3 note-taking strategies to improve your note taking
Three simple note-taking strategies to capture ideas faster, remember more, and turn notes into action every day.
Most of us take notes constantly, in meetings, in class, while reading, or just trying to keep daily life from slipping through the cracks, but far fewer of us pause to think about the underlying method we are using, or whether the way we capture information is actually helping us understand it later. A common approach is to jot down a few keywords or short bullet points, maybe on a sticky note or in a basic notepad, and there is nothing wrong with that, in fact brevity is often a strength, as long as the notes are written with intent and your brain stays involved rather than simply recording.
If you want a broader foundation first, we go deeper on the mindset side in our post on how to improve your note-taking. In this post, we will go through some more practical ways you can improve your note-taking through five strategies you can start layering into your note-taking flow, not to make notes longer or more detailed, but to make them easier to review, easier to remember, and easier to keep organized.
1: Use an organized framework
An organized framework is less about making your notes look tidy, and more about making them easier to return to when you no longer remember the moment you wrote them. When you start with a consistent structure, you are not just capturing information, you are also shaping how you will retrieve it in the future. This is a point in which many note systems quietly break down.
The Cornell Method
The Cornell Method is a good default because it encapsulates the capturing and reviewing state in the same page. In its simplest form, you split a page into three parts: a main notes area, a left-hand cue column, and a short summary area at the bottom.
In the main notes, you summarize what you hear or read, focusing on key points, examples, and decisions. Do not be too extensive here, as it's more important that you focus on the material at hand.
After the session, add questions and keywords in the cue column that will help you quiz yourself later.
In the summary area, compress the page into 2–4 sentences, (importantly) in your own words, so future-you can scan it quickly.
To apply this without turning it into a ritual, do the split up front, take notes normally, then spend five minutes afterward adding cues and a short summary. If you find yourself struggling with where to store these pages, how to name them, or how to make them connect over time, it helps to zoom out and think about your broader system. This is something we cover that in our post on how to better organize your notes.
That said, Cornell is just one framework among many. If it feels too structured, too slow, or unnatural for the way you think, there's no need to force it. The goal is not to pick the "right" method, but to choose a structure you will actually use.
The goal is not to pick the "right" method, but to choose a structure you will actually use.
If you want a ready-made layout, you can use our Cornell Notes template in Lydie.
You can also read our complete guide to the Cornell Method for a deeper look at how the system works in practice.
Strategy 2: Capture key ideas, not transcriptions
When taking notes during a lecture, meeting, or conversation, it is tempting to write down as much as possible. But this often turns into transcription: pages of text you do not really understand because your attention was on capturing words rather than processing ideas.
Many of the benefits of note-taking come from the thinking you do while writing, not from the amount of text you produce.
Focus your notes on ideas and your own understanding. In practice, this usually means short bullet points or brief sentences instead of trying to record everything in detail. Writing in your own words forces you to notice what you do not understand yet. Transcription can create a false sense of understanding because it feels complete even when it is not.
If you are worried about missing details, it is still useful to capture a few things word-for-word:
Definitions
Short quotes or key phrases
Numbers, dates, and decisions
Then let the rest of your notes point back to those anchors to preserve context.
Lower the pressure to "catch everything"
When appropriate, consider recording meetings or lectures, or saving slides and materials you are allowed to keep. Knowing you can return to the source reduces the pressure to capture everything in real time and helps you stay focused on what matters.
This approach takes practice. At first, identifying “key ideas” can feel vague, and your brain may default back to transcription. Over time, you will start noticing patterns: what becomes an action item, what is a core idea, and what is just supporting detail. Filtering will feel more natural.
If you're interested in improving your note-taking during meetings, we have a post for specifically that for that here.
Strategy 3: Combine text and visuals
Not everything needs to be written as a list, and this adds to that a lot of people learn better through visuals, like illustrations, graphs and mind maps. This further feeds in to our previous point about processing the resource you're taking notes on in your head before you put it on paper (or pixels!) - representing your notes visually, be it a table, a small sketch or a diagram, will help your brain better grasp and connect the concept.
How to use visuals in your notes
Here are three practical ways to use visuals without turning note-taking into an art project:
Diagrams for processes: When something has steps, draw a quick flow with arrows. Write one verb per step (e.g., "collect," "filter," "decide"). Add a note beside the step where mistakes usually happen.
Mind maps for messy topics: Put the main theme in the center, then branch out into 3–6 subtopics. Use short labels, not sentences. If you run out of room, that is a sign you should start a second map rather than forcing it.
Tables for comparisons: When you are weighing options, make a table with the options as columns and the criteria as rows (or vice versa). This keeps you honest about what you are actually comparing.
A simple rule is to start with text, then convert only the parts that feel hard to hold in your head. Even one small diagram on the page can make the whole set of notes easier to understand later.
Conclusion
Good note-taking is not really about producing more notes, it is about leaving yourself a trail you can actually follow later. If you want this to stay simple, focus on one structural habit, one understanding habit, and one clarity habit, a framework you can repeat, ideas in your own words, and a small visual whenever the topic feels hard to hold in your head.
Over time, your notes start to sound more like you and less like a transcript, and that is often the shift that makes them usable. The main test is not whether the page looks complete, but whether future-you can return to it, and quickly know what mattered.