Have you ever read a book, and thought .. “How am I going to remember all of this information?”
I was recently reading a great book – The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited, by Emanuel Rosen. The Anatomy of Buzz Revisited is the definitive handbook on creating buzz about a product and as a result, upon completing the book I discovered that I was in a state of information overload. There were so many awesome principles, case studies, practical things I could use, I had no clue where to start. In fact, I couldn’t even remember 10% of them.
Later that day, I came across a Tweet by Tim Ferriss, which included an image of some notes he had taken from a book he was reading and thought I would apply his technique for note taking (as seen below):
How does the note taking technique work?
Page Number: Summarize Key Points within 1-2 lines maximum (all on the front and back inside covers of the book)
Since them I have been applied this note-taking technique to a number of other books I have read.
Why do I like it?
- By writing on the front/back inside cover it forces your note taking to be succinct and to the point
- Limitations of the writing space force you to prioritize the points you write down (so you don’t end up writing a lot of rubbish down)
- The repetition of the key points really locks them in your memory
- The notes double up as a modified ‘Table of Contents’ – the page numbers provide a quick easy reference to the key points of the book (if you ever need to look back through it)
So, the next time you read a book, and get information overload try this neat note-taking technique!
