monstermceldritch's blog

How Do Y'all Feel About Note Taking
By monstermceldritch, history, 14 months ago, In English

I've often heard the advice that you should take notes after any difficult problems, writing down the Eureka that helped you solve it, or even after learning anything new in general. However, I personally struggle immensely with actually taking down notes, so I wonder what other, more experienced programmers' experience is with note-taking. Do you actually find it helps you maintain your knowledge and keep track of important points, or is it unnecessary in your opinion? Primarily, I want to know if it's worth it to push through my difficulties and force myself to take notes. Importantly, I'm not talking about writing in general--I'm well aware of the usefulness of thinking through a problem with pen and paper. I'm specifically asking about note-taking for future review or even just for the boost to memory you get by writing it down (etc. etc.).

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14 months ago, hide # |
 
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I never do this.

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14 months ago, hide # |
 
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Maybe it's useful but I'm too lazy for that LOL.

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14 months ago, hide # |
 
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I would say that it has helped me overall, though I dont write long notes after solving nice problems, i just write the smart idea or intuition in the problem and try to generalise it on paper, writing a clear one-liner for when it may be useful.

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14 months ago, hide # |
 
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I write down the problem name/link + algorithm name (if there is).

Usually just 1~3 sentences.

When I master the problem, I remove it from my notes.

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14 months ago, hide # |
 
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I don't think I ever did this, partially because I often don't know how I came up with a solution.

Something I recently started doing, though, is write editorials for some (easy) problems (You can find them here). I'm not sure if it helped me get better at problem solving, but it certainly helped me improve explaining some topics that I might find trivial to others.

When solving a problem from an educational resource such as CSES, ask yourself "What was this problem aim to teach me?". Every problem in such resources is meant to teach you something — an algorithm, a technique or just a small trick. Only write it down if that helps you remember it.

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