Speaker 1: Hi, it's your brain coach Jim Quick on the Quick Brain Podcast, and I'm going to be your brain coach as I am to help you to be able to upgrade your learning, to upgrade your life. And in our private Facebook group, and also in our Quick Brain Universe app, where you send messages to us, we get this question about note-taking. And there's some clarifying questions, so this is kind of like a quick Q&A, if you will. I want to get a little bit more specific on how to take notes in a way that's more whole brain, so that you can remember what you want to learn, and also you can utilize what you want to learn. Now, you could take notes in different ways. Some people just like to audio record everything from a lecture. Some people like to handwrite notes. Other people like something that's more digital. Now, when people are tested for comprehension and retention, we find that handwriting notes will improve comprehension, and retention of that information. We talk about that, the reasons why, in another podcast. You can refer back to that. We'll put a link to that in our show notes at jimquick.com forward slash notes. You should always read the highlight notes. Always speed read those. Digital note-taking certainly is convenient. It's a great way of sharing information, but it's not as good as to help people to understand it and be able to retain it. Some people use devices, though, where they are handwriting notes onto the screen, and they're not going to be able to their device. I think that's a great compromise, if you will. Some people, like me, what I'll do is actually handwrite in a notebook, because that's my preferred way. Then we will digitize it so that we have it to be able to share. Whatever method that you prefer, I'm going to give you a way of doing it that's going to enhance your comprehension and retention, and most importantly, help you to implement this information. Really, why you take notes is to capture the information so you prevent or reduce mitigation. That's a great way to do it. I think that's a great way to do it. I think that's a great way to do it. I think that's a great way to do it. I think that's a great way to do it. I think what they call the forgetting curve. You know the forgetting curve, right? You hear something on a podcast, you read something in a book, you go to a lecture, and what happens within 48 hours? You forget a lot of it. In fact, research shows about 80% of what you learn if you hear it just once is completely forgotten. To be able to reduce that, you could capture it by taking notes. Now, when there was research done at universities to find out the best way of taking notes and the worst way, one of the worst ways is actually, as you can imagine, is verbatim, like full transcripts. Having 23 pages of word-for-word verbatim lecture, if you will, of a lecturer, of a professor, is not as useful as having the key words and the key ideas. Because there could be something on page 17 that's more important than what's on page one, but our brains don't always think that way, right? You have a left brain and a right brain. So how can you be able to, knowing this, take notes more effectively? By the way, if you want to go taking, the program to enroll in is QuickThinking. QuickThinking.com. Go there. It's one of our flagship programs, along with our Quick Reading program and our Quick Recall program. Quick Thinking is a little different because your ability to think and to adapt is your ultimate competitive advantage to be able to solve problems, to make better decisions, to be more creative. And that's what Quick Thinking is about. So we go deeply into the training. Again, these podcasts, we make free, so it's consumable tips. But if you, a tip is something, an idea that can help move the needle a little bit, a training is where you permanently have this superpower, a new level of capability and ability, skill to be able to take things to the next level, because I get you every day for like 21 or 30 days for 15 minutes a day. So we can really make it a habit, these things. So let's go into the note-taking. So one of the ways you could take notes is to grab a piece of paper. I'm going to use a whiteboard for the purpose of this illustration. And what I do is if I'm listening to, let's say a podcast, a podcast on sleep, right? We've done a lot of episodes on how to maximize and optimize your sleep. And we know that better sleep will lead to better focus the next day, help you to solve problems the next day, help you consolidate short to long-term memory, all the benefits of sleep. What I do instead of just writing notes on a piece of paper is first, I'll put a line right down the page. Very, very simple line right down the page. Okay. And then what I do is on the left side, I'll do something called capture. And on the right side, I'll do something called create. And this is what I call the capture create method. So you capture on the left side and on the right side, you're going to create. So very, very simple. I want to keep this extremely simple and easy. So left side, you capture on the right side, you create. So what does that mean? That means on the left side, you're taking notes and on the right side, you're making notes. So you're going to take notes on the left side. And make notes on the right side, not the subtle, but distinct difference. And let me break it down for you. When you learning something like how to sleep better, right? You're getting all these tips. You want to capture them. So you're going to capture those ideas on the left side. You're going to get tips. If you listen to our podcast and the many movies we've done with interviews with people like Sean Stevenson, like the sleep doctor, Dr. Michael Bruce, and so on, we'll get tips on like no caffeine past 2 PM. And I'll write that on the left side, right? Maybe you'll get a tip, a sleep tip on having an alarm clock, not just to wake up, but alarm clock to go to bed, keeping a constant schedule, blackout curtains. Those would be things that we capture on the left side. Maybe something like having your mattress cold or sleeping in a cold room will help you to create the prompt you and trigger you to know that it's time to go to sleep, produce melatonin and so on, right? Those would be your captures. But on the right side is where the magic happens. Left side is kind of like your left brain. It's very logical. It's very language driven, sequential, but if your mind is going to distract you, and it often does when we're trying to learn something or listen to a podcast or reading a book or listening to a lecture, then I rather, instead of it going somewhere random, I rather go to the right side of the page, which is your right brain, which is if the left side is logical, the right side is more imagination. It's more creativity. And that's why the right side is create. And so you're making notes. And so what you're doing on the right side, you're going to put your impressions of what you captured. So something like, how can I use this? So that's where your imagination goes, right? All the different ways you could use this. Another question you want to ask yourself that you could help make notes to prompt you by giving you a question. Why must I use this? You know, if you have a little bit of downtime, instead of being distracted, thinking about the dry cleaning or something you have to do right after that for work, then like, why must I use this? Why? Because it goes from your head to your heart, right? And then finally, you're going to be able to use this. And so that's where you're finally, when will I use this? I'm going to start this today, right? One of the greatest productivity performance tools you have is your calendar. And if you don't schedule it, it's not going to happen. That's why I say for every hour you spend listening to a podcast, and in this case, it's only 15 minutes. That's why you binge listen to so many of our shows, right? Spend another hour implementing it. That's where you take the ideas and you put into implementation, right? And hopefully I give you a little inspiration to go from your head to your heart, your hands. You can do that in your head, but you're not acting with your hands. Get your heart involved. So on the right side, I'm using my imagination. I'm thinking about how can I use this? How does this compare to what I already know? What questions do I have about this subject? That's where you're creating. Who do I want to teach this to? That would be on the creative side, right? And how does this even relate to something else that I learned? Maybe it's something that's contradictory to something that you just learned. So put that on the right side. So you capture what you're learning on the left. And then you're creating on the right side. And again, this is what I call the capture-create method. You take notes and then you make notes. And it's so simple. And here's the thing. It's the simplicity that fools you. This is so simple. It's such a simple thing that anybody could do. And I would say, do it right now. Some things are so simple that we don't do it. You're like, oh, that's just too easy. And you never get the benefit. I'm going to challenge you to do it today. And if you could do it again tomorrow. It'll transform the way not only you learn the information, but by capturing it and creating it, you'll actually be able to teach yourself on top of that. Because that's where the magic happens. When we talk about a book like mine called Limitless, what's truly limitless, where you're redrawing the borders and boundaries of what's possible, is in your creativity. It's your ability to create. It's your ability to imagine. And this note-taking, note-making method, capturing and creating, is a tangible way you could do that. And it's so simple. And I would say, do it right now. Do this. And here's the other challenge. Besides doing it, teach somebody else. Teach this to your partner. Teach this to your team. Teach this to a child or a family member. Think about one person in your life that you wish was listening to this right now and teach it to them. Because you get to benefit from the explanation effect. When you take time to explain something to somebody else, the effect is you're going to learn it better. Because when you teach it, you get to learn it twice. That's my challenge to you. Are you ready to take notes and also make notes? Are you ready to capture and create? It's going to improve your focus. It's going to improve your memory. You're not going to be distracted as much. And probably most importantly, you're going to apply it. Because the truth is, knowledge by itself is not power. It's a myth. At best, it's potential power. It only becomes power when we what? When we execute on it. When we apply it. Knowledge times action equals power. And you have so much power inside of you. I want to thank you for listening to this episode. Thank you for watching it. Three points of action right now. I want you, number one, to share this. Take a screenshot of this right now. Take a screenshot of this. And what I want you to do is tag me. Post it online. Tag me in it. And share it. And what I want you to do is share in that post something that you're applying this to. Have you tried this already? And as always, I'll repost some of the ones randomly. And we'll gift a copy of Limitless to one or two of you. We do it every single week. Because we want to encourage you. To make this a game. Make this playful. Make this fun. The second thing I would say, teach it to somebody else. And then the third thing, please leave a review. If you've gotten value out of this session, and you want to help us on our mission to build better, brighter brains, no brain left behind, then the best thing you could do is leave us a review. Wherever you're consuming this right now, on YouTube, put a comment down. Maybe it's in Spotify. Maybe it's on iTunes. Maybe you want to leave a review on Amazon. We have, I think, 14,000 reviews. For Limitless. Because when people hear your stories, they can see themselves. And you're able to affect people that I simply can't. And we want to build an army, a growing army of brainiacs that you know that if you change your brain, you change your life. You change your brain, you change the world. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I'll see you in our next one. Until then, be Limitless.