5 Tips and for Taking Notes via Notebooks as You Read

Today, I want to talk specifically about notebooks.

As the title of today's post says, I'll be discussing 5 tips for note taking as you read via notebooks.

As with any post including tips that I post here to my blog, there is no "right" or "wrong" way to take notes as you read. Additionally, you can use a combination of 2+ note taking methods. Be consistent.

If you're inconsistent in your note taking - i.e. how you take notes, when you take notes - it can be difficult to remember what your thoughts were on a specific part or chapter. If you want to take notes on your reading, do so through the entire book. You don't have to take notes on every book you read, but when you do decide to take notes on a book, do so until you finish it.

Tip 1: Decide if you want to have one notebook per book, or if you're okay with 2+ books in one notebook.

This may seem like a weird tip, but I promise you one thing: this tip will help out to some degree. Whichever way you decide to go, just decide beforehand.

    If you want to have notes for each book in a separate notebook, then stick with that. Just be aware that,

        depending on the length of the book, you may have large chunks of empty pages in your notebooks.

    If you decide to have notes for multiple books in one notebook, then stick with that route. Again, you

        just need to be aware that there's a possibility that your notes for one book may be split between the

        end of one notebook and the beginning of another.

Tip 2: Label the notebook with the book(s) that the notebook has notes on.

No matter which way you decide to go in Tip 1, your notebooks should always have an easy way to see what book(s) that notebook contains notes on. Why? This way, it's easier to find your notes when you need them for something like a review, or a book club, etc. If you have notes on multiple books in one notebook, list all the books. And if a notebook has the beginning or ending notes of a book, make sure to clarify this.

Tip 3: Avoid small notebooks.

Small notebooks are definitely useful, but I don't think that reading notes are one pf the uses for notebooks on the smaller side (especially if your handwriting's on the bigger side). Choose notebooks that are medium sized or bigger so that you have more space and pages for your notes.

Tip 4: Don't be afraid to write in-depth notes.

Yes, if you're handwriting your notes, you may want to avoid writing too much. But that doesn't mean you should avoid in-depth notes or analyses. The more in-depth you get with your notes, especially with parts you did or didn't like, you can work out how exactly you feel and why you feel that way.

Tip 5: Have your notes all together.

This is another tip that'll help you out a lot in the long run. Yes, you may have your different notebooks for notes on different books, but keep those notebooks together. This way, you know exactly where all of your notes are instead of searching around your room/house for your notes.