Capturing Your Learning

How to document and store information as you learn

One of the challenges all learners have is capturing their learning in some manner so that they can easily reference it later. Let’s face it, we can’t possibly remember everything we learn, at least not in detail.

You might want to remember key ideas you’ve learned, refer to a quotation you recall but can’t quite remember exactly, or find the title of a book or article you read years ago. There might be many reasons why you’d like to capture information about what you learn.

I’ve found that the trick is to keep things simple. Yes, there are complex note and database applications that some people use to capture information, but I find them overkill for what’s needed most of the time. I also try to keep the necessity of learning new software applications to a minimum.

So, here’s my advice, and it applies to learning undertaken on your own, through formal classroom instruction, or by some other approach. Learning is learning, no matter how it occurs.

Create a simple word processing document for each subject area you’re studying. I use MS Word, but whatever you use is fine. Again, keep it simple. If you use a notes application like Evernote (my favorite notes application), that can work too. But I like the fact that document files are easily named, saved…