From the course: Note-Taking for Business Professionals

Focusing on ideas instead of sentences

From the course: Note-Taking for Business Professionals

Focusing on ideas instead of sentences

- In this video, we're going to discuss how you can learn to take notes faster and more efficiently. The first thing you need to understand is that you should keep your notes concise. You want to be writing ideas not sentences. This is a simple way to speed up your note-taking, but it's surprising how many people ignore this advice and try to write complete sentences while they're taking notes. If you do this, you may end up missing major points that are being stated because you're trying to write out what was previously said. So keep your notes to keywords and phrases. You can write now and edit later. Another important strategy is to only write down what's absolutely necessary. Not everything is equally important. Many times there are two, three, or four major points being made. Don't get bogged down with the detail. If you're paying attention, you'll remember the details because the bigger concepts will trigger that information. If you want to add some of your own detail under a major point, but don't have time to at the moment, just leave a little space there so you can add it later. Another way to be concise with your notes is to use abbreviations whenever possible. You'll know what they stand for because you wrote them. For example, the word university, could simply be abbreviated to U-N-I-V. Or the word government can be shortened to G-O-V-T. Get used to writing in abbreviated form if you want to speed up your note-taking. By abbreviating and using symbols, you're essentially developing your own customized short-hand which is a process of taking notes quickly. Takes some getting used to, but once you've decided on certain abbreviations and visuals, it can drastically speed up your note-taking. Also, don't get hung up on grammar. It'll slow you down and distract you from understanding the information you need to know.

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