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Take Note: Paper Doll’s Guide to Organized Note-Taking for Learning and Creative Projects (Part 3)

Posted on: February 17th, 2025 by Julie Bestry | 8 Comments

Two weeks ago, in Take Note: Paper Doll’s Guide to Organized Note-Taking (Part 1), we looked at the wide variety of situations in which you might take notes, and took a side journey into the relative merits of handwritten vs. digital notes.

Last week, in Take Note: Paper Doll’s Guide to Organized Note-Taking in Lectures & Presentations (Part 2), we explored solutions for taking notes when someone is imparting information to you verbally: in class, watching a webinar, attending a conference, and in collaborative meetings. Some variation on these methods work for casual note-taking situations, like when you’re learning about a diagnosis or treatment, you’re hearing about a new program at a PTA meeting, or even when you’re fielding information on a phone call.)

Whether you want to capture information for a later test, to improve your professional (or passion project) success, or help your team hit its action items, taking notes ensures that information can be captured, processed, learned, and acted upon. 

Using my colleague Linda Samuels’ rubric, we looked at how to “listen, capture, and engage” with information using text-based note-taking (e.g., the sentence method, outlining, and the Cornell Note-Taking Method) and visual note-taking (e.g., mind mapping and sketchnoting).

We also harkened back to the idea that not all note-taking depends on information coming to you verbally. When you’re studying printed material as part of coursework, doing academic research (like a term paper on Alexander Hamilton) or writing a non-fiction book (like the history of sandwiches), you will need to take notes on what other people have written to achieve your goals.

You may also create notes from scratch, not based on someone else’s concepts (presented verbally or in writing), but invent something totally new with the help of the elves in your brain. You might write the score for a Broadway musical, engineer the schematics for a cool invention you aim to patent, or draft a novel about vampires from Jupiter or grandmother protesting injustice, or vampire grandmothers… 

With modifications, you can take notes using the methods we discussed last week, but there are also note-taking methods that help you create and organize notes on non-verbal content.

ANNOTATION

Picture yourself studying for an exam or preparing to give a speech to your colleagues. However much material you already know, there’s going to be a larger chunk of the unknown printed in books, journal articles, and online.

The advantage of taking notes on what you’re reading is that you can take it at whatever speed you need to make sense of the information and organize it, combined with your own thoughts, without having all the inbound knowledge outpace you. The main disadvantage is that, unlike when a speaker accents what’s important (with voice, body language, or saying, “Hey, you numbskulls, this is going to be on the tests!”), text may not give you a clue as to what is vital.

 

Sure, textbooks may have concepts in bold or italics, but novels will not; if you’re reading the Federalist Papers, there’s no formatting to clue you in on what Alexander Hamilton (yes, him again!) thought was key. And if you’re researching to support your creative endeavors, only you know what will hit the spot.

Key Benefits of Annotating

Annotating enhances comprehension by allowing you to actively engage with the text, identify key points (either what the writer thinks is key or what is key for your purposes), ask yourself questions (so you can find answers in the text or in other resources), and record your own thoughts.

Annotation can lead to a deeper understanding of the printed word, making it easier to recall information later and prepare for discussions, writing assignments, or drafts. Annotating your notes reaps the following benefits:

  • Improved comprehension — By highlighting important information and adding notes, you’re forced to actively process the text, leading to better understanding and retention.
  • Critical thinking — Annotating pushes you to question the author’s arguments, identify biases, and form your own interpretations. In fact, as described in the New York Times article, How Students and Teachers Benefit From Students Annotating Their Own Writing, annotating improves metacognition, or thinking about how you think about something.
  • Active engagement —The very act of writing notes as you read encourages focused attention and deeper engagement with the material. You’re less likely to let your eyes glaze over if you’re annotating the material.
  • Organization of ideas — Annotations can help you identify the main points, structure of the text, and see how different concepts relate to one another. Sometimes it happens as you are annotating; other times, the act of annotating creates the magic that helps you see how things are connected later. If you’ve ever seen the TV show The Good Doctor, this is the way we see Dr. Shaun Murphy arriving at life-saving connections.
  • Customization — You can add your own thoughts, reactions, and connections to the text, making the reading experience more meaningful. Whether you’re studying for a test or bringing concepts together to write a book, you can add your own metaphors or connections (and references to pop culture!) to make it resonate.
  • Preparation for writing — Annotations are first drafts. They’re the key to making someone else’s first line of research into a foundation for your own work, whether you’re writing essays for Medium, research papers for a class, or a work project where you need to analyze and synthesize information from varied sources.

Analog Methods of Annotating

Marginalia

If you’ve ever scribbled notes, comments, or questions in the margins of a book, you’ve been annotating. You’ve done the active reading and critical thinking referenced above, and created a personal dialogue with the author of which only you are aware. (That’s OK, some authors are cranky and don’t welcome questions.)

Marginalia are great for when you want a quick reference for future review of the material. Last week, I was in a book club Zoom for the National Association of Productivity and Organizing Professionals’ Authorship and Publishing Special Interest Group (no surprise, we call it the NAPO A&P SIG), discussing On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Non-Fiction by William Zinsser.

Our leader, my colleague Deborah Kawashima, had extensive marginalia, and used those notes to lead the discussion — and to find related material when members brought up points.

I can’t bring myself to write in books — my first job was working in a library, and books are so sacrosanct to me, I can’t bear to even make a pencil notation. I use sticky tape flags combined with handwritten notebook pages for the short term (like a book discussion) and either handwritten or digital notes when working on a blog post or book project.

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Transparent Sticky Notes

I wrote extensively about the benefits of see-through sticky notes in my blog post See Your Way Clear: Organize With Transparent Sticky Notes.  

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To summarize, they give you flexibility when taking notes on written material. You can add non-permanent markings (especially good with library books or borrowed materials), take extensive notes without cluttering the page with marginalia, and reposition them, either on the original text, or as applicable, on your drafts or mind-maps.

Traditional Handwritten or Typed Notes

If you’re taking notes on printed resources to research an article, book, or presentation, you might need room for your mental gymnastics. Taking your notes in a bound notebook, on a sheaf of loose paper, or in a digital document will give you the ample space you need.

You’ll also be able to organize your notes — with clear headings, bullet points, numbering or outlining systems, and any kind of doodles (even marginalia on your notes) you like. The physical act of taking the notes will increase retention.

And yes, in case you’re about to remind me that I talked about how typing/digitizing lecture notes tends to reduce comprehension and memory because you tend to transcribe rather than process, I’m not flip-flopping. When you type what you hear, you don’t process it. But when you type what you read, you translate and process anything that’s not a pure quote.

Additional Analog Annotation Methods

You can also annotate without writing actual sentences, employing:

  • Highlighting and underlining — Mark key phrases or sentences, and color-code highlighting to match themes and concepts. However, if you overuse it, the highlighting or ink will bleed through to the reverse side. Use sparingly.
  • Symbols, abbreviations, shorthand — Develop your own system to speed up the annotation process; use the same characters to mean the same things across all of your note-taking.
Visual Annotation Methods

As with the mind mapping and sketchnoting methods we discussed last week, there’s a related method for note-taking when you’re trying to gather and synthesize written knowledge. 

The Blank Sheet Method is described in detail on Shane Parrish’s Farnam Street Blog, so I encourage you to read his post, From Passive Reading to Active Learning: The Blank Sheet Method. I can’t reproduce Parish’s proprietary illustration, but the basics are:

  • Before beginning to read, write down what you know about the subject on a blank piece of paper.
  • After you read, add new the information you’ve gained with a different color pen or marker.
  • Before you read the next time, review the sheet. (Lather, rinse, repeat.)

Parish recommends storing finished sheets for periodic review and rewriting for clarity. 

Digital Methods of Annotating

When taking notes on analog content, analog note-taking may be the best approach. When the material you’re studying, researching, or investigating is already in digital form, it’s often easier to annotate digitally. Some of the more popular digital annotating tools are:

  • Adobe Acrobat Reader is best for annotating PDFs. It features highlighting, comments, on-screen sticky notes, drawing tools, and text markup.
  • Notability is best for handwritten and mixed-media notes. It can handle handwriting, text, audio recordings, sketching, and PDF annotation. If you use an iPad and want to blend digital and handwritten annotation, Notability is ideal.

  • Hypothesis works best for annotating web articles, blogs, and research. It’s a web-based tool for highlighting, adding comments, and collaborative notes on PDFs and online materials. It’s for students, researchers, writers, and teams.

Analog or digital, as with note-taking methods for verbally-presented material, annotating written material is just the beginning. Whether you “listen, capture, and engage”  or “read, capture, and engage,” you still have to engage, and that means keeping your notes organized and connected to one another and the central purpose of your work.  For more on annotation:

Annotating Texts (The Learning Center at the University of North Carolina)

The Art of Annotation: Teaching Readers To Process Texts (Cult of Pegagogy)

More Than Highlighting: Creative Annotations (Edutopia)

Why you should annotate your books (Johns Hopkins Newsletter)

Zettelkasten

Do you know Zettelkasten, also called the slip-box method? It was developed by Niklas Luhmann, a German sociologist, to reduce researcher overwhelm and create a network of interconnected ideas, rather than one simple, static archive of information in separate silos. 


David B. Clear, Zettelkasten — How One German Scholar Was So Freakishly Productive, in: The Writing Cooperative, 31 December 2019, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

How Zettelkasten Works

Zettlekasten was designed to be analog, using garden-variety index cards. (Obligatory link to The Humble Index Card: Organize Your Life, Then Organize Your Cards.) But with modern computing, you can link digital notes notes to one another easily, as with the internal links in Evernote. Here are the basic steps:

  1. Capture notes, each with practically microscopic bits of information — A note should have only one fact, concept, or idea. Brevity is the soul of Zettelkasten; so, no long, convoluted, Paper Doll-style paragraphs. Let’s say you’re writing a book: in the analog version, you’d have one quote to prove your point. At first, that quote is isolated.
  2. Link your notes together — Each subsequent note you take gets connected to related, already-existing notes, forming a network of ideas, a Charlotte’s Web of notions.
  3. Use unique identifiers — In an analog system, this means you’ll use a system of numbering or indexing the notes. In a digital system, your tools (like Evernote or Obsidian) will offer backlinks, the digital equivalents of the red yarn connecting the bad guys in a mystery movie’s murder board.
  4. Create “fleeting” (temporary), “literature,” and permanent notes — 
    • Fleeing notes let you quickly capture raw thoughts that come to you on your own, scratchpad-style. Think of them as shower thoughts.
    • Literature notes are one step up; they serve to summarize key ideas from whatever resources you’ve used: articles, journals, books, lectures, etc., but in your own words. (So, don’t copy & paste, but also, don’t use AI.)
    • Permanent notes are the refined, interconnected insights that build on the ideas you’ve collected and/or created.
    • You may also create “meta” reference notes, which help you think about how your Zettelkasten comes together.

Develop a personal knowledge system (PKS) — Over time, your Zettlekasten becomes an idea-generating machine. It represent what you know, and what you might want to share. It could be everything your freshman needs to write a term paper for Social Studies or the amazing non-fiction self-help book that earns you a place at the top of the best-seller lists — or a series of brilliant stand-up routines George Carlin developed, as explained in this video.

 
How to understand Zettelkasten

Think of Zettlekasten like the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game. Each note you take is an aspiring Hollywood star, just needing to be linked to someone bigger. Let’s say I’m writing a chapter on productivity.

  • One lone note about time management is like an indie actor, good but totally isolated and unlikely to reach stardom.
  • If I add a note about prioritization techniques, like a link to my well-established character actor Paper Doll Shares Presidential Wisdom on Productivity with the bit about the Eisenhower Decision Matrix, it’s in a movie with my time management note — one degree of separation.
  • But let’s say I have a third note about Parkinson’s Law (“Work expands to fit the time available to complete it.”), link it to both the general time management note and the Eisenhower Decision Matrix note, and suddenly they’re all in a Marvel summer blockbuster about productivity!

(Hey, it could happen!) 

The point is that a good Zettelkasten is not merely a random collection of notes, but an ever-growing network of interconnected concepts; developing it over time sharpens your thinking and makes your knowledge base not only more expansive, but more powerful.

Zettelkasten is perfect for researchers, authors, deep thinkers, and anyone developing a huge body of networked knowledge. If you’re writing your thesis, a series of books, or building lifelong learning, Zettlekasten is your man (well, system) for less overwhelm, more creativity and retention, better organization, and increased productivity (if handled deftly), 

What are the drawbacks of Zettlekasten? It’s freaking complicated if you’re using an extensive numbering/indexing system connecting all the moving parts.

Some of the best tools to develop your own Zettlekasten include:

  • Index cards of uniform size (so, go 3 1/2 x 5 or 4×6, but not both)
  • Obsidian (for backlinking and networked thought)
  • Roam Research (outline-style, with powerful linking capabilities)
  • Logseq (a privacy-focused, open-source alternative to Roam)

For more on how Zettelkasten might fit into your note-taking (and organizing) style, read:

The Zettelkasten Method: A Beginner’s Guide (Goodnotes)

Try the Zettelkasten method to manage information overload (Atlassian)

Getting Started: The Introduction to the Zettelkasten Method (Zettelkasten)

Ahrens’ Smart Notes

Sometimes, you need to build an easier mousetrap. Sönke Ahrens, a German author, took Luhmann’s Zettelkasten ideas and modernized them for his now-classic, How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking.

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Ahrens looked at Zettelkasten and said “Jeez, Louise, that’s a lot of complexity with numbering and indexing!” (Well, he said it in German.)

So, the Ahrens’ Smart Notes Method is a simplified method designed for knowledge workers (particularly academics, researchers, and writers) who want to create a structured knowledge workflow without going hardcore into the Zettelkasten approach.

Ahrens’ system focuses less on numbering or indexing of notes and places a much heavier emphasis on summarizing concepts (wherever possible) in your own words. It encourages you to write as you go, rather than taking the fleeting notes and the literature notes and then going back to write your permanent notes.

Ahrens advises creating notes with your own interpretations at an earlier stage so your notes are really first drafts. Less structure, more trusting your gut earlier on.

The Feynman Technique 

Physicist Richard Feynman’s system is a learning method, not about note-taking, per se, but baked into his process for helping people understand complex topics is a way to take notes that spur the learning process.

  1. Write down the concept you’re trying to learn about. 
  2. Explain it in simple terms — On the internet, you’ll often see someone say ELI5 — text-speak for “Explain it to me like I’m five-years-old.” How would you explain what you’re trying to learn to a kindergartener, or at least someone who is an absolute non-expert?
  3. Identify areas of confusion or gaps in your knowledge — What are you struggling to simplify? If you can’t explain it, then you don’t really know it yet.
  4. Review and refine your notes — Keep rewriting your notes until your explanation is crystal clear. Picture yourself writing the answer as an exam question, or presenting it on a webinar.

Feynman’s approach is less about note-taking for capturing information than for processing it until you understand it. It’s ideal for students, journalists, speakers, authors, and anyone who needs or wants to both acquire knowledge and put it to use, ostensibly to eventually communicate it to others — even if that communication is solely to pass a test on the material — or use it in their own lives. It can be an academic study aid, or a system for pursuing knowledge on a more lofty level.

Using the Feynman system encourages more active engagement with the content instead of passively copying key phrases out of a book or re-reading lecture notes. It also prompts you to seek clarity, cutting away the excess so your notes are focused and uncluttered. As a professional organizer, Paper Doll approves!

Some good tools for taking Feynman-based notes would be:

  • Traditional notebooks (though it may kill trees)
  • GoodNotes — especially if you’ll be using an iPad or tablet)
  • Evernote — use a combination of handwriting and sketching for clarifying explanations; if you spent your time in the Microsoft environment, OneNote is a similar option.
  • Notion (for refining the explanations over time)
  • Flashcard apps to help reinforce key ideas over time and find them again. Examples include Anki (free, open-source), Quizlet, and Kards.ai.

DIGITAL NOTE-TAKING PLATFORMS

Beyond options for general academic purposes (and those mentioned in these three posts), there are too many specialized digital note-taking platforms to mention even a representative number.

For casual, situational note-taking on your phone or organizing notes for travel, Apple Notes, Evernote, OneNote, and Google Keep suffice.

Creative writers and journalists alike benefit from Scrivener to keep their research close to their writing; novelists might like Campfire for character notes, world-building, and plotting. Know someone composing musical notes? Try 7 Best Music Writing Software Programs for DIY Musicians or Resources for Creating Your Own Sheet Music.

HYBRID NOTE-TAKING: A MARRIAGE PERFORMED BY A ROBOT

AI’s role in note-taking will continue to expand in ways we can’t imagine. Right now, we can feed our notes (whether handwritten or typed) into an AI to yield notes on our notes.

You could record a lecture, interview, or meeting and ask your favorite AI for a transcript so you can focus on just key concepts and then go back to flesh things out. After reviewing the transcript, you could ask the AI to write an outline or summary.

Last week, I uploaded the link for the podcast I did with Frank Buck and asked ChatGPT to outline and summarize our conversation. It was revelatory. I stored links, the actual video, and the outline in Evernote to link to other podcast appearances. If I uploaded the audio file, with the click of a button, Evernote could transcribe the entire conversation!

Did you know that your (paid) Zoom account’s Smart Assistant can not only transcribe any Zoom call, but can summarize the chat messages and identify action items? Whatever audio or video recordings you create in any setting, you can turn around and use a variety of AI platforms to transcribe, summarize the discussions, identify next steps, and draft an email to your boss explaining why you deserve a raise!

You can have an AI interrogate your own notes to help you find specific research material without having to hand-search with Command-F. Imagine you’re writing a book and have 1000 research notes in PDF form. Upload them to a tool like Google’s Notebook LM, and instead of having the AI find content from all over the web (and risk AI “hallucinations,” false content), you can have it just provide you with snippets of research specific to what you want to write about that day. Scarily, you can even have “conversations” with the AI about the notes you’ve taken!

Nota bene: the future (of note-taking) is going to get weird.

Take Note: Paper Doll’s Guide to Organized Note-Taking in Lectures & Presentations (Part 2)

Posted on: February 10th, 2025 by Julie Bestry | 12 Comments

In last week’s post, Take Note: Paper Doll’s Guide to Organized Note-Taking (Part 1), we looked at the variety of situations in which we might take notes. Of course, it’s instinctual to think of classroom notes or notes in meetings first, but as we reviewed, we take notes all the time in other ways.

To review, we take notes on other inbound information:

  • non-academic learning and skill acquisition
  • at conferences, in webinars, and at professional lectures
  • in collaborative meetings
  • situationally, such as when we’re learning about a diagnosis or a new project, or we’re fielding information captured on a phone call
  • in legal and financial situations, such as when conversing with professionals providing guidance
  • when we’re gathering quickly-changing information when dealing with a crisis situation

In the comments for that post, my colleague Linda Samuels described the process as “Listen, capture, and engage” and that’s exactly the case when someone (a lecturer, a presenter, a group of people in a meeting) are speaking.

However, we’re not always listening and porting someone else’s spoken thoughts into our notes.

Quite often, the categories of note-taking involve figuring out for ourselves what is important and worth capturing, such as when we do research or plan travel. And sometimes, the notes we take are completely of our own devising, such as when we are writing fiction or music, designing, inventing, or otherwise capturing our own thoughts.

So, Linda is right, note-taking can be about listening (to others or ourselves) or reading, capturing, and engaging with the material. Ultimately, it’s about what they said, what they wrote. and what we thought (and continue to think).

Our notes are extensions of our brains, and the more organized they can be, the better able we will be to use that information, whether it’s to get better grades, further our careers, choose the best course of action, or create something masterful.

Today, we’re going to explore some of the best methods for organizing our note-taking.

NOTE-TAKING METHODS WHEN SOMEONE IS SPEAKING

We’re going to start with the category we think of most often when conceptualizing taking notes — when someone else is imparting information verbally.

In these situations, you generally have little-to-no sense of what information is coming next (unless the speaker has provided an outline or detailed agenda) and — unless you’re watching a recorded presentation — you have no control over the speed at which the information is coming at you. Common situations include:

  • In a class lecture (whether in-person or virtually)
  • When taking a webinar (whether live or recorded)
  • At a conference (whether in crowded plenary sessions, like keynotes, or smaller breakout sessions)
  • In a brainstorming session or meeting at work

As we look at methods of note-taking in these situations, we’ll begin with text-based notes, and then look beyond at notes that employ graphics and symbols.

TEXT-BASED NOTE-TAKING METHODS

Sentence Method

Have you ever been in a course or at a conference where you’ve been given no sense of the outline of material to come? It’s hard to take notes without context.

If the information is coming out firehouse-style, with a rapid-fire, fast-and-furious assault of information (and often abbreviations or unfamiliar buzzwords), the best thing you can do is to accept that you will not get the necessary context, and treat each thing you hear as existing on its own little island.

Literally, each new thought or fact that you hear gets its own sentence/line in your notes. If you can transcribe it into your own words, do so; if you haven’t a clue, start the line with some quotation marks, write as much as you can of what you hear in a sentence, close the quotation marks, and put an asterisk (or whatever symbol you prefer) in the left margin, to remind you to come back for it later.

If you write each sentence sequentially, with a break between lines (skipping a line on paper, or double- or even triple-spacing on your screen), you’ll at least capture the essentials and give yourself space to revise and make it make sense once you do get context. That context may come either from continued lecturing, from reading a textbook or associated PDFs, going to office hours with your professor or a one-on-one meeting with your supervisor, or speaking with your fellow students or colleagues

The disadvantage of the sentence method, which is not very different from most people’s default “try to get everything down” method is that until you go back to review and flesh out your notes (and perhaps add context from your readings or later discussions), the notes themselves don’t really indicate which points are major vs. trivial.

The Sentence Method is equally applicable to analog or digital note-taking. Just remember, as we discussed last week, that digital note-taking temps you to transcribe rather than to cognitively process, making it less likely that you’ll learn as you take notes.

Outlining Method

Outlining is one step up from the sentence method in terms of organization. You know what a formal outline looks like:

I. Overarching categories start at the left.

A. Sub-categories of the overarching category are indented further right, and are indicated with a capital letter.

      1. Examples or subcategories are numbered and indented even more.
      2. More examples are further numbered.

a. Further sub-breakdowns get lowercase letters

b. And if you need to indent further, you can start using bullet points.

B. And here’s your fabulous second sub-category under the first point

II. Your second major overarching category goes here, and the process continues.

Formal outlining tends to work well if the speaker is organized, if you already have some familiarity with the topic, and especially if you’re provided guidance in advance. In a history course, for example, you’re likely to know that you’ll need to track political, economic, and social factors. In a science course, the material is usually presented from top-level down to the specifics.

A more informal outlining system will focus on putting the super-mostest-importantest stuff toward the left, indenting somewhat for sub-categories, and indenting more for examples or less important things. When you’re informally outlining, it takes some effort to get a sense of the speaker’s intent to create your sense own of hierarchy.

An outlining method works best when you have enough time to consider and make decisions about organizing the information as it is spoken. Of course, if you’re not entirely sure about the information coming at you (or the person lecturing isn’t particularly organized), neither method of outlining is likely to be much superior to the sentence method. 

Cornell Note-Taking System

When I arrived at Cornell University in August 1985, I had never heard of the Cornell Note-Taking Method. About a week into my freshman year, I sat in a biology lab where a teaching assistant taught us the basics, and (as I inhaled the scent of what I assumed was formaldehyde and anticipated having to be cruel to a poor, departed cousin of Kermit) I assumed that this note-taking method was specific to my school.

I had no idea that it had been devised 30+ years earlier by Cornell professor of developmental education, Walter Pauk, who made the method famous in How to Study in College. 

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The Cornell Note-Taking Method requires dividing each page into three sections. (N.B. — remember that abbreviation from last week? — some people refer to a fourth section, which is the top of the page, where you reference what the notes are about. You could call it the topic line or the subject line. However, it seems a bit too obvious to discuss in depth.)

First, the majority of the page is divided into two vertical columns or sections, with the left (Cue) column taking up about a third of the page and the right (Notes) column taking up about two-thirds.

Sticklers would say to divide it as 30% for Cue and 70% for Notes. In this regard, Paper Doll is not a stickler. If this were an 8 1/2″ x 11″ piece of notebook paper, the Cue column might be 2 1/2″ and the Notes column 6″.

The bottom of the page is not divided vertically, but spans the entire page horizontally. It’s used as a summary section. I’ve seen some articles require that the section should be 2 inches high, but again, I’m not a stickler. (I attended college before there were many pre-created styles of Cornell Notes notebooks. I just eyeballed everything. Nobody will put you in note-taking jail if your lines aren’t straight.)

How does it all work? 

  • The Notes Column — In this section, take notes by whatever method you can — sentence method, outlining method, your default note-taking style, etc. The key is to record the lecture or presentation as faithfully and meaningfully as possible here. Quoting the words Linda Samuels used at the start of this post, this is where you listen and capture.
  • The Cue Column — As you take notes, the cue column will largely remain empty, but as soon as possible after the lecture or the presentation, re-read your notes and declutter them. Reduce the material in the Notes column to their essence. What is it you absolutely need to know? This is where you engage!

In an academic setting, you might use the cues to “recite, review, and reflect” (in Pauk’s words) as you study. You can use the Cue section to write prompting questions to help you quiz yourself later. 

At a professional conference, these might be ideas you intend to put into practice, such as marketing methods or software platforms you intend to try. 

  • The Summary Section — This area gives you the chance to sum up the key information from that page in just a few sentences.
 

Cornell Note-Taking is best for academic notes, conference notes, or any time you’re focused on learning or key aspects of something presented by someone else, as it encourages intentional notet active recall. (You can also use it for taking notes on study material you read.)

Understand that it will be rare for the end of the page to sync up with the end a concept. That’s OK; use the Summary Section to summarize the concepts on that page. 

You might also wish to try the Cornell Note-Taking Method in collaborative meeting notes, and use the cue column for action items that are your responsibility.

To learn more about the Cornell Note-Taking Method, Cornell University offers a free public-facing course called Note-Taking Strategies.

Products to Help the Cornell Note-Taking Method

You can absolutely try the Cornell Note-Taking Method with a sheet of notebook or bank paper and a writing implement and just free-draw the dividing lines; a ruler or any available straight-edge will perfect your lines. But if you (or your favorite student) are more likely to commit to a method when  there are fun school or office supplies to use, you can add a variety of goodies to your note-taking arsenal. For example:

Cornell Notes Notebook — rustic cover, 8 1/2″ x 11″, lined, 120 sheets, $6.99

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Oxford Tops FocusNotes —8 1/2″ x 11″, 50 sheets, three-hole punched, $6.06

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Oxford FocusNotes — 6 ” 9″, 80 pages, top spiral bound steno version (good for lefties), $6.14

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Mochi Things Pieces of Moment Cornell Notebooks — 7 1/2″ x 10″ pages, unlined notes section, grid summary section, only 26 pages (!) but 8 gorgeous designer colors, $6.95

Horizontal-style iQ Organizer Tablet — 8 1/2″ x 6″, landscape, 80 sheets, $5.99

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Of course, if you prefer the digital approach, a number of digital platforms have Cornell templates built in:

VISUAL AND HYBRID NOTE-TAKING METHODS

Some people (like Paper Doll) think in words; in fact, I think in outlines, with Roman numerals, capital letters, Latin numbers, and lowercase letters, and in my head, I see how new, inbound information should fit in that mental model. (Y’know how they taught outlines in fourth grade? That’s what’s going on in my head.)

However, to my shock and utter confusion, not everyone in the world is exactly like Paper Doll. Not everyone thinks and understands best solely in terms of text-based notes. For the visually inclined, there are a note-taking methods that incorporate graphics that represent concepts and the connections between them.

Mind Mapping

Mind maps are literally maps that allow you to see how to get from one concept to another. The basis of mind-mapping is that, depending on the complexity of your understanding of the connections between concepts, you can use branching diagrams to draw the way ideas are connected.

And the better you understand a concept, the better you will remember it!

Mind mapping helps you to visually connect ideas regardless of how they are presented. The key is that you have to pay attention to the nuances of the way your lecturer or presenter delivers information so that you know whether whether something is a whale (a big, new idea) or a small fish swimming in the specifics with other little fishies. 

For academic purposes, reviewing your mind maps requires that you restructure each of your thought processes, ensuring you truly understand. You can even break down the sections of your mind map onto index cards to text yourself on small sub-sections, then piece them altogether like a jigsaw puzzle to see the big picture.

Nicoguaro, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Mind mapping for knowledge acquisition is often best done free-hand, as classrooms, webinars, and conference settings don’t offer the time necessary to quickly click and format a device screen; however, you can take traditional text-based notes and then study by creating visual links as you understand the relationship between concepts.

In a group/work meeting, you might capture brainstormed notes on a white board. For whatever purpose you’re using mind-mapping, if you employ an analog method as you acquire the information, you can always adapt and augment your notes afterward in a digital format.

Popular mind-mapping software platforms are MindMeister, Coggle, Scapple, MindNode, and The Brain.

Even if you’re a visual thinker, mind mapping may be hard to use in an academic setting, when you need to capture a lot of complex details. However, it’s an exemplary tool for visual thinkers taking notes on their own research and personal creative projects.

Sketchnoting

Mind mapping requires words, maybe a few circles about the big concepts, and lines connecting the ideas.

But what if you are so creative and/or non-linear that you need actual pictures for your notes to have meaning? Sketchnoting may offer a better solution; it blends text with doodles and drawings, as well as customized symbols, to help make sense of material presented in a class or at a conference.

Designer and author Mike Rohde coined the term sketchnoting in 2006. His process uses words, pictures, and symbols, including:

  • standard text
  • emphasized text (though colors, all-caps, “bubbling” of letters, and anything that makes the text stand out)
  • shapes, either on their own or combined with bullet points
  • “containers” or larger shapes, like boxes, quote bubbles, thought bubbles, for showing larger concepts
  • “connectors” like solid or dotted lines, arrows, or squiggles to show connections between concepts
  • symbols and icons
  • drawings, usually done in quick comic-esque style to capture metaphors

Most of the videos on sketchnoting are long; however this little intro (designed as a teaser for a course) is just five minutes and provides a good overview.

 

Personally, the most creative I get is drawing a delta (a Greek letter that looks like a triangle) as the shortcut for the word “change,” and arrows up/down/right/left to mean increase, decrease, backward, forward.

Additionally, my drawing skills are so poor that when playing Pictionary with my family, it’s been noted that my cows, cars, and maps of the United States all look pretty similar. (Conversely, getting the word “motorcade,” my sister once drew the entire JFK assassination, complete with the grassy knoll and the book depository. I suspect only one person in a family gets artistic talent.)

For a visually creative person, sketchnoting can enliven the material and make it grippier to understand and remember. 

If you’d like to delve more deeply into using sketchnoting, Rodhe has his own YouTube channel, and there are there are numerous books on sketchnoting, starting Rohde’s own The Sketchbook Handbook: The Illustrated Guide to Visual Notetaking.

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Next time, we’ll continue this series and look at the importance of annotation for learning, as well as note-taking methods for situations that do not involve lectures or presentations, such as research and creation. This will include Zettelkasten, Ahrens Smart Notes, and the Feynman Technique, and we’ll match up the various note-taking situations with the best methods, both analog and digital.

We’ll wrap up this series with thoughts on how AI can help us take notes (or improve our notes), provided we take certain cautions.

Tell me, did you use any special note-taking methods when you were in school? And how do you take notes when you’re in a class, webinar, conference session, or meeting? Please share in the comments.

Take Note: Paper Doll’s Guide to Organized Note-Taking (Part 1)

Posted on: February 3rd, 2025 by Julie Bestry | 10 Comments

Have you ever seen a sign with the letters “N.B.” on it or a set of instructions where the highlighted part says N.B.?

N.B. is short for nota bene, the Latin for “note well,” or in our own vernacular, “Hey, take note!” and until about thirty years ago, it was common to see N.B. on documents, notices, and signs, warning that something was important.

The Maryland Gazette (March 19, 1801). “Wanted, A Wife (Advertisement, Extra)” Public Domain Link

We may not use the Latin abbreviation much anymore, but we sure do have a lot of things to which we need to pay attention, or pay heed, or take note! Today, we’re going to look at different areas of our lives in which we need to capture and organize information by taking notes. 

The inspiration for today’s post was friend-of-the-blog Dr. Frank Buck. Recently, I sat down again with Frank for his fabulous podcast Get Organized!, to talk about note-taking in all of its myriad forms. 

In the episode entitled, Your Note-taking Just Got Better (with Julie Bestry), Frank and I chatted about the evolution of note-taking from the structured forms we learn in school to the various ad hoc and formal notes we use in adulthood, and we explored the importance of adapting our note-taking strategies to our individual needs and contexts.

I espoused my personal preference for analog note-taking (on my beloved purple Roaring Springs Enviroshads legal pads) in client sessions, both for the tactile engagement as well as how it helps me ensure my clients feel that I am focusing on them.

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But because Frank and I both love tech solutions (and are both Evernote Certified Experts), we also looked at the ways we are able to integrate our notes digitally into searchable, accessible formats.

Our discussion delved into how to establish a consistent system, and we came to some agreement on the practical tips that ensure that notes are useful. But note just take my word for it. Frank included an amazing outline and list of resources in his show notes. (N.B.: scroll down).

You can listen to the episode on the episode page linked above, or on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your yummy podcast goodness. And, if I managed to link this properly, you might even be able to listen from this embedded version.

Of course, if you prefer to see our smiling faces, can watch the episode on Frank’s YouTube page or even here, but be sure to click through to YouTube to leave Frank some nice comments and a thumbs-up/like.

 
 

TYPES OF NOTE-TAKING SITUATIONS

When you think of taking notes, what first comes to your mind? Is it sitting in a lecture hall scribbling notes to later study for a test? Perhaps you envision gathering information for a project? The truth is, the concept of “notes” cuts a wide swath through our lives, and our ability to take notes and keep that information organized may determine our success in a wide variety of endeavors. For example:

Academic Settings

We start taking notes in elementary school, with the teacher telling us what will be important to write down. (“This will be on the test!”) As we get older, in high school and college, we’re expected to suss out for ourselves which material is important enough to capture and how to separate the wheat from the chaff. (“Will this be on the test?”) Why? Because we can’t get it all down before the instructor moves on to something else!

Sidebar: analog vs. digital notetaking in academic settings

We aren’t robots or androids. (Though it might be cool if we were.) We lack the motor dexterity to hand-write everything as fast as the educator can speak, so it’s important to try to figure out what is essential.

While we can type faster than we can write, research have often found that for academic success, it’s not ideal. For children and adults, writing notes in long-hand can improve memory word recall; for kids, that means creating the foundational aspects of learning and literacy. For adults, handwriting notes has been proven to improve conceptual understanding of educational material.

Computer and Notebook photo by Matt Ragland on Unsplash

The research spells out the academic advantages of taking notes by hand as:

  • Improved memory retention — The act of physically writing notes engages more brain regions associated with memory formation, so students recall more vs. when they just type their notes. 
  • Forced summarization — When students write by hand, they must condense spoken words, narratives, asides, jokes, responses to students’ inquiries, etc. into key points. This process promotes “active learning” so the note-taker will better understand the material.
  • Reduced distractions — Paper is boring. It just sits there, and unless you doodle, there’s nothing but your notes to look at, so distractions are minimized. On a computer or tablet, audio and text notifications pop up, tempting the note-taker to divide attention between mitochondria being the powerhouse of the cell and the a notification of the latest celebrity breakup.
  • Visual organization — “Aha!” you’re thinking! Here’s where Paper Doll must be wrong. Surely you can do more to organize notes visually on a computer, because you can format important things in bold, italicize unusual terms, use different color text, or even highlight entire sections in different colors.

And yeah, you can, but not until later, after class, when you’re studying, and might no longer remember which things needed accenting. Plus, the cognitive component of studying is different from the one at play when you’re taking notes.

But when you’re taking notes contemporaneous with the lecture, you can:

    • change from cursive to printing
    • add block letters
    • underline or circle key information
    • draw diagrams
    • put symbols in the margins (like an asterisk to say, “Hey, this will be on the test!” or a question mark to tell yourself, “I totally don’t get this. Go to office hours to ask the prof what this meant.”)
    • use different pens (or sparkly ones!) to color-code as you go
    • or use the geographic landscape of the page for different methods of learning the material. (That last part is key to the Cornell Note-Taking Method, which Frank and I discussed in the podcast, and which I’ll explain in greater detail in next week’s post.) 

All of these advantages convince me, but one element of this “feels” the most believable to me. In a classroom setting, when we hand-write, we process first, then translate what we hear into those few, condensed phrases; when we type, we’re more likely to try to transcribe (almost) everything we hear, bypassing our brains and letting our fingers do the walking. We become like court stenographer, gathering the details without relating to them. When we transcribe, we may as well be an AI platform. 

Of course, there are advantages for students to take academic notes on devices vs. writing in longhand.

      • Typing is faster; when you’re feeling overwhelmed by the influx of information, typing may give you some breathing room to absorb what you’ve taken down in those few extra seconds vs. the pen-on-paper peeps. 
      • You can organize digital notes with pertinent headings, color-coding, and after-the-fact added graphics, plus you can copy & paste notes you’ve taken from the readings. If a professor makes an aside or expands on an earlier topic because a fellow student has asked for clarification, you can cut & paste the later blurb into the earlier, related section.
      • Digital notes can be edited after the fact to make them make more sense. You can’t really edit notes in longhand; you can only re-write them.
      • Digital notes are searchable, allowing you to key in on particular concepts. 

If you’d like to geek out on this, avail yourself of these research papers and articles, arranged starting with the most recent:

Not everyone agrees on this, particularly in an academic setting. The politics of teaching (or not teaching) cursive writing, the neurobiology of how our brains process information when writing vs. typing, and the arguments of the relative merits of speed vs. comprehension make this a fighty topic in the world of education. Maybe I believe the research because I’m already inclined toward a slower, more analog approach to note-taking, or maybe it’s just (in Stephen Colbert’s words) the seeming truthiness of these researchers explanations. Students must find their own way.

As Frank and I discussed, however, it doesn’t have to be either/or.

In academic note-taking, as well as in all of the other note-taking situations described below, you have options.

A hybrid approach, one in which first-level notes can be taken in longhand, then digitized to be edited, organized, refined, and searched, is increasingly applicable, both for students and for most of these other situations. 

OK, back to our regularly scheduled program.

Academic settings don’t just include taking notes in the classroom. Diligent students also take notes on what they’re reading, whether by writing on notepads or typing in a document,  annotating books and documents by scribbling in the margins (or on transparent sticky notes, as I wrote about in See Your Way Clear: Organize With Transparent Sticky Notes), making flashcards, etc. We’ll look more at this aspect in the next post.

Non-Academic Learning and Skill-Building

When you’re not learning something for a grade, there’s less pressure on your note-taking skills; you may not have to learn as quickly, so you can focus on hitting the things that seem essential, as you can always go back to get help with the finer points. This category encompasses things like learning a new language, learning how to code, even gaining cooking skills.

(Il vegetariano compra l’insalata. In case you were wondering.)

As with academic settings, you may take notes on what you hear from a lecturer (whether in person, on a webinar, or even watching a YouTube video), but you also may make experiential notes: telling your future self that you should only whip the sugar and eggs for two and a half minutes, not the three called for in the recipe, or that you should inhale after the fourth measure of the song you’re learning for choir so you’ll have the lung capacity to make it to the bridge or the chorus.

Conferences and Large-Scale Professional Settings

I’ve attended many NAPO conferences, and the educational offerings are tremendous. But I have to admit, sometimes I psych myself out when trying to take notes.

There’s a voice in the back of my head shouting, “You paid SO MUCH for this conference, air fare, hotel, and cute outfits so your colleagues don’t think you only own that one cardigan you always seem to be wearing on Zoom, so be sure to get EVERYTHING down in these notes.” Even though there’s no exam, there can be self-imposed pressure to capture every nugget of information.

I’ve written in the past about my attempts to take conference notes on my iPad vs. my traditional notepad method. The first year, I’d only had an iPad for a few weeks, didn’t yet own a smart phone, and was so delighted (and distracted) by the availability of email and texting (both of which I’d only had through my iMac at home) that I struggled to focus.

The next year, I wrote about my more concerted digital efforts in NAPO2014: Taking Notes–The Paperless Experiment. I provided the results of my experiment, but ruled that the jury was still out. At that time, I felt the jury was still out, and up until 2020, when the conference was canceled due to the pandemic, I was still not happy with a fully digital note-taking approach. Tech has come a long way in the last five years, making a hybrid method much more appealing. 

Work Meetings

You know the expression about how, “This meeting could have been an email.” If it had been an email, you wouldn’t have had to take notes!

Because communication in meetings, even with agendas, can be ad hoc, there are fewer indicators of what is important to capture. Certainly, you want to write down any “next actions” assigned to you, but unless it’s your responsibility to take minutes in meetings, the best reason to take notes is to make sure you don’t get caught being distracted by things on your phone.

When I worked in TV, my otherwise stellar general manager would ask a department head to take notes during meetings when the executive assistant was on vacation. But he only ever asked women. (This was the 1990s.) It made me cranky, not only because it felt sexist that only half of us were ever asked to do it, but also because my handwriting was bad and I couldn’t engage meaningfully if I was playing stenographer.

The first time, I was only 25 and not yet confident enough to either say no or be maliciously compliant, so asked everyone to give me their speaking points and I’d type up a summary. The next time, I said, “No thank you. I’m sure it’s Larry’s turn.” Happily, Larry was much better at it, and after that, we passed a micro-cassette recorder around the table to record what each of us said, so nobody took notes.

Situational

These are “life” notes. They can range from serious, like the notes you might take if you or a loved one has just received a medical diagnosis and you want to write down the treatment options and next steps, to casual, like the notes you take when you make (or receive) a phone call and want to capture quick details like names, appointment times, or directions.

Research

Research notes encompass everything we take notes on where the information is not spoon-fed to us. Unlike in a lecture hall, webinar, or conference, this kind of information involves gathering data from multiple sources — books, periodicals, journals, interviews, and even scientific (or social science) experiments. 

Notes by Hand and Computer, Photo by Kaboompics.com

Such notes may be taken by journalists, authors of non-fiction, students writing academic papers, graduate students writing a doctoral or other thesis, etc.

Creative

Unlike taking notes on research, which tends to be outwardly focused on what is found elsewhere, whether created by others or observed by the note-taking individual, creative note-taking is more personal.

Guitarist making musical by Artem Podrez

When you take creative notes — for example, if you’re a novelist, an artist, a musician, a designer, etc. — you are capturing your own thoughts and innovations in the form inspirations, lyrics, sketches, etc. Creative notes may involve words, drawings, musical notes, or other note-capturing formats.

Travel

If you’re planning travel, you might take notes on the research you’ve done regarding options for hotels, flights (or trains or ships), and sights, in advance of your trip. However, you might also make contemporaneous notes about changes in your itinerary, jot thoughts down for later journaling of experiences, or capture must-remember details, like what platform to switch to when you changing subway trains.

Legal and Financial

These are life notes with added importance, similar to the more serious situational notes. These might be require taking notes in a meeting or conversation with your attorney or investment advisor, or could involve making notes on what you’ve read (similar to the different academic note concepts).

For example, I have clients who’ve taken precise notes in divorce mediation meetings, combined with notes on each iteration of the divorce agreement until everything was finalized; for some, this was about having a sense of control during an emotionally roiling time. 

If you’re negotiating a contract, figuring out how to invest for retirement or your child’s education,  trying to structure a business, or deal with the best possible tax implications, you may want to take notes to help you better understand the options or to make sure that later on, you can reflect on why you chose to make the decisions you did.

Emergency or Crisis Situations

When you’re calm and nothing is distracting you, taking notes can be a perfectly ordinary (or boring) task. But in a crisis situation, when your mind is spinning, keeping track of information and urgent next steps can be overwhelming.

Calming your mind to make sense of things can be difficult if you’re the victim of a crime (as I wrote about in Organize to Prevent (or Recover From) a Car Theft) or there’s a family crisis (such as during the floods in western North Carolina this fall, when my client was trying to capture snippets of phone information while his elderly mother was being airlifted to safety).

During a crisis, taking notes gives you the opportunity to focus on something a little more tangible and removes some element of emotion from the process.

During a crisis, taking notes gives you the opportunity to focus on something a little more tangible and removes some element of emotion from the process. Share on X

Back in 2017, Paper Mommy‘s heart surgery ran much longer than we were told it would, and when the doctor finally came to speak with me, he began explaining what had happened. I immediately started writing down what he said, but he discouraged me, saying I wouldn’t be able to get it. I stared him down, and our family friend encouraged him to keep talking.

When he was done, I said, “This is what I think I understand…” and proceeded in my own words to recap what had happened, what they were going to do next, and what the timeline was. This wasn’t just so that I could explain things later to my sister and my mom’s friends (or to prove the doctor wrong). Taking these notes was an essential part of making sense of what was going on in order to calm me down. 

I’m not a doctor; I didn’t “need” to know the science of it. But as a daughter (and as a person who struggles when things are vague or confusing), I nonetheless needed to take these notes. 

NOTE-TAKING: WHAT’S THE BEST METHOD FOR YOU?

When I initially told Frank I’d be delighted to be on his podcast again, I vaguely thought, “Oh, and then I can write a follow-up post with a few extra ideas. It’ll be a short post.” Well, long-time Paper Doll readers know how that usually turns out!

After recalling the handful of note-taking situations Frank and chatted about, I kept thinking of other, more narrow categories. Then, I’d figured I’d write a few paragraphs about the Cornell Note-Taking Method and a few other analog methods, and then give a nod to digital note-taking platforms.

But then I realized I’d completely skipped the idea of audio notes and AI!

The more I read of my own notes on note-taking (how meta of me!) from recent years, it became obvious that one post wasn’t going to be enough. So, if you’re trying to learn how to take better notes in webinars, or you have a high school or college student who is looking to improve how they capture and organize their notes, be sure to make a note (heh) to come back next week for the follow up. 

Going forward, we’ll examine:

  • analog note-taking methods you may not be familiar with (like the Cornell Note-Taking Method, Zettlekasten, the Ahrens’ Smart Notes Method, the Feynman Technique, mind-mapping, and more)
  • digital note-taking platforms including, but beyond the big names like Evernote, OneNote, and Notion, and including apps for organizing learning, remembering, and being productive
  • identifying which of these analog and digital methods might be initially better for the categories outlined earlier in this post
  • how to create a hybrid system, combining the advantages of analog and digital note-taking
  • the different capturing methods applicable for taking notes on things people are saying vs. concepts you’re reading/researching vs. ideas you’ve created on your own 

I can’t guarantee you’ll have fewer meetings that should have been emails, that your novel will sell better, or that your kid will remember what happened in the War of Jenkins’ Ear. But you will have a broader idea of the varieties of note-taking options you have, and a better sense of which might work best for you in different circumstances.

 

See Your Way Clear: Organize With Transparent Sticky Notes

Posted on: September 16th, 2024 by Julie Bestry | 10 Comments


Longtime Paper Doll readers know that I’ve had a complex relationship with sticky notes. On the one hand, in the very first month of this blog, all the way back in 2007, I railed against writing things on random pieces of loose paper in Stay Far From Floozies: Avoiding the Loose Paper Trap.

On the other hand, over the years I’ve broadened my approach. It’s not the sticky notes, per se, personified by 3M’s Post-it® Notes, that left me chagrined, but the act of writing things you want to remember on any visible piece of paper, without rhyme, reason, or organizational process. To that end, I’ve shared a wide variety of pro-sticky note posts, including:

So, let me be perfectly clear: stickies have have a place in organizing — as long as they’re used intentionally, mindfully, and not randomly.

With all this in mind, today’s Paper Doll post explores another intriguing sticky note option reminiscent of the novelty we discussed back in 2012 when I looked a different transparent office supply solution, in Paper Doll Rolls the Highlight Reel: Removable Highlighter Tape. 

BENEFITS AND USES OF TRANSPARENT STICKY NOTES

When it comes to organizing thoughts and information, I want the benefits of transparent sticky notes to crystal clear. 

In case you’ve never seen a transparent sticky note, think of it as combining the functions of tracing paper and sticky notes.

Transparent sticky notes — which, to be fair, I generally more translucent or slightly “frosted” than entirely transparent — offer several benefits that distinguish them from traditional opaque ones, especially for organizing and annotating. Additionally, the notes (though not the writing) are waterproof and are generally more durable than traditional sticky notes. 

Having trouble envisioning how they work? Take a peek:

Academic Uses

Transparent sticky notes are ideal for students at all levels, but particularly in high school and college, especially when studying texts where annotations are helpful or even necessary but the page or document must not be permanently altered.

Transparent sticky notes allow students to scribble questions, ideas, connections, and thoughts directly over content. The notes can be applied, easily removed or repositioned, and (if carefully stored) applied again later.

  • Overlay Text or Drawings Without Obscuring What’s Beneath

Transparent sticky notes allow you to place and affix notes directly over text or diagrams without covering the printed content.

This is particularly useful for annotating books and textbooks, source documents, or presentations where you want to preserve visibility of the original material. 

Science textbooks often include complex illustrations of plants, processes, or anatomical design. Students can learn a few elements at a time, add explanatory text to the overlaid sticky notes, remove the note to test themselves, and create new ones for different elements.

  • Highlight and Emphasize Information

By placing a transparent sticky note over a portion of text or an image, you can use a highlighter or writing implement to highlight, annotate, or draw attention to specific details without making permanent marks on the original material.

You can  use a highlighter directly on a clear transparent sticky note; tinted translucent notes let you both color code concepts or categories and serve the same accenting purpose as a traditional highlighter.

Teachers can write comments pointing to specific areas of a student’s work while not damaging the masterwork, and tutors can add explanatory guidance to notes and then remove them when coaching students to remember what was on them.

Students using printed textbooks can highlight or annotate content, remove and re-affix the notes for studying and self-testing, and then re-sell the practically pristine textbook to the college bookstore after the final exam! (Yes, I know college students primarily use digital textbooks now, but they still read many novels and auxiliary books and use workbooks in traditional formats.)

  • Copy content to paste into notes

Remember how I said that transparent sticky notes work like a combination of a traditional sticky note and tracing paper? Trace directly from your text book and then affix what you’ve traced into your handwritten notes.

The hand-brain connection means that students will remember the material much better from the experience of hand-tracing than they might if they only photocopied an illustration or chart.

Organizational Uses

This is an organizing blog, after all, so we should look at the organizing advantages.

  • Layer for Enhanced Organization

You can layer transparent sticky notes on top of one another or over documents without losing sight of the information underneath. This can be useful in complex planning, when you want to group ideas visually without obscuring the main content.

Again, students can use layering for studying illustrations or maps, adding their notes and layering different types of content on top of the original material, with layer upon layer adding more nuance and detailed information. (I’m reminded of my 9th grade Social Studies class where, when faced with a blank mimeographed map of Africa, we had to learn (and later fill in on subsequent weeks), the country names, then the capitals, then the colonial influences, and the top exported product. I could have really used transparent notes, but regular Post-it® Notes hadn’t made it to our school supplies yet!)

  • Reorganize Ideas Easily

One of the great benefits of traditional sticky notes is that you can move them around, but again, transparent/translucent sticky notes augment that benefit. They allow for more flexible, real-time organization of thoughts, whether they’re used on a document or handout, the page of a textbook or workbook, or even on a large-format item like a map, poster, or whiteboard.

Improve Every Stage of a Project

When you work (or study) in a creative field, your work often has many iterations. Having an overlay for things that aren’t (yet) perfect gives you flexibility to be creative without fear of losing a creative draft or burst of genius.

  • Clear the Way for Creative Work

Transparent sticky notes can help for artists, designers, and creators who need to annotate their thoughts without hiding underlying sketches or design elements. Create temporary markups and adjustments without altering the original work.

Musicians might create an overlay with the conductor’s suggestions written on an angle, above or below the measures, bars, and notes.

  • Collaborate and Brainstorm

In collaborative environments — picture a Mad Men-style creative team or a garage band figuring out how different instruments and vocals might come together — transparent sticky notes enable participants to add thoughts or ideas on top of shared content, whether on a design, blueprint, or lyric sheet.

The ability to make changes without altering the original fosters more flexible brainstorming sessions without fear of losing track of the original document or a sequence or flow of ideas.

Who else might use transparent sticky notes?

The unique properties make transparent sticky notes a versatile option in various context. In addition to traditional students and teachers in an academic setting, who else might use these notes?

  • Authors — Most authors now edit galley copies of their books digitally, directly in PDF files. However, editing that way isn’t always comfortable. Writers might choose to make notes (on clean copies of their galleys or even printed drafts) and then highlight changes on transparent stickies.  
  • Memoirists — Reading your own handwritten journals to help document the history of your thoughts and actions? You probably don’t want your 2024 handwritten notes directly on the pages of your circa-1981 Snoopy diary, but overlaying transparent sticky notes helps the you in the present engage with the you of the past.
  • Researchers — When faced with a variety of primary sources that can’t be doodled upon (or when you don’t have access to a copy machine but would prefer to handwrite your notes layered over a document), a transparent note can help you make a deeper connection between your thoughts and the original work than taking notes on a computer or pad of paper.
  • Book reviewers — Whether you review books professionally or just for Amazon or Goodreads, it’s helpful to have your contemporaneous thoughts while reading and your highlighted quotes at the ready. If you find marking up books to be almost sacrilegious, transparent stickies are a great option.
  • Cooks — Some people take recipes in cookbooks as gospel; others like to “doctor” things up. If you were experimenting as you went, you might not want each changed variable to be written onto the original recipe, but you’d still want to track the changes you made until (or even after) you achieved delicious perfection. TheKitchn blog post This Mind-Blowing BookTok Trend Will Change the Way You Use Your Cookbooks is a bit hyperbolic but does show the use case in action.
  • Attorneys — Boilerplate contracts are in computers, and paralegals make the revisions digitally as instructed. But most lawyers can be seen reviewing photocopies of contracts and mocking them up with revisions. Transparent sticky notes would let them see the original contract language, highlight relevant passages, and make revisions; similarly, they might use transparent notes to help them accent points in transcribed depositions and testimony they want to refer to in court.
  • Spiritual adherents — Whether you participate in some kind of formal Bible study or just like reading holy texts from any of a variety of comparative religions, you probably don’t want to scribble your thoughts in the (or any) “Good Book.” Use transparent sticky notes to highlight and annotate questions, feelings, or motivational elements.
  • Crafters — Whether you’re trying to map colors for a needlepoint project or adjust the measurements on a pattern, writing directly on the instructions or designs can get messy, especially if you need to revise your notes. A transparent overlay lets you adjust without the mess.

How might you use a transparent or translucent sticky note?

CHALLENGES PRESENTED BY TRANSPARENT STICKY NOTES

While transparent sticky notes offer many benefits, they do have some downsides to consider.

Potential for Residue

Some brands of transparent sticky notes might leave a slight residue, especially if left on delicate surfaces for an extended period. (Bibles and textbooks from before the1950s tend to have pages that are as thin as tissue paper.)

Obviously, this varies depending on the quality of the adhesive used, and higher-end (and honestly, brand-name) versions will typically avoid this problem. If the book or document you’re using is delicate, test it on a back page, like in the glossary or index.

Adhesive Strength

Transparent sticky notes may not be adhere as strongly as traditional opaque sticky notes, particularly on rougher surfaces. Unlike the recycled paper of traditional sticky notes, the slightly slick material used to make transparent sticky notes makes the notes more durable but the adhesive may be less durable. This means they might peel off more easily, especially on surfaces that aren’t perfectly smooth or when the notes are repositioned (or applied, removed, and re-applied) multiple times. Again, test them. 

Writing Challenges

Depending on the material, certain pens and markers may not write as well on transparent sticky notes. This can limit their functionality (compared to traditional paper-based sticky notes) if you (like Paper Doll) prefer one specific type of pen. Again, brand-name versions are likely to allow a greater variety of pen use; Post-it® shows multiple examples of workable writing implements.

Less Absorbent Surface

Unlike paper sticky notes, which easily absorb ink, transparent sticky notes are usually made from plasticky or filmy material, like stiff, glossy tracing paper. This can cause ink to smear or take longer to dry.

Most of the TikTok videos I found on the topic are in agreement that mechanical pencils, ball-point pens, and markers work best, and that water-based highlighters and pens are the least effective. If you use markers or gel pens, especially if you also intend to highlight what you’ve written, be sure to let the ink dry thoroughly before touching or highlighting.

Limited Color Options

While some transparent sticky notes come in pastels and neons, they usually lack the range of vibrant colors available with opaque sticky notes, especially the myriad Post-it® colors. This can limit your ability to color-code effectively when organizing ideas. You can easily find colorful options, but perhaps not your preferred color schemes.

Glare and Reflection

Due to their transparent nature, this kind of sticky note may glare under certain lighting conditions, making them more difficult to read or see clearly in brighter environments or on glossy surfaces.

Cost

Transparent sticky notes, whether brand name Post-it® versions or generic, tend to be slightly more expensive than their opaque counterparts, so if you’re on a budget or need a lot of them, the cost could be a drawback. 

If you’re using these sticky notes for creative, academic, or professional purposes where clear visibility is key, these downsides may be manageable. However, for heavy-duty or everyday use, traditional sticky notes are usually going to be more practical.

VARIETIES OF TRANSPARENT STICKY NOTES

According to the website, Post-it® Transparent Notes come in 7 varieties, all with 36 notes per pad (though I was able to find an additional 10-pack of the clear version at Staples.com for a whopping $26.46)! 

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All measure 2 7/8″ x 2 7/8″. Note, this is slightly smaller than traditional Post-it® Notes, which are generally 3-inch squares.

In terms of shopping, I should caution that it’s difficult to find all versions manufactured by 3M, though Staples, Amazon, and Walmart each seem to dependably have at least two versions in stock at any given time.

3M also references online availability at Quill, OfficeSupply.com, Maxwell’s, and Strobel’s Supply, though the latter two only carry 24-packs, priced in the hundreds of dollars.

ALTERNATIVE BRANDS OF TRANSPARENT STICKY NOTES

While Post-it® brand is clearly the gold standard for sticky notes, they are definitely not the only game in town, though it’s unlikely you’ll be able to locate many non-3M branded transparent sticky notes in person unless you are shopping at quirky or high-end specialty stationery/office supply stores in larger cities. 

Office Depot has its own brand of translucent sticky notes, about $3 for a pack of 50 notes, in clear, as well as yellow, orange, pink, and an assorted pack of 12 pads in all colors for $14.39.

If you’re happening by The Container Store, they also have a proprietary brand, $4.99 for a stack of 36 clear notes. 

However, a quick search of Google or Amazon will yield a bounty of options, and if you put “transparent sticky note” into the search at TikTok, you’ll find a number of offers.

Be prepared to have patience. I got excited about the prospect of lined, transparent sticky notes. However, when I went to Stationery Pal‘s website and actually searched for “transparent sticky notes lined,” I was rewarded with some lovely pastel transparent sticky notes, but none were lined. When I tried the same search string but in a different order, I finally got what I was seeking.

In addition to their 2″ x 3″ and 3″ x 3″ pastel-colored “shimmering” translucent sticky notes priced ridiculously low (like $.60 to $1.40 for 50-note pads), they do have blue, green, orange, and pink neon-colored lined, translucent sticky notes. For example, the neon pink, translucent sticky note pads are 3″ square, lined, and $.60/50-note pad, plus shipping.  

(I’ve yet to figure out how TikTok Shop advertisers and companies like Temu and Shein can afford to price their products so low. Caveat emptor.)

In general, my inclination is to shop online with Amazon, as I’m generally happy with their customer service. A quick Googling of “transparent sticky notes” yields more than 100 pages of offerings, from plain, clear, 3″-square sticky notes from known brands like Redi-Tag with four 50-note pads for $4.99 to the puzzlingly unpronounceable Brsbock‘s four 50-note 4″ x 6″ transparent sticky notes for $9.99.

Another “unknown” brand on Amazon, Gueevin, offers “extra large jumbo” 8 1/2″ x 11″ translucent sticky note sheets, 100 for $15.99.

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Colorful options — if you are openminded about the colors you want — are widely available. I’m transfixed by the LinQuick’s pastel transparent notes. They’re billed as “Candy Color”; a twelve-pack of six assorted colors, 50-notes per pad, costs $7.99.
 

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When I first began researching this topic, I was delighted to find an online store called Rose Colored Daze had a collection of Neon Tabbed translucent sticky notes in three difference sizes, ranging from $4.50to $14.50 for ten-note stacks. Imagine a combination of a sticky note, tracing paper, and indexing tabs!

Sadly, all versions are currently sold out, though they do have a number of other varieties of 50-note pads of translucent sticky notes:

Personally, I find round sticky notes to be inefficient; wouldn’t you want to maximize your surface area? Still, if you have a desire for a round, translucent sticky note, Amazon has oodles, such as these Sabary 1.75″ circular notes, which come in five different color schemes for $6.49 for 500 notes.

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So, there’s no need to obscure your ideas — transparent sticky notes will let your thoughts shine through and make the concepts you’re trying to learn less opaque. (So endeth this “clearly” punny post.) 

 

Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links above are affiliate links, and I may get a small remuneration (at no additional cost to you) if you make a purchase after clicking through to the resulting pages. The opinions, as always, are my own. (Seriously, who else would claim them?)

Paper Doll Explores New & Nifty Office and School Supplies

Posted on: September 4th, 2023 by Julie Bestry | 13 Comments

There’s something about the start of September that makes many of us hearken back to our youth and the rich potential of a fistful of new school supplies. Cast your mind back and I bet you can recall your favorite crayon. Mine was periwinkle, more for the funny name than the demure hue. (As you might imagine from my wordy posts, and as Paper Mommy will quickly confirm, I’ve never exactly been demure.)

It doesn’t matter whether you’re in kindergarten or graduate school; it doesn’t matter whether you’re being forced to return to the office after a few years of remote work or ready to embark on setting up your own home-based workspace, there’s something powerfully motivating about new office supplies and decor to help you get and stay organized and enthused.

The point of today’s post is not to encourage you to purchase clutter and pile unnecessary items up around your workspace; nor is it to give you lists of supplies you and/or your tiny humans already have. Rather, it’s an opportunity for you to see the potential of your space in a new way and consider what features or colors might boost your enthusiasm.

STICKY NODES

Post-it® Notes are fun and colorful, but they’re not entirely environmentally friendly, even when recyclable. Dry-erase (and wet-erase) boards are better for the planet, but they’re usually drab white and lacking delight. 

Meet Sticky Nodes — the best of both worlds — they’re dry-erase sticky notes! 

Sticky Nodes are:

  • Erasable — Write with dry- or wet-erase markers, then wipe (or spritz and wipe) to start fresh. 
  • Restickable — Affix Sticky Nodes to any smooth surface, reposition at will, and they won’t leave a mark. Sticky Nodes use a unique “smooth-stick,” adhesive-ree technology, so you don’t have to worry about damaging your paint job.
  • Reusable — Re-use face of the Sticky Node by erasing with a dry-erase marker or a damp cloth; re-use the whole Node by moving it to where it’s needed, over and over again.

Around the office, at school, or in your home, put them on file cabinets or walls, whiteboards or chalkboards, mirrors or windows.

Capture and organize your genius thoughts, scribble notes, brainstorm on your own or with your need, or mix-and-match to help you study or tech. At home, post the WiFi password of the day draw a comic to greet your tiny human at the end of the school day. Your kids can keep track of weekly schedule items in their lockers, and at the office, you can make clear when you’re available to be bothered or to be left alone. Stick Nodes have all the same uses as sticky notes, but you don’t have to fill your trash can.

Sticky Nodes come in three colors: blue, yellow, or green, and in three (unicolor) package options: 5 Sticky Nodes for $28, 10 for $49, or 20 for $84, and include a two-year limited warranty. Orders over $75 ship for free in the US. (Note: Sticky Nodes doesn’t accept returns, except when covered under the warranty.)

Personally, I’d like to see them add more colors to the line-up. (Periwinkle, anyone?) Additionally, it would be nice if they had mix-and-match packs; for example, if you got the ten-pack, you might prefer 5 blue, three green, and two yellow rather than an entire batch of blue.

If you’d like to try Sticky Nodes, they offer a sample kit, which includes one yellow node and one black fine-tip marker for $12, shipped for free in the US! (At that price, it might be more affordable just to get a 5-pack!)

No offense to Sticky Node, but Paper Mommy‘s drawings are better!

Sticky Nodes also recommends and sells fine-point Expo-branded dry- and wet-erase markers (scroll down at that link) but you can also easily find these at any big-box store or Amazon. Pick a wide-enough array of colored markers so that you can color-code your Sticky Nodes for your own purposes. Assign a color to each kid in your family, or give a color to each daily task or task-group (to do, to eat, to wear, to read, etc.). 

POPPIN’ FRESH!

Some products are just motivationally magical, and Poppin’s line of office furniture and supplies accomplishes this through color (and high-quality).

Poppin’s desk collection includes monitor risers, stackers, letter trays, organizer caddies, desk-drawer organizers, mixed-use organizers, accessory trays, file sorters, and two of my favorites for stand-up organizing style, 9.75″L x 12.25″H x 3.75″D magazine file boxes ($21):

and 12.25″L x 9.75″H x 3.75″D lacquer-like file boxes ($26):

I’m also always amused by the 6.25″L x 2.8″W x 1.25″H Softie Grip Grass doohickey ($16.50), designed to hold pens, cards, and the random fiddly things on your desk.

The desk organizing color scheme includes white, blush, dark gray, aqua, slate blue, sage, and sky, with some products available in fewer colors.

But as cool as their desktop products are, I always seem to covet Poppin’s wall organizing products. Here’s a little video to introduce you to the variety of options in their Small Space Organization Collection, designed to make use of vertical space.

As noted in the video, products in the line can be affixed to the walls with adhesive or mounted (using screws), and some of the products are magnetic and can be used to attach the to metal items (like filing cabinets) or to other products in the line. Poppin has:

  • wall shelves ($25), measuring 3.25″W x 4″H x 12.5″D, in blush, dark grey, slate blue, and white

  • wall pockets ($25), measuring 12.5″W x 7″H x 2.5″D, in blush, dark grey, slate blue, and white

  • wall cups ($14.50), measuring 4.5″W x 4.5″H x 2″D, in white, blush, dark grey, and slate blue

Each of the above products in the line are made of sturdy plastic polystyrene with a matte finish and come with removable adhesive strips, magnets, and screws for mounting. The removable adhesive strips hold up to 2 pounds; the magnets hold up to 1 pounds, and screws hold up to 15 pounds.

Poppin also makes dark grey fabric pinboards in two sizes, a 12.5″L x 12.5″W x 0.5″D square ($29) and a 25″W x 12″H jumbo version ($55).

And, of course, they have a variety of pretty pushpins in assorted colors. But what I like best about Poppin’s “small space” line for making good use of vertical space is a product (actually three) they barely promote. There’s the white magnetic dry erase board ($26), measuring 12.5″W x 12.5″H x 0.5″D. But let’s face it, a plain white dry-erase board, even a magnetic one, isn’t that much to write home about.

But two other versions, with the same measurements and at the same price, up the ante. There’s the lined White Magnetic To-Do Dry-Erase Board:

and the lined White Magnetic Weekly Dry Erase Board, pre-printed with the days of the week.

Of course, Poppin has pretty magnetic holders for the dry-erase pens and matching-color magnets. 

Can’t you see these doing triple-duty at home, work, or in a dorm room?

TIKTOK MADE ME BUY IT

OK, TikTok didn’t actually make buy anything, but that’s what the voiceovers on so many of the little “advertainment” videos say. But TikTok did help me find two intriguing products. 

PrintRGo

The first nifty office/school supply I saw recently kept appearing in my TikTok feed. It’s a tiny printer, and while I’m not the kind to push gadgets, I immediately saw the appeal of the PrintRGo thermal pocket printer. (Make sure you use the menu in the top right corner to switch from UK to US pricing.)

The use case may seem narrow, but if you’ve ever taken a biology course and had to label parts of a cell — and remember that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell — or an studied for anatomy class where you had to learn a complex series of muscles, you know that you learn by spaced repetition and visual support.

Free-hand drawing and labeling is a pain, as is making copies. This little 3.4″ × 3.5″ × 1.6″ printer uses no ink, so you never have to wait for the ink to dry; instead, it uses adhesive-backed thermal paper to print at a maximum resolution of 203 DPI. (It does double-duty, so it also works some fun magic as a low-resolution photo printer and a label printer.)

Unfortunately, TikTok videos don’t embed particularly well, but this link will give you an idea of how the PrintRGo works.

In each box, you get a PrintRGo printer, charging cable, one roll of thermal paper, and a user’s manual. PrintRGo works via Bluetooth using the Phomemo app, and functions Android and IOS devices. It’s wireless, so you just pair it with your phone (just as with other Bluetooth devices like a Fitbit or keyboard) and you’re ready to print!

Take a photo with your phone, use the app to print it from your PrintRGo, and it thermal prints to sticker paper (at a speed of 10mm per second), and once you have your little masterpiece, printouts can adhere to your notebook or study cards.

Full-price for the PrintRGo is $78, but it’s currently selling at the official website for $48.

If you’re not comfortable purchasing from a TikTok advertiser, Amazon has a number of similarly adorable options that seem to work on the same principle, using the same Phomemo app. One version is the Phomemo M02 Pocket Printer ($49.99).

Bookmate

The other TikTok school/office supply that caught my attention disappeared from my feed (as often happens) when I fat-fingered (fat-thumbed?) the corner of my phone. No matter, because my fabulous friend and colleague Hazel Thornton independently sent it to me in a private TikTok message with a note, “New product for a blog post?” Indeed, it is!

Bookmate from AchieversMust appears to be designed primarily for teachers and students, but really anyone who reads and tends to annotate, take notes, or mark pages for followup will find it useful for reducing clutter. Bookmate combines one magnetic case (which holds sticky tape flags for marking pages and pen loops so you always have a writing tool or highlighter handy) and a magnetic base.

The case allows for you to refill the sticky flags, and you can use any standard tape flags to refill the Max or Pro cases, or purchase the same specific colors from AchieversMust. (You can only refill the Lite version with their tape flags. FYI.)

You put the magnetic base inside the front of your book or notebook and the magnetic case (with your tape flags and pens) sticks to the front. (The company claims the magnet is strong enough to adhere through a hardcover book, but I’m a twinge dubious.)

Some photos show users hanging glasses or sunglasses from an outer loop. Again, TikTok videos are wackadoodle when it comes to embedding, but you can see Bookmate in action on the Instagram page.There are three versions of the Bookmate:

  • Max — has four pen loops (two on each side) and a 200-count of flags in ten different colors, for $39.95
  • Pro — has four pen loops (two on the left, two on the right) (two on each side) and a 100-count of flags in six different colors, for $33.95
  • Lite — has two pen loops (one on each side) and an 80-count of 2 different tape flags, for $19.95

They offer free shipping on all orders above $60. Also, from now through September 10, 2023, you can buy two at 10% off each or buy 3 at 25% off each. (There’s also a 30-day money-back guarantee.)

EVERYTHING OLD IS NEW AGAIN

I remember visiting my father’s law office when I was a child, and I noticed that every attorney’s desk had a serious-looking leather desk pad. As a student in the 80s, my real work desk was wherever I found myself — a library study carrel, my bed, a random table in an empty classroom. By the time I started working in television, the closest anyone seemed to get to a desk pad was a giant desk calendar.

Nowadays, nobody is using a desk pad for blotting a fountain pen, but desk protectors are back in style. I was roaming through a big box store this weekend, looking for a lightning cable to use in my rental car (as mine is still in my stolen, damaged, recovered, and still-not-repaired Kia), when I noticed a stack of what looked like miniature yoga mats.

It turns out they were oversized desktop mouse pads. The one that caught my eye was a 35″ x 16″ pink, flowered, onn.-brand (yes, it’s “onn.”) XL Desktop Mouse Mat with an anti-slip base. The style is called Surf. (It also comes in grey and rainbow-stripes.)

And it was only $9.88!

It’s been a long time since I looked for a mouse pad or a desk mat, so I was surprised and delighted by how many products, marketed as either oversized mouse pads or desk pads, were available to brighten up the work space.

Yes, the real purpose is to give you a larger space to roll your mouse while keeping your glass or wooden desktop free of scratches, spills, dust, stains, and all matter of the detritus that ends up crumbly and sticky and yuckified on your desk. But why not feel like you’re basking luxury while doing homework or eking out a living?

First, I found this Bubm Desk Pad Protector Office Desk Mat made of faux leather. It comes in three sizes: 23.6″ x 13.8″, 31.5″ x15.7″, or 35.4″ x 17″. The description stated that it was “waterproof and easy to clean, made of heavy-duty, durable PU leather,” and cleaning it is allegedly as easy as wiping with a damp cloth. Particularly nifty is that it’s reversible, so the version I picked, below, labeled “purple”  

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is actually light pink on one side and a mauve-y purple on the other. It comes in ten other versions with both soothing and oh-so-bright color combinations.

The price of the one above is $13.99, though other color combinations are about a dollar less.

Even if you only peruse Amazon, you’ll find a wide of color schemes to fit your workspace mood and decor, from the perky (one has a neon-themed scribble of “Good vibes only”) to more muted options like the one above. To close out, let’s look at French Koko’s 36″ x 16.5″ Floral Dream desk mat.

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Isn’t that more inspiring than office grey, army green, or whatever your arms are resting on at your desk right now?

Do you find yourself looking for a refresh this time of year? Do you wish you were starting the year with a bouquet of freshly sharpened crayons? Are any of the above options appealing for you, or have you found a new favorite while you’ve shopped for school or office supplies lately? Please share your thoughts below.

Happy September!

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