There is no optimal system.

What works for you is what works for you. And what works for you well in one subject might not be as optimal for you in another subject. We all love the idea of one-size fits all (in fact, this is marketed to all of us all the time).

In fact, I am going to go off on a tangent here and expand to not just taking notes - but how you learn new things.

I am assuming that you are optimizing for short-term usage and recall. For rote memorization, if you have not already encountered it, try Anki (http://ankisrs.net/). To simulate a test (for those tests requiring essay answers), get a group of study friends together and just do what Toastmasters does - ask them a question related to the subject and have them speak for 1-2 minutes off the cuff about it. This closely approximates a short (or longer) essay question. For subjects like physics, optimize your method of problem solving. For example, don't solve problems line by line in the textbook. But on a whiteboard or a blank sheet of paper, ideally with friends, solve that problem at a high level. What is the process that you will need to do to solve it? Where can you get lost? (VERY IMPORTANT)

As for longer-term recall and usage, it is all about day by day actions, not binging. Just an hour or two a day consistently. Active not passive. I'm currently studying a new language (Spanish). I used to have a giant Google doc where I just copied and pasted in in translations of single words. Later, it evolved to include example sentences. Finally, it became blocks of writing from native speakers.

It didn't do anything for studying. What works is actively trying to use the words/phrases. I can only handle maybe 5 or 10 a day. And by actively using them all day (even if just in my head, sometimes with headphones in public - no one knows you aren't talking to someone but yourself) they become gradually more medium-term and eventually permanent.

Thanks for your comment.

I'm not trying to optimize for short term usage, in the beginning it is short term obviously, but I would like to be able to use the notes to repeat the topics and move them to my long term memory. That's my problem my notes aren't that clear to use them as a reference.

And for Anki/Flashcards I didn't find a good way to use them for CS topics, and more importantly for math.

You're welcome. Have you considered visual note taking? http://www.amazon.com/The-Back-Napkin-Problems-Pictures/dp/1...

It's not dissimilar to mind maps, and it exercises your brain more because you are making the connections more than the software.

Don't worry about drawing skills, those info visualizations from TedX talks are usually from professionals. Like these - http://blog.ted.com/tag/sketchnotes/

Your notes won't ever be clear enough to use as a direct reference unless you write a literal book. Perhaps just use it as a prompt for what challenged you (at the time of writing the note). Also, look at memory palaces. I don't like the technique myself but it has uses for more complicated memorizations that defy rote memorization (e.g. irregular conjugations of verbs that diverge from the standard patterns).

In case you missed it, there was a recent HN post about using Anki for CS topics (not Math). The basic concept is that the Anki cards can be used to pose questions on topics or subtopics that may be on the verge of slipping from working memory. It is different from a vocabulary card where you know the answer right away. The Anki card solely exists as a random-access method to challenge your ability to solve a particular problem of a topic or subtopic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11408447

I like mindmapping because it helps me to remember relationships between ideas. But I don't always use it.

I use a red pen to mark things: A star for action items. More stars = more urgent. A ! for points of interest, important facts. A ? for questions.

As I go over my notes, I cross out the stars, !s and ?s as I address them. That way I'm not confused later.

I do the marking regardless of whether I mindmap. One thing about mindmaps is that they take up a lot of paper real estate, and 8.5x11 quickly gets used up. So it depends on the nature of session.

Mindmaps never worked for me, like you said they take up a lot of space and I quickly lose the overview. Maybe I should work on it.

I'm also using ? if something is unclear during my lectures.

I have tried and thought about many things until finally writing my own tool that is extremely fast, powerful, and flexible. Currently it could be seen as org-mode replacement that addresses some of the key challenges (hard to learn, awkward) while keeping some key benefits (efficient from keyboard, extremely flexible), and adding huge flexibility in what can be done: http://onemodel.org (AGPL).

It is a personal organizer, is something like really fast mind maps but (currently) keyboard-driven and handles very large amounts of interlinked data, different topics at once or mixed etc: the beginning of a platform to change how individuals (or mankind) manage knowledge overall. Future features involve much more than note-taking, but exploiting the internals for collaboration, anki-like repetition, to-do reminders, and more.

For current org-mode or evernote users: The app has export (& import) features to convert anything to (or from) an indented plain-text outline. The FAQs have links to a discussion of a more detailed comparison with org-mode that seemed somewhat well-received at the time (link is on this page which discusses evernote: http://onemodel.org/1/e-9223372036854614741.html ).

Feedback would be much appreciated. If one has any interest at all, I suggest signing up for the (~monthly?) announcements list, and participating in discussions on the general list, for suggestions & input on things going forward.

(Ps: in the next week or less I hope to have a demo version available to play with easily, without having to install anything first but the .jar.)

emacs org-mode.

I've seen a few of these ask HN's and have payed very close attention.

I like workflowy [0] but dislike that is is cloud based. I wanted to host whatever I use.

after giving org-mode [1] a a few hours of tinkering, I am now completely in love. I host it from an ssh server and manage it from a terminal and can honestly say ythe few hours of tinkering were completely worth it. try it out. I typically use lists/todo's and tables.

[0] https://workflowy.com/ [1] http://orgmode.org/manual/

In college I tended to annotate some existing document/book rather than writing notes from scratch. That tended to save time and energy, and meant I had to write a lot less than if I was starting from a blank sheet (since the textbook provided all the context for my annotation).

The goal would be to make my textbooks/articles the single source of study-material when midterms/finals came around. Rather than sift through stacks of notes, I'd just have to re-read the textbook including my annotations, and I'd usually be fine.

I'm an obsessive notetaker. It helps me improve comprehension and memory.

Having tried a lot of tools including paper notebooks, mapping, personal wikis (ex. TiddlyWiki), tagged note-taking apps (ex. Evernote, Day One journal), blogging platforms, ... I've come to the conclusion that nothing does everything that I want as well as good old markdown.

My solution is a simple but flexible git repo [0]. So far I've logged notes on 50+ items over about a year, including books, courses, videos, magazines, podcasts, etc.

Some of the best examples are Show Your Work! [1] and Cities and Ambition [2].

P.S. One recent development is GitBook (https://www.gitbook.com/). It's a little more than I need personally, but incredibly cool software nonetheless.

[0]: https://github.com/tedmiston/notes

[1]: https://github.com/tedmiston/notes/blob/master/books/Show%20...

[2]: https://github.com/tedmiston/notes/blob/master/essays/Cities...

I see a lot of todos for your books, did you already read these books and just didn't write down the notes or are you planing on reading these books and writing the notes "live"?

Mostly the latter. If I read one chapter of a book I'll leave a TODO in every other chapter to show that the whole book isn't complete, though most of the time I'll never read the entire book anyway...

That approach worked better in the early days. Now it's a bit demoralizing to have hundreds of TODOs. I'm open to better ideas for handling that case.

I have one notebook for all my subjects. This only works because I never really look back at my notes (I refer to online lecture notes, the textbook etc. for that). I only write notes down because it helps me remember. my style is similar to OP's I just sort of randomly write down whatever I think is important, I'll use lot's of arrows and pictures.

I started doing this sometime in like middle school and have stuck with it, it's perfect for me but ymmv.

I used also just one notebook and wrote everything down randomly with a lot of arrows and numbers/symbols referencing each other, but it was impossible to use the notes for learning. So I switched to multiple notebooks, it helped somewhat.

Our way of notetaking is just write-only.

But I'm trying to improve it.

There was a lecture by Marty Lobdell[1] where he talks about a note taking system that separates facts and concepts that I really like. Concepts are easy to get a handle on because it doesn't take much effort to think of a real word example to relate it to. Facts on the other hand are very difficult because they aren't easily related to knowledge you already have so for facts you use a mnemonic device.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlU-zDU6aQ0

I don't take notes anymore, because I no longer have any need to. In rare occasion I do, usually on longer meetings with colleagues, we have an etherpad/google doc and edit collaboratively.

And even in college I usually didn't take notes at all. I learned by borrowing notes from several people, and then meticulously created a cheat-sheet.

Markdown stored in git with script auto-pushing changes/new files to github. Just:

$ git clone https://github.com/rofrol/m1ndmap

$ cd m1ndmap

$ npm i

$ npm run watch

Post-Its for rawidea phrases.

Scrap paper, big post its for longer ideas, phone calls, notes while reading.

Both of those create physical baggage for me forcing the next function: drop, file, delegate, share, etc.

evernote + moleskine notepad. draw.io for charts / drawings / mindmaps