Build a template before you walk in

Most students lose more time deciding how to take notes than actually taking them. Ten minutes of preparation the night before removes that hesitation entirely. Create one template in your note-taking app or paper notebook and reuse it for every lecture: a title line with the module code, the date, the lecture number and the topic, followed by two or three blank heading slots for the themes you expect to cover.

If your lecturer publishes slides in advance, paste the slide titles in as headings before the session begins. You arrive with a skeleton and spend the hour filling it in rather than writing a title while the room is still settling. It also means your attention — and your battery — go on listening rather than formatting, which matters in a two-hour session.

• Title line: module code, date, lecture number, topic.
• Headings: three or four main themes, ideally matching the slide deck.
• Action line: a space at the bottom for questions to raise in the tutorial.

Write short sentences, not transcripts

The instinct in a fast lecture is to type everything. Resist it. A transcript is exhausting to produce, impossible to skim and usually incomplete anyway. Aim for short, declarative sentences that capture the idea rather than the wording. If a point needs three lines, write one line and add a bullet underneath with the example or the formula.

Short sentences have a practical advantage: you can read them at speed six weeks later. When you are revising, you want to scan a page and see ten clear statements, not a wall of prose. If you miss something, write [gap – check slide 12] and keep moving. Chasing a lost sentence down a rabbit hole costs you the next five minutes of the lecture.

Note-taking on a laptop is quickest when you learn a handful of shortcuts and use them without thinking: bold for key terms, a bullet shortcut, and a search shortcut. Practise them during a quiet week so they are automatic when the pressure is on.

Keep your formatting consistent every single time

Consistency is what makes notes searchable. Decide on a small set of rules in week one and never break them:

• Headings for each major theme, written as short noun phrases.
• Bold for terms your lecturer repeats or spells out — these are usually exam favourites.
• Bullets for lists, steps and comparisons.
• Indented bullets for examples, case studies and references to reading.
• A consistent marker such as Q: for anything you did not understand.

Colour is best used sparingly, and only if it carries meaning. One colour for definitions, for instance, and one for anything the lecturer says will appear in the exam. If everything is highlighted, nothing is.

Tag, date and file so you can find things later

A note you cannot find is a note you did not take. Save each lecture in a folder named for the module, and start every file name with the date in a year-month-day format so the folder sorts itself chronologically. Add two or three tags per lecture: the module code, the topic, and a broad theme such as methods or case-law.

This is where a laptop genuinely earns its place. Search across a whole semester in seconds, jump straight to a term, and pull matching notes from three different modules into one revision document. Keep a backup running — most operating systems and note apps have a free sync option — so a dropped bag or a spilt coffee in the library does not cost you a term's work. Charge overnight, carry your charger in your bag, and keep your notes synced rather than stored on one device alone.

Review before tutorials and exams

Notes are raw material, not a finished product. The week after each lecture, spend ten minutes tidying: fill the gaps from the slides, delete anything you no longer need, and turn your Q: markers into questions for the seminar tutor. That small habit turns an hour of typing into something you can actually use.

Before a tutorial, read only the headings and bold terms for that topic. You will be surprised how quickly the argument comes back. Before an exam, go a step further and build a one-page summary per topic: the headings become the structure, the bullets become the detail, and the short sentences you wrote in the lecture become the sentences you write in the exam hall.

None of this requires a special setup. A reliable laptop, a comfortable keyboard, a decent pair of headphones for recorded lectures and a charging cable you always carry will do more for your notes than any premium upgrade. Start with the template today, keep your formatting consistent, and your future self — sitting in a revision week with too much to do — will thank you.