Being brought up with the formal education has its perks. Taking notes is a norm for me, since I tend not to be able to remember everything I read the first time. I used to hate it when people wrote in my books, even the textbooks. Now I realised how much it helps to highlight the key points. Copying these points down into a notebook helps to drive the point in further.
Taking notes is only the first step. Going back and reviewing these notes is a major step that was important to me. After reading several books, I realised that I have some of these notebooks lying around, however I have already forgotten the lessons from these books. Reviewing the notes is the next important step in helping me remember and to remind me of lessons I have learnt. It also helped me to identify important takeaways from the books which I have yet to implement. Sometimes, the gems of the books are overwhelmed by the vast amount of information, I just had to re-discover them.
My method of taking notes;
1) Read through the chapter and highlight key notes
2) Review the chapter, jot down notes. Summarise the key points
3) Review key notes and re-write onto notebook.
The last step may sound like a redundant step, but I find that it helps me to commit more to memory