My Thoughts on Taking Notes via Post-It Notes While You Read

Given my recent posts, I figured I'd give my thoughts on each of the note taking methods for reading. While I wanted to share my thoughts with you on each method, I didn't want to go back and add more to the posts, So here we are.

I'll be going in the same order as I did with my posts on the tips for each note-taking method: marginalia, post-it notes, notebooks, and electronic documents. How you personally feel about each note taking method - and about taking notes while reading - is wholly up to you. If you don't take notes while you read, that's fine. If you do, hopefully my posts on taking notes while reading help you.

Here are the positives of post-it notes:

1. You don't have to write directly in your book, but your notes are still in your book. Yes, it may bother you to have writing directly in your book. (It's okay if you feel this way.) Yet if you still want your notes directly in your book, post-it notes are the way to go.
2. You have a bit more room. I mentioned in the post on May 6th that you'll want to go for the smaller post-it notes. But even then, you still have a bit more writing space than just the marginalia. And, if needed, you can always put in multiple small post-its on one page.
3. It's easy to jump from note to note. Post-its make it easy to jump to a specific page. Depending on how you lined up the post-it notes (there's no wrong way), it makes it easy to jump from a note on page 10 to a different note on page 100.

Here are the negatives of post-it notes:

1. You do need to have them constantly on hand, wherever you go. If you go out and take your book, you may not always remember to bring your post-it notes with you. And it's not a common practice to have post-it notes in your bag unless you're a student. As mentioned in my posts with the tips, you want to be consistent in your note-taking - and forgetting post-its can have an effect on this habit.
2. Sometimes you do need bigger post-it notes. The main reason I recommend small post-it notes is because the larger ones take up a lot of space - and sometimes, you're only commenting on a single word, phrase or sentence, so a bigger post-it notes end up being only about half used. But sometimes, depending on how many thoughts you have, you do need a bigger post-its. 
3. It can make your books a bit bulkier. Yes, post-it notes are thin. But if you have a lot in one book, that adds up in the long run. So it can make your book slightly bulkier. It won't be a huge deal, but sometimes your books just fit in your bookshelf, and the post-it notes make it a tight fit.

4 Note Taking Methods for Reading

Back in April, I made the following two posts on this subject - Why Note Taking While You Read is a Good Habit and 6 Tips for Taking Notes While Reading. These two posts were fun to write, so I thought I'd add on to them with a few more posts this month.

In the two posts I linked above, I talked about why note taking is a good habit to have while reading. I also gave 6 general tips for taking notes while reading. Over the next couple of days, I want to go into a bit more detail about the different methods for note taking while reading a book. (Yes, this is similar to the series I did on bookshelf organization at the end of last month.)

So without further ado, let's get into the different note taking methods for reading.

Marginalia: Marginalia essentially means "marginal notes," and these are notes that are taken within the margins of the book. Have you seen a book with writing in the margins? That's marginalia. Marginalia also includes highlighting and/or underlining passages in a book. And no, this is not a bad thing. Yes, it's "controversial" in the bookish community, but I'll talk about that in another post.

Post-It Notes: We all know what post-its are and look like. It's similar to marginalia where you can write on the post-it notes and stick those notes in the book, but you're not writing directly on you book. Post-it notes are convenient, because most of us have easy access to them.

Notebooks: Journaling has become a big thing lately, which is great. And if you're a big reader, you could use one of your notebooks and/or journals as a reading journal/notebook. Just remember: try to come up with an effective way to take notes while reading, since you will be hand writing the notes in a completely separate place from the book.

Electronic Documents: This can be a safe bet if you want to take notes in a different place from your book but don't want to hand write everything down. You can name the document using the title of the book, and it's easier to organize, add, and delete notes when and where you deem necessary. However, I'd recommend having a specific organization method for taking your notes this way.