Did you engage yourself in any property related education over the last couple of weeks? It might have been a book you’re reading, a podcast you listened to or a training event you attended.
Now ask yourself this – did you take notes? And if so what are those notes like and what will those notes lead to?
I’ve been a consummate and diligent note taker all of my adult life, particularly when it comes to property education and personal development. However, this week I listened to an interview that highlighted the way I’ve been taking notes is all wrong. And more often than not the way we are taught to learn at school is all wrong. The podcast interview I reference was with learning expert Jim Kwik, who explained that the worst way to take notes is trying to copy what’s being said verbatim.
Taking notes is a powerful way to massively increase retention and learn faster. However, unless we are taught a different technique of note taking we are leaving way too much value from our learning time on the table.
I’ll briefly share the technique I learned this week from Jim Kwik. I implemented it straight away and I’m a massive convert. The main picture is of the notes I made listening to the podcast, the other pic (below) is of notes I took listening to Paul on Friday.
So, here’s the enhanced technique for taking notes and optimising the outcome from them:
-in your notebook, take a clean page and draw a line down the middle (I actually preferred separating my page with approx ⅔ to ⅓ split, you’ll see why soon)
-the left hand column is for CAPTURE ie for ‘taking notes’ of what you’re hearing & seeing – the things you want to reference and remember
-as much as possible aim to capture keywords and relevancy
-the right hand column is for CREATING ie for ‘making notes’ to yourself, where you engage some thinking (asking and answering questions to yourself about what you are learning). This will massively accelerate your learning because ‘the brain learns through creation, not consumption’ to quote Kim Kwik.
Here are the three powerhouse questions to guide the CREATING notes you make in the right hand column:
#1: HOW CAN I USE THIS?
-this is forcing yourself to think about putting what you’re learning into action.
#2: WHY MUST I USE THIS?
-reasons reap results and information with emotion will be committed to long term memory. It’s super important to get clear on your motivation for the learning and infuse emotion into the learning process.
#3: WHEN WILL I USE THIS?
-schedule the action and it becomes real. This one is essential for getting results.
So simple yet so powerful.
If you’re looking for a property even to practice your new note taking technique then I can highly recommend joining the Touchstone team at the upcoming Six Figure Summits:
London 9th & 10th March
Glasgow 16th & 17th March
Book your seat here https://goo.gl/6QQ1s4