One reason I know I am a writer is because I transcribe every educational book I read. Do you? Why do we do that?
I read an article, maybe last year, that mentioned how people who write notes when they read something are more likely to retain knowledge. I wish I can remember where I read it so I can source it well, but a simple search online will give you all the data to validate this. With my own research, evidently we can still miss information even if we transcribe. Because of this, there are strategies to maximize your transcriptions. I’ll get into my method, but first, I want to explain why I take notes in case you can relate.
Why I Take Notes When Reading
To be clear, I don’t keep a journal for fictional books. Although, when I read my favorite book, The Alchemist by Pablo Cuelho, I do write personal notes in the margins, with dates, because I always learn something new each time I pick it up. It comes with life lessons, so in a way, that’s a type of book that still teaches. But I’m not writing books to The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein.
For those nonfictional books, like business books or textbooks for school, I get this deep desire to capture the important ah-ha moments I read. In a sense, I think we take notes so we can have a quick reference available to remind ourselves of “life-changing” or career-changing quotes. It’s like we’re writing our very own Cliffsnotes. I hope people still know what Cliffsnotes are and I’m not aging myself here, but they are shortened versions of major books (usually books that schools refer their students to read). It helps you get the main points without reading the entire book – time saver but not necessarily favored by professors.
But it works! I have journals upon days of notes from amazing books.
What I Do with Notes
Naturally, I do not publish them or sell them. That’s plagiarism and I’m not looking for a lawsuit. Sometimes, if it’s a how-to book, I review all the notes and grab a pack of notecards. Yes, there is more writing, but we’re writers so we love this, right?
On these notecards I will write down the actual how-to steps – one step on its own card. Many times, I write summaries from the book and quick tips, but these captions are not steps so they stay in my journal and don’t make it on to a notecard.
When I’ve gone through all transcriptions in my journal, and wrote down all important steps on to notecards, I then categorize the notecards.
Let’s go through an example. Say I just read a book on how to operate my business using the 80/20 Principle. I’d categorize my notecards like this:
Category One: Team Management
Category Two: Financial Management
Under each category, I’d add the notecards that fit:
Category One:
-Find out which team members make up 20% who deliver 80% of the work; and identify the 80% who deliver 20% of the work
-Speak to team members who do 20% of the work and find out if they need a change up: training, more supervision/micro-management, or any other kind of support.
Category Two:
-Identify which expenses make up 20% but bring 80% of the profits
-Identify what we spend 80% on that only bring 20% of the profits
-Figure out which items need to be cancelled and/or have more of an investment
Taking Action on Your Notes
At this point, I’d take one of two options:
If I have a step-by-step guide, I’d simply transcribe it again as a list, in order of priority, and will print it out and laminate it. I’d post it where I can see it until it becomes second nature. Or, I’d simply add the steps in my planner by priority.
Prioritizing is easy. You’d just see which notecards in each category are more important than the other. For instance, if I spent 80% on employees who earned the company 20% of profits, I’d prioritize the shifts with the employee that I need to make. Meaning, I’d first learn if they are worth training and growing or if they simply hate their job and strongly want to quit one day unless things go their way – which may not be a financial benefit to the company. In this case, first I’d act on the employee and get an overview from their perspective. Next, I’d take financial action.
This isn’t an article on business advice. What I’m trying to explain here is that transcribing notes is a filtering process that can get your brain to lock in what you read. A book can come with hundreds of words and you’re not going to remember everything. Perhaps you’ll only remember 10% as time goes by.
Having notes with the actionable steps and most important how-to’s is going to help you grow and use what you learned to your advantage. That’s what the author wants anyway. What’s the point of reading nonfiction if you’re not going to learn? Learning is one thing, but doing the work and having firsthand experience is going to be the true way you learn. Transcribe, transcribe even more, then transcribe again. There’s no better way to have knowledge retention.
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