Memory
I see many people taking copious notes when studying. Sometimes they copy and recopy the notes in an effort to learn, to memorize. I read that studious individuals often write prodigious amounts of notes to help them remember.
UPDATE: I misunderstood Matthew Cornell’s recording methodology. It is more a method for organizing new ideas and questions that come up while reading a text. I’m a big fan of this method of keeping track of my creativity and curiosity.
These methods are counterproductive. Writing notes, rather than increasing comprehension and recall, degrades memory. The notes become a crutch. Because the notes exist, because the ideas exist in writing, your mind freely forgets them.
Look at phone numbers today. Many people do not know even their own cell phone numbers. They can look up their numbers easily if needed, so their minds see no need to remember. People used to know their phone numbers. The choice is not conscious, it just happens.
Gordon Bell, a researcher at Microsoft, records every second of his life. He can quickly search through any document or web site he has read digitally based on time and date. He can browse through continuous audio recordings and continual snapshots of his surroundings. When he tries to remember something, he immediately looks to his LifeBrowser. But, in knowing that they exist, the recordings are his mind’s crutch. He suspects that these recordings “might be slowly degrading his real, carbon-based brain’s ability to remember clearly.”
Furthermore, the barrage of notes that people write rarely are re-read. Instead, people remember the ideas for a short time, refer to the notes for a short time, and then discard the notes while simultaneously forgetting the ideas. Even if someone does keep all of his notes, then the stewing garbage heap of notes becomes too large to be useful. It becomes impossible to find and learn from such a large, unstructured set of data.
Some people today want to create better tools to search through these notes. I propose a better solution. Never take notes of things that you actually just want to know. That means never, for example, taking notes in class. Never take notes of a book that should be teaching you.
I stopped taking notes sophomore year of high school. It began as an experiment. I never had a good memory. I did much better in classes where a few simple concepts and reasoning were most important like math. I did poorly (not as well) in history and other detail-filled classes. I would write copious notes for hours on end, sometimes rewriting the notes to help practice the ideas. But I would quickly forget them. I’d leave my future self with little knowledge and a pile of notes too large to manage.
So I decided to stop wasting my hours taking notes. Just stop completely. I wanted to see if my mind would make up the difference. At first, I just forgot everything I read. But as I relied solely on my mind to remember the details and concepts in everything I read, and as teachers and tests pressured me to remember, I did. I remembered more and more of what I read. After a couple of years of grueling AP classes in history (I took all of them), I could read something and remember all the concepts effortlessly. I can listen to a lecture and remember every salient point. I can’t say that I have a photographic memory, recalling every tiny detail in order, but I did improve from a terrible memory to decent good one.
I think anyone (without an amnesic disorder of course) can benefit by not taking notes, no matter how poor a person claims their memory to be. The improvement simply requires a fundamental change in approach. I support fundamental shifts in thought or behavior to make true, major, order of magnitude improvements. The improvements are many: less effort, less time wasted, better retention, longer-lasting retention, fewer hand cramps, less paper to buy, less paper to store or throw out, etc.
Finally, there is a big distinction between not taking notes and not writing anything down at all. I advocate not taking notes, in the sense that you should not write down anything that you should know or understand in your mind. Anything relating to classes, anything in non-reference books, and so on are in this category. You want this knowledge available to you at any time for the rest of your life. Do not relegate the ideas to paper. What should be recorded and stored are things that shouldn’t really clutter your thoughts: most references, tedious equations (not ones fundamental to understanding), and errands to run some time this week.
I think the latter is very important to consider. You won’t remember any notes you write down easily, but you can use this limitation to your advantage. You don’t want the stress of an errand to clutter thoughts of more important things. David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, is a major advocate of making complete lists of responsibilities and action items. The purpose is to get them out of your head to free your mind. It works; I totally support this idea. Keep ideas of paper due-dates, project deadlines, and groceries out of your mind and on paper; keep ideas of Platonic ideals, search engine optimization, and fluid mechanics off paper–in your mind.
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