5 Tips for Effective Digital Note Taking

5 Tips for Effective Digital Note Taking: "

Being a full time student, working two part time jobs, being married, and doing some writing and development on the side proves to be daunting. With my discovery of GTD a few years back I was like everyone else; enamored with the idea of getting things off their mind to then produce better and more effectively. I instantly grabbed onto the practice of “ubiquitous capture” by taking notes so I wouldn’t let as many things fall through the cracks.

At first I just used a junky old notebook and a crappy Bic pen. I slowly improved my tools as any good, geeky GTD student would. But it wasn’t until I switched over to a full digital work-flow that I started to see real benefits with the use of my system. I am in a very technical field at work and technical major at school; computers and devices are around me all day long. It only made sense to capture and process thoughts and actions digitally as it was faster and more “iron-clad” for me.

Here are 5 tips on on digital note taking as well some of the pitfalls to look out for.

Make sure to stay engaged

There is absolutely nothing more annoying that someone click-clacking their way away on a keyboard or iPhone when you are trying to have a conversation with them, regardless if they are actually taking notes or not.

If you are a very fast typer, maybe around 50+ WPM it is a good practice to listen to what someone is saying then jot down a sentence or two to summarize it. Or, if you are in a meeting you could always say, “one second while I get this down so I don’t forget.” The idea is to capture what you need without constantly looking at your screen or phone and not paying attention.

Edit and consolidate

One of the biggest things that I noticed from taking extensive school notes was that a lot of the stuff was pure garbage. I would say that out of typing through a whole 55 minute lecture, I had about a couple of pages of text that was extremely out of order and mostly indecipherable. After taking a look through each class’s notes I soon realized that I have about a half a page of bullet points that were really important and all the rest was considered details and reference.

Now, I wouldn’t say delete everything that isn’t the main points of what you captured, but I would say to consolidate your notes. One good way of doing this is to summarize your notes from a meeting and then take the original junk that you typed down and save it in a “repository” of some kind just in case there was a minor detail you actually did need later.

Make them available from anywhere

I am a very mobile person and because of that I need a way to input notes and access them from anywhere I have an Internet connection or device. My tools of choice that make this happen include Springpad, Evernote, and Simplenote. I won’t go into which one I think is better; the important thing is that you can reach them from anywhere and all of them are decently reliable and extremely useful.

Put a voice to your notes

Something that I have found to be game-changing when it comes to capturing information is recording a lecture or meeting while taking notes. There are several ways that you can do this, but what I have adopted is the Livescribe pen and paper so I can write naturally, record audio with my writing, and still have digital notes that can (somewhat) easily be transformed to text. You can of course use tools like OneNote for Windows and Circus Ponies NoteBook for Mac to record and type at the same time.

Have you ever had a note you took during a meeting that didn’t make a lick of sense? I know I have. Yet, when recording audio and locking it up to your notes you can refer back to what was being said around the moment you were capturing it. This helps clarify and make your notes come “alive”. Of course, you definitely want to tell your colleagues that you are recording them before hand, that is unless you are looking for someone to sue you.

Choose a tool and stick to it

The biggest tip, and this goes with everything that is related to personal productivity systems; find a tool you love, one that works well for you, and stick to it. I am Captain Fiddly when it comes to list making, project tracking, note-taking, and productivity software. About a year and a half ago I gave up on googling “best note-taking tools” and “best online GTD systems” and just stuck with what I had and what worked well enough for me.

If you have a productivity system itch like I do, pick something simple like Simplenote or if you want a little more power, Evernote or Springpad and devote 30 days to that tool. I guarantee after 30 days that “itch” will go away and you can concentrate more on getting things done rather than finding the best new note tool that doesn’t exist.

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How to Write Faster [Writing]

How to Write Faster [Writing]: "

Whether you're drafting an email or writing a research paper, getting your words onto the page more quickly can help you save hours of your working life. If you want to write more in less time—but without sacrificing quality—you can employ a few tricks to speed things up.

To be clear, we're not talking about the physical act of writing or typing. No matter how fast your typing skills are, the major bottleneck when it comes to writing is your head. If you can communicate more fluently on paper or monitor—overcoming common stumbling blocks—you may just find yourself a more prolific writer.

The prevailing literature about speed writing has turned up basically four things you can do to make your writing flow more easily and quickly:

Refine Your Main Idea

Like speed dating, speed writing requires you to communicate very quickly—in a short period of time—some essential ideas about yourself (or what you're writing about). The first step in speeding up your writing process, therefore, is to identify those main ideas.

Nothing slows writing down more than not knowing what it is you want to say or what you're writing about. Clarify and refine the main idea and major topics you have to cover beforehand, then identify and organize the research articles and materials that back up your story.

It doesn't matter what you're writing—an internal email, sales presentation, or personal blog post—before you actually start typing or penning your draft: do you know what it is that you need to say to your specific audience? For the greatest writing output, don't start writing until you've identified the major ideas and gathered all the materials you need for your writing. This way, you'll be able to hit the ground running.

Use Productivity Tools to Write More Efficiently

Another essential part of prep is setting up the tools and environment that facilitate faster writing. Arm yourself with tools that save your reference materials online, spellcheck your online writing, and limit distractions. We've already covered the usefulness of dual monitors and text expansion tools like Texter (and its Mac alternatives), but their productivity gains bear repeating. Text expansion tools can save you so much time, particularly if your writing involves templates or repetitive text.

If the physical keyboard is what's slowing you down, some people benefit from using speech-to-text software like Dragon Natural Speaking or alternative keyboard layouts like Dvorak (users claim to be much more productive when using the Dvorak system).

At the end of the day, all of these tools are designed to help you meet your objective: to write unimpeded, more efficiently. In other words, solid preparation and making the best use of available tools can really help your words flow. Just keep in mind: It's not about geeking out on writing tools. As soon as something isn't helping you, ditch it.

Speed Writing

Speed writing requires the preparation and setup above, and requires you to write nonstop until you've covered all the major ideas. Write your first draft very quickly—without stopping for errors in grammar or punctuation, looking up alternate words in the thesaurus, or doing any secondary research. Just write. Write your first draft nonstop and don't stop to re-read or edit each sentence or paragraph as you go along.

Often it helps to start with a warm-up writing session. Write a long email or begin your day tackling a less important writing task. Once you've gotten into the groove and if you've adequately prepared (as recommended above), you should be able to write more fluently.

After your first draft, you'll edit and proofread, but hopefully you'll find that the first speed-written draft (and its editing process) went much more more quickly than the times you fussed with the text while you were creating it.

Honing Your Craft

Getting to the Zen-like state where you're writing very efficiently nonstop and aren't even aware of the time passing will take practice. You can strengthen your writing abilities and speed by: reading everything you can get your hands on and writing every day. Studies have shown that the more frequently you write, the better and more quickly you do so later.

Also look for opportunities to simplify your writing, culling excess verbiage a la Strunk & White's Elements of Style. Try to use words more efficiently, eliminating unnecessary words like "personal" in phrases like "my personal favorite" (what other kind of favorite is there?). Typing unnecessary words wastes time, and because that's all we've really got, it pays to make as much of it as we can. Photo by laffy4k.

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Got a trick that helped you speed up your writing process? Let's hear it in the comments.

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Let Your Smartphone Write Bibliographies for You [Apps]

Let Your Smartphone Write Bibliographies for You [Apps]: "

If you're in college (or went to college), you know that the worst part of writing a paper is trying to crank out a bibliography/works cited page at the very end when you're brain dead and running late for class. A group of ambitious young students at the University of Waterloo want to bring an end to that with Quick Cite, which lets you use the camera on an iOS or Android smartphone to scan a barcode and have the app email you a properly-formatted entry (in MLA, APA, Chicago, or IEEE formats). [iTunes via Fast Company]

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Tom is sick and so am I. Classes cancelled for 22 Feb.

Tom is sick, and so am I.  Classes and office hours cancelled for 22 Feb.

All assignments for the week are posted on the class website.  Note the due dates of the pre-writing on Thursday and early draft next Tuesday.

Steve

Use Evernote to Quickly Build Presentations and Speeches [Presentations]

Use Evernote to Quickly Build Presentations and Speeches [Presentations]: "

Being a speaker worth listening to is an art, but most presentations aren't built entirely from scratch. With a clever, Evernote-backed filing system, you can quickly stash and pull up your best jokes, quotes, statistics, themes, and images.

Using Evernote as a kind of outboard brain isn't anything new, but leadership speaker Michael Hyatt illustrates a very practical use of the universal capture tool. Hyatt uses Evernote's capture tools to grab snippets of blog posts, paper book passages (see the annotated, highlighted example in the passage above), and straight-up text that contain bits and pieces he might use in a future presentation. The key to making it all work is being gratuitous in labeling, tagging, and describing why these bits make sense, but it's likely a lot easier than staring at a blank document and trying to bring it all up from your gray matter.

A Better Filing System for Public Speakers (and Writers) [Michael Hyatt via @steverubel]

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