(I added explanation of my indexing in previous comment.) Ditch cursive if you're still writing in it. Pick up a $4 copy of "The Italic Way to Beautiful Handwr

(I added explanation of my indexing in previous comment.) Ditch cursive if you're still writing in it. Pick up a $4 copy of "The Italic Way to Beautiful Handwriting." Remind yourself that the purpose of the notes is to off-load the work of long-term memory from your brain until you have mastered your understanding of whatever you're working on. That's all. Beautiful things are things you publish and we don't publish books full of nothing but notes, no one else will bother reading them unless you die famous. E.g. http://www.englishcompanion.com/pdfDocs/davincinotes.pdf http://www.englishcompanion.com/pdfDocs/davincinotes.pdf Most of us will not die famous, so you shouldn't worry about your notes being beautiful. Davinci's notes aren't especially "polished," that isn't why he made them. Also, (from the pdf that reminded me), leave yourself some white space for future communications with yourself as seen in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Notes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Notes