I'm curious if there's anybody here who's like this. Either doing it without writing things down, or doing it minimally. I don't know why but I find it very difficult to do, and it stops me from actually learning/studying. I feel like it slows me down, significantly. It also feels like a chore. I feel like part of this may be because I'm in information security? Like, there's a lot of reading and researching going on, then immediate practicing and applying. Even when I have to take tests. I just read and listen or whatever else and that's it. Maybe in other fields, taking notes is a big thing, or maybe it's just me. I also have other interests, but yet still, I simply can't bring myself to write things down. I just prefer to absorb everything, in whatever pace I like, sometimes it's slow, sometimes it's fast. If I ever decide that I'm going to take notes while learning/studying, I'd stare at my notebook/software for a very long time. I'd sit with one chapter/slide for quite awhile. At the same time, I truly admire people who take notes and write stuff. I do wish I was like them sometimes. Is anybody out here the same? Even though I really want to hear from people who are similar, everyone else can join the discussion too. What do you do? How do you do it? What is your preference? Do you think there's a "better" way to do things? Could taking notes be "superior" to the opposite?

I think many of us are students, or just like self-learning some topics for themselves, perhaps their work requires studying — I think it might be interesting to collect a few tips we have experience with on how to do it efficiently.

I would start with probably one of the best tools in this category that I think are still underutilized by many: spaced-repetition software. Perhaps more people might be familiar with the concept from language learning with word cards, but the base idea is that reinforcing some knowledge at increasing intervals will effectively make you remember it ’forever’. A final selling point on this topic: it only requires 10 minutes out of your entire life to remember a fact for basically forever with instant recall - that’s a very good use of one’s time in my opinion. For more information on it here is a great article.
(It’s talking about Anki, a notable spaced repetition program that is free and open-source (the ios client is paid though, as this is the only income source of the maintainer, but you could just use the web interface as well. Not affiliated))