so i've spent years taking handwritten
notes this is about four years worth of
notes from my time at the university of
toronto and then this is about four or
five months worth of notes for a really
big exam called the mcat and now in
medical school this is my first year
worth of handwritten notes taken during
my time here but now i do pretty much
everything digitally using either my
ipad or my laptop and so the question is
which one of these methods is best so
handwritten notes pretty much got me
through seven years of university i
would attend the lecture and then take
my own handwritten notes lecture 20 take
the notes lecture 21 take the notes and
then when it came exam time i would
condense those lectures into as little
information as possible so a lecture
that used to take up one page would now
only take up about this much and then
again over here
small lectures just condensed down into
the really need to know information then
before exams i would read this
information over and over and over again
and just try and ingrain it into my head
so i could remember and understand
everything when it came exam time and to
be honest this method of writing down
information condensing it and then
reviewing it over and over again worked
really well for me so research generally
shows that handwriting notes means that
you can remember the material better
than if you were to just type it one
research study by mueller and
oppenheimer even showed that students
who take lecture notes by hand generally
performed better in tests than those who
took their notes on a computer one of
the reasons for this is because we can
type so much faster than we can write
this means that when we handwrite our
notes we force ourselves to distill the
information from the lectures into the
information that we think is most
important the main issue when it comes
to typing down your notes is that you're
likely going to just copy the exact
information that's being said without
thinking about what it is that you're
writing down typing notes on a keyboard
can be a very passive process where your
job as students is just to transcribe
everything that the lecturer is saying
instead of when you take handwritten
notes you can really focus on making
high-yield notes with only the most
important information it also takes
skill to write good handwritten notes
and certainly when i was writing these
notes back in 2013 until 2017 i don't
think i've quite mastered that skill
just yet you have to be able to condense
the information down into something
useful and pick out the key information
from lectures so this does mean that you
have to practice somewhat or have some
experience in taking good handwritten
notes and to see the benefits of better
recall from an anecdotal point of view
when i write handwritten notes i really
feel that i'm much more zoned in and
focusing on the information that i'm
taking in and that i'm writing down
because it's a slower process naturally
i kind of have to think about it more
when i'm typing out lecture notes on the
other hand i could be listening to the
professor and typing down everything
they're saying whilst having a full-on
conversation with my friend or watching
the football game that someone is live
streaming in front of me and i used to
do this all the time i would have no
problem even just closing my eyes almost
going to sleep and typing away
transcribing everything they were saying
now obviously in that scenario i'm doing
zero thinking i'm not learning anything
i'm not absorbing any information i'm
just getting the information down onto
paper or in this case onto my computer
so that i can condense it and review it
later on but obviously as you can
imagine that's definitely not an
efficient way to be learning now this
isn't always the case but most degrees
at least in theory don't rely on your
ability to recall a list of information
they want you to learn the theory and
apply general concepts to situations in
exam questions quick side note this was
extremely rare in my degree at the
university of toronto where most of our
courses were just about how much
information you could memorize from the
slides when that's the case it's really
important to figure out what your
professor's courses are actually testing
you on if you want to score well you
need to match your studying technique to
their testing technique if they're
testing you on pure memorization then
unfortunately you just need to memorize
and if they're testing you on your
application of theory then you need to
truly understand the material anyways
back to what i was saying so the
research shows that students with
handwritten notes might understand
concepts better because typing notes
requires shallower processing than
handwriting them does but i think this
is a very niche view of how most
students study most of you watching this
video including myself probably don't
just use notes to learn throughout all
these years of handwriting and reviewing
and condensing all these notes i was
also using other resources to study
things like videos so sketchy medical
things like past paper question banks or
past exam papers provided by the
university i was never solely reliant on
just handwriting notes but at different
times through my university life they've
either been the home base or the core of
my studying technique or just a
peripheral additional thing on the side
a lot of the evidence from research
studies is comparing just handwritten
notes to just typing notes so this
doesn't include information about other
study techniques and i don't think is
very reflective of how students study
today and that's why i believe that
digital notes can be really really
useful when we actually use them to
facilitate things like active recall and
space repetition which i'm sure you guys
are all sick of hearing by now but they
really do work as studying techniques
now active recoil and space repetition
were still techniques that i was using
when doing handwritten notes it's just
much more difficult when you're doing it
paper based versus a computer
handwritten notes wasn't a bad way of
studying and if you study with
handwritten notes and that works for you
then just keep doing it i did it like i
said for so long and it worked very very
well for me it was only in the summer
after my third year of medical school
and then in my fourth year of medical
school where note-taking in this way
just became unsustainable really big
exams like the us emily step one where
there's just so much information to
learn and then in fourth year for my
clinical years where i spent tons of
time in hospital just meant that i
didn't have enough time to hand write
notes on all the information that was
being constantly thrown at me now this
kind of forced me into the realization
that handwriting notes was extremely
inefficient i mean so so so inefficient
for my time i've personally spent so
much of my life in libraries or at home
at my desk because i was just sitting
there handwriting notes which by nature
is such a time consuming process so
starting in my fourth year of medical
school i just said you know what i don't
have the time to sit down and take all
these handwritten notes and that's when
i had to adapt my studying habits and
techniques to continue performing well
at university and so i started relying a
lot on my digital notes on a computer so
there are some obvious pros to taking
digital notes let me show you guys how i
store all of my information on an app
called notion so this here is my medical
school page i've got a whole bunch of
different pages over here inside but the
main one that i want to show you is my
conditions page so this is a list of
pretty much all the conditions that i
need to know in medical school neatly
organized by a body system then if you
click into each of these they're even
further organized into different parts
of the body and then each one of these
will have a whole bunch of information
color coded according to the different
things i need to know or that i want to
know and you know it's all there easily
with a click of a button it's on my
phone it's on my laptop it's on my ipad
i can access it anytime so why are these
notes so great the first thing and what
i consider to be really important is the
search ability so i can search across
all of my notes for let's say
liver cirrhosis and just see what comes
up so here i've got liver cirrhosis
again under gastroenterology i just
click on it and suddenly i have access
to all of my liver cirrhosis notes these
are screenshots that i've taken from
previous digital notes this is a picture
i've taken from a book and you know
here's all my information neatly
organized and just one little quick
search away when i'm on the wards in the
hospital and i see a patient with a
certain condition and i need to refresh
my memory on that i don't want to google
the condition i want to know my notes
what i've written down and what i think
is most important and relevant for me so
i can just quickly pull it up on my
phone and find it like this now when i
was dealing with my good old friends oh
well that's another reason not to store
your notes on paper so as i was saying
back when i was throwing all of my notes
handwritten on pieces of paper when they
weren't ripped out of my folder if i
wanted to search for a word like liver
cirrhosis how in the world would i ever
find it here no matter how organized i
would keep something like this you know
with sticky notes and different headings
which i did do over here as you guys can
see there's just no way i could find
this information easily quickly and at a
glance which brings me to point number
two once i've done my handwritten notes
and i put them away in a folder they
become useless i will never ever ever
look at these notes again because it's
just too difficult it takes too much
time and it's not worth the hassle
whereas my notion document over here i
literally look through and use pretty
much every single day and i have access
to information that i've written so many
years ago very quickly at a glance and
even now when i'm starting to study for
a new exam the situational judgement
test you know i've got all these notes
here and i can start building on them
more and more and more it's just such a
better way of organizing your files
making them easily accessible in the
future besides the fact that it's backed
up online i can never lose it it's on my
phone my ipad my laptop i mean those are
just bonuses a third point is that
digital notes like this are really easy
to edit and change you know if i'm
looking through one of these conditions
let's say i don't know aortic dissection
so if i come here and i realize that i
want to add another presenting complaint
for patients who come with aortic
dissection i can literally just write it
down if i want to move this entire
paragraph and just shift it down and put
it over here i can do that and if i want
to delete everything
i can do that really easily okay let me
bring it back before i lose it but you
guys get the point this is so easily
editable i remember and i hated if i
ever had to make amendments to my
handwritten notes like this i would
literally have to like cut up a piece of
paper staple it inside you know try and
make it neat and obvious that i've made
an addition over here i hated it and it
was just it made me feel like my notes
were so much less neat more disorganized
etc one more thing that i would often do
with my handwritten notes is i would
always try to squeeze as much
information as i possibly could onto a
single page and that meant that i would
write things really small as you guys
can see and then if i wanted to add on
additional information i'd make sure to
write it even smaller so that it didn't
take up any space at all whereas here on
my digital notes like it feels like i
just have this huge sandbox this uh
immense infinite playground onto which i
can write and add notes and images and
pages within pages and tables and
headlines and you know it's just it's
much more freeing than being uh
physically restricted to a single piece
of paper or a booklet of paper for that
matter anyways i could be here for days
talking about the pros of taking notes
digitally and taking handwritten notes
on my ipad
type notes like this on notion on my
computer but i've got a bunch of videos
about those already on the channel you
guys can watch them up over here so by
now we all know that active recoil and
space repetition are some really high
utility methods of studying personally i
found that with handwritten notes they
just don't facilitate being able to quiz
myself on the content that i'm studying
i would kind of have to just cover with
another piece of paper the piece of
paper with notes on it and just reveal
information slowly in one piece at a
time whereas with my digital notes it's
really easy to hide information behind
different pages behind different toggles
and so i can quiz myself way way easier
what i found was that if i hand wrote my
notes then i would still need to do past
paper questions and when i would do a
question then great i'd have my notes
that i could go back and refer to but
instead i could just skip this whole
handwriting notes part just to practice
questions and take notes from those
practice questions i've got an entire
video on this studying method which i
still use up until today i'll leave a
link somewhere up over here now using
this technique instead of just copying
or transcribing lecture slides and then
being faced with this wall of
handwritten notes every time i go to
study i could easily go through and read
the questions that i was actually tested
on and then when i read the questions i
need to use my brain to try and figure
out what the answer is and recall that
information which is such a more active
way of studying and led to definitely
better recall and consolidation for me
having these digital notes encourages me
to test myself using hidden toggles and
pages within pages and review the notes
more often it's way too easy to just
store away these paper notes in a file
and literally never look at them ever
again with my digital notes i can always
access them on my phone my laptop or my
ipad and so it just makes it easy to
open up and then review the content on
top of that i'll never forget that when
i was handwriting notes on paper every
time i'd come across a diagram or a
flowchart or something that i would need
to copy i would just have the biggest
side because it would take forever to
recopy that image over again whereas in
digital notes i literally just
screenshot it or drag and drop the image
and then i can annotate on top of it it
was it was like a game changer for me so
now in medical school knowing that i
have this database which is my
conditions list that i showed you
earlier with everything in one place
just makes me feel so much more secure
and confident about the information and
when i'm on the wards or out and about i
know that i have access to that
information very easily and quickly now
when it comes to space repetition if
you're reviewing your notes either paper
notes or digital notes on anything other
than like anki which has its own
algorithm for showing you information at
different intervals then you kind of
have to build in space repetition into
your own timetable so i would do this by
going on a calendar and like literally
writing the subject to study over here
and over here and over here and over
here and over here so i'd make sure i'd
go over enough times at different time
intervals i also keep track of how many
passes i've done of each subject in a
table on notion and that way i know how
many times have i covered this
information before when i was doing
handwritten notes i would write
everything down and then on my second
review i would write things down in a
different color and then on my third
review i would use a different color and
so i knew how many reviews i had done
based on how many colors there were and
i knew which information i had added at
different times because of the different
colors as well definitely not the best
way of doing things but it worked for me
at the time so i mean university is such
a busy time and you want to make sure
that your educational life is balanced
with your social life so that you don't
burn out in the long run and that's why
i think it's crucial to choose study
methods that are effective and are
efficient anything that can reduce the
friction of me studying and saves me
time when studying is something that i
really want to do and this is why i
think that taking digital notes is so
key for me and there might be lots of
evidence that shows that handwritten
notes are better than type notes or
digital notes when it comes to learning
but i think digital notes have come so
far since some of these studies have
been done and in my opinion it makes the
high utility stuff so much easier to do
i'm talking active recall and space
repetition quick access to notes and
reviews etc and this is the main
advantage for me using something like
notion where i can get organized and i
can start writing myself questions and
answers and i can hide information
behind different pages and toggles
instead of just writing things down
non-stop handwritten taking forever over
and over again but at the end of the day
like i always say you know study however
works for you if all your friends are
doing anki and active recall and they
say it's the best thing ever but you're
just not a big fan of it and you prefer
to handwrite your notes and make them
all aesthetic and everything like that
then honestly go for it i took
handwritten notes for so long and it
worked very very well for me it doesn't
mean it's a bad studying technique i've
just adapted to the different life and
time commitments that i have now in my
later years of medical school and that's
what's working for me now maybe in a
year from now i'll change my studying
technique again who knows i think being
able to adapt and being able to change
to your surrounding circumstances is
also really really important and that's
it i hope this video has been useful and
given you a little bit of an insight
into why digital notetaking for me has
become my go-to instead of studying with
handwritten notes i'm always interested
to hear about how you guys all work so
please do let me know in the comments
down below if you enjoyed the video
don't forget to like it check out and
subscribe to my patreon and i will catch
you in the next one
peace
[Music]
oh