Reading non-fiction books is one of the best ways to learn and grow. After reading non-fiction for 3 years, I’ve developed a system that helps me better remember the information I learn. While, at the same time, creating a refresher for a later reminder. I call it the Key Notes System.
What Is The Key Notes System?
Essentially, it’s bullet-pointing the important parts of a book that you’re reading in a separate document. This could be core points made by the author or things that resonate with you.
You can then later use this document to remember the key concepts and areas explored in the book. The best part is, you don’t need to re-read the entire book to do this.
This works best when you read books on your computer. It’s easy to alt-tab between an ebook or PDF into a text processor. Typing is often quicker than writing long-hand. Plus, digital files can be accessed from anywhere in the world – a notebook not so much.
But, if you’re reading a physical book, you can use a notepad to achieve similar results.
Why Is It So Powerful?
The Key Notes System is powerful for a few reasons:
- It helps you to remember key points from a book. Writing them down helps solidify the thoughts and information in your brain.
- It makes it easier to read and understand later. Writing in your own words helps you understand the notes and prompts the memory from reading.
- It saves you time. You have all the information about the book that you, as an individual, will need. It’s all written in a document in bullet points, which is much quicker to read than an entire book.
- It saves space. Because you won’t need to reread the book, you don’t need to keep a copy of it, and can, therefore, get rid of it.
How Does The Key Notes System Work?
Begin by creating a document titled with the name of the book you’re reading, followed by ‘Key Notes’. Or name it ‘Key Notes – Book Name’.
For each chapter, begin a new page. This helps keep the document organised and keeps your notes in the same order as the book is written. Ctrl or Cmd + Enter creates a page-break in Microsoft Word.
Then, write down a bullet point in the document for each point from the book that makes sense or resonates to you. This can be anything at all.
When writing though, try not to write whole sentences. Don’t copy what the author has written, unless it’s beautifully worded. Keep your bullet points short. Writing things in your own words will help you remember the information later. It will also make it easier to understand at a future date.
Thanks for reading.
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