For the past twenty years, the Cornell Notes note-taking system has been my go-to method for taking paper notes. I've continually yearned to incorporate these principles into my digital note-taking journey but with some hesitation on its necessity and applicability.
Firstly, you might wonder why there was a need for it. Given that this note-taking protocol was birthed in the 50s, is it still relevant today? Well, it's easy to associate 'old' with 'obsolete automatically', but that would be short-sighted. The truth is that this note-taking strategy has endured the test of time, earning the affection of countless note-makers.
If Cornell Notes is new to you, I encourage you to peruse my previously written article “From Paper to Pixel: Mastering the Cornell Note-Taking Method in the Digital Age”.
Secondly, I questioned the compatibility of Cornell Notes with contemporary digital note-taking platforms. However, I realized I was mistaken. The essence of Cornell Notes lies in its capacity to foster better note-taking habits that enhance comprehension and retention. It creatively employs cues and summaries, ensuring they visually stand out in your notes—something entirely feasible in the digital realm.
To put these insights into practice, I created the Cornell Notes Learning Vault. Initially, I was skeptical about its reception, but much to my surprise, it stirred up notable interest.
Already the feedback from its early users has been overwhelmingly positive. Based on their feedback, I've released Update #2 and am eager to share what's new in the Cornell Notes Learning Vault.
Summaries at the top
Cornell Notes encourages you to distill the essence of your notes into a summary of bullet points, serving as a helpful memory aid. Traditionally, these summaries are placed in a designated box towards the end of the document.
Recently
made an intriguing suggestion: What if we placed these summaries at the top of the note instead? Could this be a fresh, modern twist to summary creation?Encouraged by this notion, I decided to experiment. I was astonished at the practicality of this innovative summary approach within Obsidian.
This exploration eventually culminated in a new style of summarizing added to the Cornell Notes Learning Vault, as illustrated in the image below:
This slight adjustment positions the summary at center stage, automatically making it the first thing your eyes land on. As demonstrated in the example, I've utilized a Cornell Notes “summary” to outline quarterly goals for a new product in development, highlighting the overall objectives as the most crucial aspect of the document.
Naturally, if one prefers, the conventional summary type that appears at the document's bottom can still be used as the following image demonstrates:
And for those adventurous souls among us, don't worry—you can use both summary types in the same document!
Printing (or Export to PDF)
In Obsidian, to print a Markdown file, the 'Export to PDF' command is typically used, creating a printable PDF document.
Although printing isn't a frequent activity in my routine, I realize now that it was a significant omission not to support printing Cornell Notes cues in the margins. This came to light promptly through numerous user requests.
Keeping this feedback in mind, I'm thrilled to announce that now, with the Cornell Notes Learning Vault CSS Snippets, you can arrange for cues to appear in either the left or right margin. This entirely depends on how you configure your Markdown file.
The following image demonstrates cues in the left margin of a PDF document created by Obsidian from a Markdown file.
Even though I rarely print, I've started printing documents or sending PDFs more often since adding this feature. I owe a huge thanks to my fellow Cornell Notes enthusiasts for this insightful suggestion.
and a few other things
With this update, I also made numerous bug fixes to the CSS stylesheets and a few of the templates.
I hope you enjoy this update, and more updates will come as I get more feedback.
A detailed breakdown of this update can be found in the changelog.