Re-Write Your Notes! My #1 tip to retain what you learn and apply it IRL

Hi, friends and fellow Bible nerds! I don’t know about you, but this time of year gives me the urge to buy all the cute stationery and notebooks and just take all the notes. Even though I’m not a student right now, the love of learning is something that will never go away for me. But when it comes to Scripture-based learning, how do we remember and apply what we’ve learned? Today, I’m sharing my absolute #1 tip to do just that. Hope you enjoy!

Why re-write your notes?

After a lifetime of going to church and camp, and studying the Bible on my own, I have notebooks upon notebooks of sermon and Bible study notes. While they all have value to me, most of them never get flipped through or looked back on. There’s so much wisdom and truth that I gleaned months or years ago that I have limited access to now because it’s all scattered to the four corners of my house!

That’s where re-writing notes comes in! I’ll give you an example: in the summer of 2021 (May-July), while working at a Christian camp, I filled three different notebooks with sermon/teaching notes, my own personal study, and daily journaling. That’s over three hundred pages, most of which contained my own momentary thoughts, which I didn’t need to look back on quite as much. But interspersed within each of my journals were some valuable lessons that I wanted to remember. So, over the course of the weeks at camp and following months, I started copying down those notes into a single book. Now, that book lives within reach on my desk, and it has become a valuable resource for me even years later.

See what I’m saying? Here’s a concrete list of reasons to re-write your notes, especially those which contain Scripture-based learning or teaching:

• Consolidate all your sources. Re-writing your notes gives you a single resource that you can fill with months or even years of learning from many different sources. It also gives you an opportunity to connect and compare what one teacher or commentator has said to the insight of another teacher or source. What a great way to constantly add to your understanding of the Word!
• Re-engage and meditate (chew on) the Word. Psalm 1 says that those whose “delight is in the law of the LORD” and who meditate on His law day and night, are blessed. The word meditate has the idea of a cow, who digests food FIVE different times before fully consuming it! Kind of gross, but it’s a cool idea when it comes to the Word. Coming back to your notes gives you an opportunity to bring the things you’ve learned back to mind, letting the Holy Spirit teach you more about them each time.
• Consider the truthfulness of what you’re taught and add commas to your learning. As believers, it’s important to bring each new idea that’s presented to us before the Lord and ask Him if it aligns with the Truth of His Word. Looking back and not just reading, but also re-writing, your sermon or study notes gives you the opportunity to discern when a teacher or commentator’s words might not fully align with an accurate interpretation of Scripture. and many times, it also gives you the opportunity to explore and study further!

My favorite tools and techniques for re-writing notes

Since I started studying the Bible for myself in 2017, I’ve developed a system for taking and re-taking notes that really works well for me. All you need for this technique is four pens and a notebook or journaling Bible, but you can use even less or much more if you’d like! Here’s how I use my favorite notetaking tools:

• A black pen for taking the majority of my notes, mostly details and supporting elements
• A blue pen for writing down scripture references
• A pen in my favorite color (lavender) for writing down my own personal thouughts, questions, and reflections
• and a pen in any color for making main points and headings stand out

These four elements are pretty well consistent across all of my journals, and they make it so easy to read and engage with my notes later on. I highly recommend this technique for anyone who wants to remember and apply what they’ve learned from Scripture IRL.

The other thing that I highly recommend for re-writing your notes is to take your time. Take multiple sittings if you need to. Make your handwriting look consistent if that’s what makes you happy (but don’t forget to keep the main thing the main thing!). I also love to leave a little margin on the left side of each page to give space for later-on thoughts and connections with other sources or teachers. It’s so cool to see how different passages or writers connect with each other!

Conclusion

To wrap up this post, here’s a look at some early-morning Bible study notes I took at camp in 2021 and the notes I re-wrote just the other day:

To put it simply, I cannot recommend this technique of re-writing your notes more. It helps you consolidate, re-engage, and expand your learning, which leads to remembering, meditating on, and applying Scripture in real, real life.

Have you ever tried re-writing your sermon or Bible study notes? How did it go?

Happy studying!