DIGITAL NOTE TAKING TIPS _ OneNote + Handwriting

Hello everyone and welcome back to Caitlin's Corner. I'm super pumped for today's video because I'm finally sharing my digital note-taking tips. I personally like to take a mix of both physical and digital notes but in the past year I will admit I have been experimenting more and more in the digital space. Before we get into it though I want to say a huge thank you to AMD for sponsoring today's video and helping make the process of taking my notes digitally easier than ever with the AMD powered Lenovo Flex 14. It's a device with lots of digital note-taking options so you'll be able to transform your boring typed out lists into effective study tools you'll actually enjoy using. When we think digital note-taking the first thing I always think of is just basic typing out notes. I usually type out my notes during lectures where I know the prof either speaks really fast or is going to be giving out a lot of information. When I'm actually in lecture I don't really think about the formatting too much. I just let my hand go as fast as it can possibly go. But afterwards when I'm reviewing that lecture again that's when I will do heavy formatting. So this was for an economics history class. As you can see there's a lot of info and the way I revamp these notes is by highlighting, separating out different topics, formally putting everything into bullet points, that sort of thing. It's a great opportunity to reread your notes so you're getting that information in your brain again and also just look for spelling mistakes and sentences that don't make sense that you really didn't have time to fix during lecture because you were just focused on getting that information down. One of my favorite things to do is to use something as simple as a line to separate chunks of information like tutorial notes and lecture notes. I also like to add to-do lists based on the notes that I wrote. So for tutorials especially it's great because I can tell myself what I need to have done before next class and when I complete those things I can just check them off. My real goal when it comes to formatting a big chunk of text is just to make it look a lot less intimidating. If I finish formatting and I don't feel as stressed when I look at the document then I feel like I've done a good job. And the way you get to that place is going to look a lot differently than the way I get to that place. You may need to have a completely different formatting style that caters to your learning needs and the way you process information. So for example I am a huge visual learner as you can tell by the fact that I am stressing formatting so much and the internet makes it really easy for me to add pictures that are relevant to the information I'm studying to help it make it easier for me to process that information. Whenever I come across concepts or definitions or topics I want more information on again the beauty of the internet is that you can go to the internet and find another source that words that thing in a different way that might resonate with you or click with you better than the textbook does and you can add that directly to your notes. It's a beautiful thing. Moving on to another form of note taking digitally which is writing it out with a stylus or a pen like the one I have here today. This is an accessory to the AMD powered Lenovo Flex 14. One of the reasons I like this laptop so much in addition to the fact that it's fast is the fact that you can switch it from laptop to tablet mode so easily which definitely helps when using the pen because putting it in tablet mode makes it feel like you're almost writing on paper. It's really cool. My first digital handwriting tip is to add some sort of grid paper or lined paper background when you are actually writing out your notes. I mean you can keep them there if you like them but if you find the lines too distracting you can just make the background blank white again without affecting what you write out. I know at least that's the case on Microsoft OneNote. I think it's a great way to keep things organized and to ensure that your words and sentences aren't going to be going off in these crazy directions. With Microsoft OneNote you also have the great opportunity to preset all your pens and highlighter colors and the sizes of them so that when you're note taking it's easy to switch to whatever common things you like to use. So for me I like to use a gray highlighter tool as you can see a lot for headers and I already have it programmed at the top there so I don't have to go switching my pen and change the settings every single time I want to use that gray highlighter. It's very easy. This particular lecture I'm recreating is for a course that was very lecture discussion based so there wasn't a lot of detailed information I had to write down and that's why I'm able to opt for either digital handwriting or handwriting in a regular physical notebook for these types of courses. They're courses that are a little bit slower paced. I can have the opportunity even in lecture while writing them in real time to have fun with them. And when it comes to digital note taking there's a lot of fun to be had because there's a lot of different tools that you can use to make your notes really unique. So for example I'm using the shape tool to create a rectangular box to isolate some key pieces of information but you can use whatever shapes that they provide you and you can use the ruler tool to make straight lines or perfectly angled lines whatever you want and there's lots of other features even in this particular program Microsoft OneNote that I didn't get a chance to feature in this video but I would encourage you to explore whatever program you are using and become familiar with everything it has to offer. Anytime the professor provides lecture slides that are quite detailed I actually prefer to write on the lecture slides as my form of note taking during lecture just so that I'm not wasting time writing information that has already been given to us. This is one of my favorite things to do digitally because the alternative is to print out your lecture slides and that wastes a lot of paper and a lot of ink especially for lectures that have 90, 100 plus slides per lecture. I love the fact that you can also choose to write directly on the lecture slides or write any information or highlight anything you need to review on the side so your slides don't become too too distracting. That's it for today's video I hope you guys enjoyed it and if you did be sure to give it a big thumbs up let me know in the comments below whether you prefer to type or use a stylus when taking your own digital notes. I see advantages to both. Thank you again to AMD for sponsoring today's video. You can find out more about the AMD powered Lenovo Flex 14 by clicking the links in the description box below. I love the fact that it can go from laptop to tablet mode. It's a great multitasking tool and definitely worth checking out if you're looking to upgrade your digital notes. I will see you all very soon with a new video and until then, bye guys!