We have been through various tips on how to take notes in previous posts like Note taking tips for students, note taking tips and 3 Highly Effective Note Taking Techniques. But we have not specified the medium on which notes are to be written on.

The classical note taking medium is paper. Paper note taking is still one of the most common methods used to take notes even though it has several disadvantages.

What are the disadvantages of taking notes on paper?

1. Before you start taking notes on paper you have to know the structure of how your notes will look like. If you don’t, you will end up putting stars and gotos in your notes to include stuff between previously written notes.

2. It is not easy to correct mistakes when it has been written on paper.

3. Writing down notes on paper is slower than typing.

4. You cannot add, modify and/or structure your notes differently later on.

5. Searching through your notes requires you to go through all papers one by one looking for the particular note you want.

6. Notes can be easily lost or misplaced.

7. Taking backup copies of paper notes costs money, is slow, and doesn’t make mother nature happy.

I am sure that you experienced such difficulties while taking notes in various situations but you may not know that there is a very easy and clean solution to these problems - the solution is called note taking software. More on this in future posts.

In the mean time feel free to share your difficulties with note taking, disadvantages of paper note taking, and wish list for a note taking software in the comments below.