easier.

Many of today’s most successful people have credited their success to their note-taking habits. By keeping their digital or physical notebook handy, they guarantee that they never lose a new idea or important information.

Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, has often been seen carrying a yellow notebook and pen with him.

George Lucas, director of many successful film franchises, including Star Wars and Indiana Jones, carried a pocket notebook with him on set to write down ideas, thoughts, and plot angles related to his films.

J.K. Rowling first captured the concept of Harry Potter in a couple of notebooks. Since then, that humble beginning has grown into a book series that has earned nearly $100 million.

Taylor Swift is another creative who uses note-taking to successfully hone her craft, using voice notes to record inspiration for new lyrics or melodies.

Richard Branson has said: “I go through dozens of notebooks every year and write down everything that occurs to me each day; an idea not written down is an idea lost. When inspiration calls, you’ve got to capture it.”

As the billionaire founder of Virgin Group, I suspect he may know what he’s talking about!