I have a love-hate relationship with note taking. I love it when I have a system for storing, filing and retrieving the information. I hate note-taking, when I know my notes will end up in a notebook or pile of other notes that will never be referenced. Lifehacker’s Gina Trapini summarizes a few methods for taking great notes and making your notes more usable in her latest post, Geek to Live: Take Great Notes

A Summary:

Method 1: Symbolize the next action

Using notepaper or a simple text file on your laptop or tablet, indent the pages of your notes in from the left margin. Then, use a simple system of symbols to mark off 4 different information types in the column space left in the margin.

* [ ] A square checkbox denotes a to do item
* ( ) A circle indicates a task to be assigned to someone else
* * An asterisk is an important fact
* ? A question mark goes next to items to research or ask about

After the meeting, a quick vertical scan of the margin area makes it easy to add tasks to your to do list and calendar, send out requests to others, and further research questions. (This method is the brainchild of Michael Hyatt, someone who clearly has mastered the art of attending meetings.)

Method 2: Split your page into quadrants

Another way to visually separate information types is to split your note-taking page into quadrants and record different kinds of information - like questions, reference and todo’s - into the separate areas on the page. Rumor has it this is how Bill Gates - someone known for taking amazingly detailed meeting notes - gets it done.

Method 3: Record and summarize - Use The Cornell Note-taking Method to divide your notes into independent sections to make information retrieval easy.