Context
During the last academic year I stopped note-taking, which was something I had tried hard to sustain but ultimately couldn't.
This August I decided to get back into the habit. Not because it made me feel productive, but because I had started to realise how useful it was to have a record of what I was actually doing.
When I was taking notes consistently, I found that they gave me something I couldn't really get from memory alone, a way to look back at my own behaviour and identify patterns.
In particular, it helped me:
- Improve my productivity
- Understand why some days went badly
- Manage my time more realistically
- Notice patterns that I otherwise would have ignored
How I take notes
I disagree with the notion that people should spend a long time finding and perfecting a note-taking method. In my opinion, any system that keeps you writing consistently is a good one.
For me, that system is simply a daily log in Obsidian.
What matters much more than the software or structure is the value of what you write down. Writing a monotonous narration of everything I did that day would be fairly useless. I want my notes to help me understand the day, not just record it.
I generally split my logs into two sections: tasks and how the day went.
The tasks section is simple. I write down what I want to get done that day and use it as a reference throughout the day.
The second section is where most of the value is. Rather than only recording if I completed something, I try to record how I completed it.
For example, if I spend two hours on something that should have taken thirty minutes, that is much more useful information than simply writing "completed task".
It gives me something to investigate. Did I underestimate the task? Did I get distracted? Was I tired? Did I spend too long trying to solve something in the wrong way?
It made my productivity less subjective
One of the biggest benefits has been being able to look at my productivity more objectively.
Without notes, I might finish a day feeling like I had been unproductive without really knowing why. Alternatively, I might feel like I had worked hard simply because I had spent most of the day at my desk.
I can look back and see what I actually intended to do, what I actually did, and how long certain things took. That makes it much easier to identify where a day went wrong.
This has also changed how I plan future days. If I repeatedly give myself five tasks and only realistically have enough time for three, the problem probably isn't that I need to become dramatically more productive. I may simply be planning badly.
The notes give me evidence for that instead of forcing me to rely on how productive I feel.
It helped me notice patterns
This is probably the part of note-taking that I value the most.
A single bad day isn't particularly informative. You might be tired, distracted, busy, or simply have an unusually difficult day.
However, when the same thing appears repeatedly in your notes, it becomes difficult to dismiss.
I have found this particularly useful for things like sleep and productivity. Instead of vaguely remembering that I "haven't been sleeping well lately", I can look back at what actually happened and see whether there is a pattern.
The same applies to studying. If I repeatedly write that I struggled to concentrate at a particular point in the day, or that a certain type of task consistently takes longer than expected, that is useful information for planning around.
In that sense, my notes have gradually become less like a diary and more like a dataset about myself.
It made reflection easier
Another unexpected benefit is that reflection requires much less effort when the information is already written down.
Instead of asking myself "How has this week gone?", I can actually look at the week and see it.
That changes the quality of the question. I am no longer trying to reconstruct several days from memory. I can compare what I planned to do with what actually happened and think about why there was a difference.
This has made mistakes considerably more useful. A bad day doesn't just become a bad day that I forget about. I can understand what caused it and potentially avoid repeating it.
The real benefit isn't the notes
Ultimately, I don't think the important part of this habit is note-taking itself.
The most useful part is how much better my mindset has become.
I focus on learning something everyday, rather than just completing tasks for the sake of it.
For example, the old me would just read an engineering blog, but then forget about it a week later. Now I'm proactively reading engineering blogs (such as my personal favourite, PlanetScale's blogs) and writing down key engineering principles.
The only reason I learn from this is because I go through the past week with every new week, exploring what I did, what I learnt and how it could apply to anything I've experienced, such as building Crestr.
This is probably the main reason I've come back to note-taking.