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Organizing daily notes

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Aimless:
When I take notes in a hurry, I almost always do it by hand, for the reasons described above. It is for me the fastest, easiest, most flexible and least intrusive/distracting method. When I compile prepare notes for studying, writing etc, I am more likely to use a computer in order to cut, paste, move, edit, format, link, enrich etc. Under some circumstances, mind-mapping software have been more useful to me than mind-mapping on paper, and I have a particular fondness for this one mostly because of the visuals: http://thinkbuzan.com/products/imindmap/

I have at times used approaches such as the Cornell Notes method (see wiki) with good results, but rarely found the need to use it for long periods of time.

Carl-E:
There's been some research that says writing something by hand will cement it in (your) memory better than typing. 

There's also been research showing that taking notes in a class by hand stimulates deeper thought than typing notes does.  Part of that is the necessity to paraphrase, since most people can't write as fast as they type. 

My handwritten notes are barely legible, but that's OK, because I remember what I wrote, having written it.    <--- world's worst sentence. 

I have no references at hand, but I'm sure they're out there. 

Mlle Germain:

--- Quote from: Carl-E on 06 Aug 2014, 16:21 ---There's been some research that says writing something by hand will cement it in (your) memory better than typing. 

--- End quote ---
This is 100% true at least for me.

--- Quote from: Barmymoo on 05 Aug 2014, 14:38 ---I think on paper.

--- End quote ---
Great way of saying it - that is precisely how it works for me, too. I can't remember or comprehend stuff well until I write it down and in 98% of the time, this means writing down by hand, not typing. Different people learn better using different methods and I am definitely in the group of people who learns best writing by hand. Funny how that works.
It might partly be due to the field I work in: In mathematics, almost everybody develops their thoughts by hand first. Lectures (at least everywhere where I've attended any) are handwritten with chalk on an acutal blackboard; you could never follow the thought process as well with a powerpoint presentation. Mathematicians explain things to each other on a blackboard. When I want to do a proof I haven't done before, I need to start off by writing down all the preliminaries and go on from there. On the computer, this doesn't work as well.
For exams at uni, we were often allowed to write one paper with formulas etc. on it to take into the exam and very often I spent ages writing the thing in tiny handwriting the day before the exam (already having done the rest of my revision, of course) and then didn't look at it more than once or twice because just writing everything down again directly before the exam made me memorise it better.

Barmymoo:
I always start with paper when I'm planning an essay, and then shift to the computer to organise my thoughts once I've figured out what I'm writing about. It's odd, really. You'd think that the process of transferring words from your brain to writing should be the same whatever the medium, but it's definitely not!

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