I don't take notes, and my memory isn't very good. But when I take courses or try to learn something new, I'm often following along or applying it to a real pr

I don't take notes, and my memory isn't very good. But when I take courses or try to learn something new, I'm often following along or applying it to a real project of my own. The act of doing makes me a million times better at retaining information than writing notes. Also I find that if you're at ground zero on a topic, then taking notes hurts you because it's extremely tedious and time consuming to take notes. I'd rather blaze through 3 books and get about 15% out of each book than meticulously take notes on 1 book. Chances are you're going to learn a lot more useful info in the same amount of time from the 3 book approach because when you're learning something new, getting to the 80% in the 80/20 rule is way more important than the fine details. Trying to learn that last 20% from any material is often futile too. Real world experience is going to be a much better teacher at that point.