
Get Better Advice by Taking Notes - Flemlord
http://lifehacker.com/5270397/get-better-advice-by-taking-notes
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pj
It's not taking notes, it's paying attention. It's listening. It's letting the
speaker know that you are interested and value what they are saying.

If you've ever tried teaching someone something, this happens to geeks all the
time, someone asks you a question right? How do I calculate the average of all
the values in this excel spreadsheet? So you tell them. Then the next day,
same question. Then the next day, next week... same question.

People just don't pay attention. They don't want to work. They don't want to
work to rearrange their neurons so they can remember things. They'd rather
remember what they have programmed to record on TiVo when they get home.

If you don't really value what the person is saying, don't waste their time by
making them think you care because you are taking notes.

Take notes if you care. The irony is, if you care, you'd be taking notes
without reading this lifehacker stuff. You'd be taking notes so that you don't
have to waste that person's time with the same question over and over. You'd
actually take the time and put the energy into _learning_ and committing to
memory inside your brain what you are hearing.

~~~
lionheart
While I used to agree with this kind of black and white perspective on
_caring_ I've lately begun to think differently.

As with everything about the human brain, its all in shades of gray. The
logical part of you might care a lot, but your subconscious is distracting it
with memories of that cute girl from last night, and so on.

I've learned that its very useful to give your higher brain functions some
external help. Sometimes this means throwing out all of the snacks when you go
on a diet. And sometimes this means taking a notepad with you and taking notes
even when you don't really think you need to.

"Pretending" to care by taking notes quickly turns into really caring and
paying much more attention to what you are doing than you would otherwise.

------
ianbishop
Taking notes at university has become one of those odd analog vs digital tasks
where my preferences fall uncomfortably with neither.

I find software leaves much to be desired. I need the ability to tack graphs,
formulas, side notes where ever I please, like Photoshop. Yet I need better
text editor support, like Word or OpenOffice.

Doing it by hand is fine, but I can't take notes as quick as I can by typing.
I have full control over a page, but there is no Ctrl-Z for spelling mistakes
which can leave notes disfigured and unsettling to study from.

The solution to all of this would be to copy by hand and then re-type on the
computer but this again takes a lot of time. Perhaps something like LaTeX etc.
would help but again.. too much time spent on actual documentation preparation
when it should be spent on note-taking.

Can anyone relate to what I'm ranting on about?

~~~
euroclydon
When I studied math, I tried transcribing my notes into LaTex, but found that,
while enjoyable, it was too slow, and I got behind. Maybe a tablet PC with
some type of note-taking software would work, but that's pretty annoying. I
like to use PC's for things that humans can't do themselves, like crunching
numbers while I sleep.

I got fast enough at hand notes, and found that if I kept my book open during
the lecture, that I could skip note taking on a portion of the lecture if it
was covered adequately in the book.

~~~
jacobolus
> _it was too slow, and I got behind._

This is purely a function of practice. 5 years ago, a friend of mine could TeX
math notes substantially faster than I could write them by hand, including
reasonably complex commutative diagrams, lots of tricky formulae, etc. A big
part of TeX speed is setting up a bunch of personal macros for commonly used
symbols (e.g. \a instead of \alpha, etc.).

------
biotech
This is a great habit to get into when you really need to remember/understand
the material. I have worked at several science and engineering labs; when
someone demonstrates a procedure, you better have a damn good memory if you
aren't writing it down!

It hadn't previously occured to me do this in the doctor's office, but it's a
good idea - the info a doctor gives can sometimes be (or should be) fairly
involved. It's worth writing down.

Furthermore, taking notes allows you to process the information on two levels.
The technical details (names of things, etc) can be relegated to the notepad
and forgotten. Important general concepts can then receive your greater
attention. A doctor who gives more involved advice to a note-taker is a doctor
who knows that you can handle more information if you're writing some of it
down.

~~~
joe_bleau
Funny. Where I work, if I show/explain/tell someone how to do something, I can
either repeat the lesson every time the question comes up, or document the
procedure in detail and give the person a copy. If I do take the time to
document it, then I can simply reprint a copy _every_ time the question comes
up.

Now if only I had a way to handle the situation where someone attempts to
perform a task, but forgets an important step or two along the way.

------
jonsen
The fear of being held responsible could also be a certain factor of the
keenness of the advisor; concern for what 'evidence' exactly ends up in that
notebook.

