Keeping the 'I don't know why, but I'm curious'｜How I create my learning notes

Today, I will write about my own way of creating learning notes.

The reason I decided to write this is because of something a friend said to me.

In a note from a few days ago, I wrote, 'I remembered my own words from a year and a half ago and found a theme I want to pursue from now on,' and...

My friend said to me, 'You remember the past so vividly because you reflect on it properly and keep a record of it, right? Maybe you could share your own way of learning, Kanae-san?'

Oh, really?
I'm so happy! 😍

I was completely cheered up by my friend's words, so I've decided to make my way of learning public.

It's not like I have such a special way of learning, but I thought that just knowing someone else's example might make people think, 'Huh!' so I'm writing it down. I'll introduce them in order of what I think might be 'unusual'.

Create a notebook for each theme

This might be the biggest feature.

I make a lot of notebooks, no matter what.
I create notebooks separated by theme.

The reason is probably because I'm bad at searching.

'Wait, which notebook did I write that in?' or 'I have so many of the same notebooks, I don't know which is which!'—it's hard to search when that happens.

I hate the hassle of searching. I'm also bad at organizing, so I'm trying to solve it by creating notebooks for each theme from the start. I think the granularity of how I divide my notebooks is also on the finer side.

Sometimes I create them by broad genres like 'Web Marketing Related' or 'Accounting Related,' but basically, I create notebooks for each specific record content.

In my 'Diet Notebook,' I write records and insights related to dieting, and in my 'Failure Notebook,' I write about failures and insights.

Right now, I'm in the middle of creating my own user manual, but since I'm creating notebooks in stages according to my level of satisfaction at the time, I have about three of them.

I write multiple notebooks for a single event. This is because the content of the learning and insights differs slightly in each one.

For example, my diet didn't go as well as I wanted in May, so I wrote 'Interrupted in May' in my Diet Notebook, and in my Failure Notebook, I wrote 'I couldn't do my diet for two weeks in May. Why?' and reflected on it.

After thinking about it, if I realize, 'Maybe I have a tendency not to take care of myself when I'm not getting enough sleep,' I write that in my 'My User Manual Notebook.'

By doing this, the next time my pace gets disrupted in the same way, I can think, 'It might not be a problem of my willpower, but perhaps I'm not getting enough sleep.'

I write about my daily events and 'three good things' in my daily planner, but since there isn't enough space to delve deep, I feel like I do all my deep dives in separate, theme-specific notebooks.

Whenever I learn something new in a course, I first create a new notebook. I even enjoy the process of wondering, 'What kind of notebook would suit this subject?'

This light blue LIFE notebook is for my studies on compassion. I wanted to keep it for a long time, so I chose a notebook that seems suitable for long-term storage.

▼ You can see my eccentric side from my note about my 30 learning notebooks (the number of notebooks has increased even more since then)

I just write. I take a ton of notes.

The next characteristic of my learning style might be the volume of my notes.

In my recent compassion course, I wrote five pages of notes. Even when I write less, I average three pages. Outside of my studies, I write two pages for a single meeting.

As for what I write, it's more than just the content of the lesson; it's 'words that I didn't quite understand but caught my attention,' 'things that suddenly flashed into my mind,' 'things I wanted to think about carefully,' or 'things I wanted to look up later.'

I often just jot down words. In my notes from the other day on compassion, I wrote 'Balance,' and underneath it, I wrote 'Self,' 'Family,' and 'Others.' I can see that I wanted to think about how I could allocate my limited time in a way that I could feel satisfied with.

Ever since I can remember, I have been taking notes like crazy.

I was creating summary notebooks on my own since I was in elementary school, and come to think of it, what I was praised for when I was a new graduate was my 'attitude toward taking notes.' (Maybe that was the only thing they could praise me for. Haha.)

My personality is such that I feel uncomfortable if I don't understand the big picture of things, but it takes me time to understand.

I'm not the type of person who instantly has a flash of insight like, 'Oh, so that connects to that?' I need a massive amount of input. Only after a certain amount of input does the feeling come that all the puzzle pieces are falling into place.

That's why I first just write everything down to hammer it into my brain.

Even though I know from experience that once I cross the critical point, I'll have an 'Aha!' moment, I never know when that timing will come. That's why I'm always a little anxious. To fight that impatience, I just keep feeding myself information.

I prefer paper notebooks over digital for taking notes. Connecting notes to other notes, using colors to make things stand out, and adding stickers to make them cute makes it easier to remember and also boosts my motivation.

For me, writing in a notebook isn't something to be done in a dull, monotonous way; I want to keep it looking cute and in a way that makes me excited when I look back at it. Because that's more fun.

Since we are in the digital age, I have tried using things like Notion, but I gave up because I just ended up not knowing where I had saved anything.

I am terrible at organizing information. I think I store information in my brain by connecting it synaptically rather than in folders, so I struggle with saving things by hierarchy. That might be why I feel the urge to keep separate notebooks.

Sometimes I take digital notes when I need to share them with others, but handwriting still helps me remember things better. When it comes to learning for my own sake, I am overwhelmingly a paper-notebook person.

I feel that I take notes half for the sake of recording and half for the sake of understanding, so taking notes is directly linked to understanding the lecture.

People often tell me, 'We will provide the lecture materials later (so there is no need to take notes),' but whether I get the materials or not has no bearing on my note-taking.

There is great significance in writing down 'the words that resonated with my heart at this very moment'. I won't be able to remember them later, and my feelings will change as time passes. The notes from that moment are what matter.

It is also the fun of learning that the points that resonate with you change even when you see or hear the same thing. Since I am also changing, what I feel changes too.

As I was writing this, I realized that this is also related to why I find it hard to throw away books. Even if I don't need them now, I can't say for sure that the me three years from now won't need them either.

Notes are the same; even if a note doesn't make sense now, my future self might find meaning in it.'I don't know why, but this interests me, so I'll make a note of it' is a much more important act than I give myself credit for.

Copying notes and pasting them into a summary notebook

Learning doesn't stick just by doing it once, so I want to look back on what I've learned. However, as a busy modern person, reflecting is quite difficult. It is almost impossible to find the time to transcribe handwritten notes.

So, I create a summary notebook by copying and pasting. I believe it is important to create a state where 'For now, if I look here, everything is written down!'.

When I learn from a lecture, I shrink-copy my handwritten notes on a home printer that same day and paste them into my summary notebook.

I shrink-copy them so that they don't stick out even if I cut them roughly, and also to make them easier to paste with glue.

Since I copy things so often, I have always had a home printer, and I keep a stock of paper and ink. I'm at the level where if it breaks, I replace it that same weekend.

However, it is a bit of a hassle to turn on the printer and wait for it to start up every time, so I have always wondered if there is a cheap handheld printer available.

Still, if it's just cutting and pasting, it takes less than 10 minutes including the time to copy. The act of cutting with scissors is also a form of detox, so I recommend it.

When pasting, the key is to leave large margins so you can add comments later.

Especially for learning like compassion, which seems like it will take several years to master, my feelings will likely change every year, so I leave quite a lot of margin.

This time, I ended up relearning it a year later, but because there are plenty of margins, I can add more. Changing the color of the pen is a good way to know when the note was taken.

Looking back at last year's notes, it's interesting to see that even though I'm taking the same lecture, the words I'm reacting to are different.

The source of 'what I want to make the axis of my life,' which I wrote about at the beginning, was written on a page in my notebook. Apparently, the me from a year ago wrote it. Good job, past me.

In compassion, there is a time for meditation every time on 'why I am learning,' but what I write is different every time.

Sometimes I write, 'I want to be a calm and good-humored person,' and other times I write, 'I want to be healthy and smiling.'

Looking at my notebook, I realize that my own interests change daily. Even if I hear the same words, if the state of the 'me' receiving them is different, the output will also change.

Just output it

I am also conscious of outputting what I learn.

My personal methods for outputting are writing notes and talking to people. And then, putting it into practice in my actual work.

Writing notes helps me organize my thoughts, and new insights often emerge while I'm writing.

Trying to explain things to others serves as training for extracting the essence of 'what exactly is this learning?'

I often talk to my husband and son about the books I've recently read, but while I'm talking, I'm secretly nervous, thinking, 'Is this contradictory?' or 'My theory might be weak.' I secretly review it later.

Sometimes my husband will point out, 'Isn't that strange?' and I'll feel frustrated, but I believe the act of trying to explain things even when the learning hasn't fully settled is important in itself.

Putting things into practice is best; I was able to immediately apply the book on questioning techniques I read earlier (or rather, I bought it to practice it), so I feel like it became living knowledge.

To be able to apply what I've just learned to my work as much as possible, I've been voicing and tweeting about things I'm currently interested in.

Writing it out like this, maybe for me, a notebook isn't for writing things down neatly to organize them.

I am writing down what I reacted to at that time, where I stumbled, and why that was.

So that when my future self looks back at my past self, I can think, 'Maybe I've grown a little since then.'

Even if it doesn't make sense now, there are times when the meaning suddenly becomes clear later, like, 'So that's what it meant!'

That's why today, too, I will leave 'I don't know why, but this interests me' in my notebook.

Daily note, day 259.

▼ A story about adult learning notes

You can find my other notebooks here.

▼ Failure notebook

▼ Notebook for venting emotions

▼ A story about when I decorated my work notebook with wrapping paper