If your in-class notes are messy, unorganized, and unclear at first glance, you’re not going to get much use out of them. This has nothing to do with how neat your handwriting is — it’s all about how your notes are structured.

One of the most effective ways to remember (and understand) what...

1. Learn faster and retain more by imagining that you have to teach someone else what you are learning. 
2. Sleeping between two learning sessions greatly improves retention.
3. Changing the way you practice a new motor skill can help you master it faster.

Using simple words and pictures helps us to see connections between pieces of information, get a better idea of what we understand and what we don’t, and remember it for later.

By using a combination of words and quick images, the note-taker listens, digests, and captures on p...