I see many Ph.D. students taking notes by hand, which is a great way to capture and understand new materials. Using pen and paper to take notes has many benefits that enhance learning. The physical act of writing notes can help improve memory and comprehension, as it requires more cognitive engagement compared to typing. Writing by hand tends to slow the process down, enabling you to not simply transcribe verbatim but distill complex ideas into more straightforward, understandable concepts. This form of active learning helps solidify your understanding of the material, fostering better recall. Moreover, this method can lead to more personalized notes as you unconsciously incorporate your interpretations and insights, further enhancing the depth of learning.
But in the long run, it is essential to start taking notes in an organized and searchable form of your preference. I prefer Notion - you probably would have never guessed this since that’s where you also read this guide. But there are many alternatives e.g. Obsidian, Evernote, Google Keep, MS OneNote, etc, which all have some specific features that can be better for you.
If you want to build your virtual knowledge base www.notion.so is a good place to start!
You can create personal websites containing all your notes, including images, links, videos, or other attached media. The created notion pages will be organized hierarchically, but if you want, you can search on all pages simultaneously (CTRL+P shortcut key). You can also make some parts public to share the knowledge you acquired on a topic with your colleagues or friends!
There are some already prepared Notion templates tailored to Ph.D. students, so if you don’t want to start from scratch, you can choose one of these templates and tweak it for your own liking:
There are some free versions:
How I Use Notion as a PhD Student & Why You Should Too
I put this video here because it has some good points to follow if you are new to scheduling your research/life.
And of course, paid variants:
I like to keep it simple, to have a base hub from where I reach all of the important pages e.g. daily tasks, ongoing projects, and designated materials, while keeping that in a minimalist form without any distracting widgets. Try not to over-organize it because the busy work might distract you from the actual research.
I’m currently using Jeff Su’s templates in a bit tweaked form for tracking my projects and daily tasks:
Weekly Agenda Template (original)
If you need further explanation for the templates, check out this video: