Express Your Knowledge: Active Note-Taking Course

Active Note-Taking is a self-paced course that teaches everything you need to break free from perfectionism and get rid of writer’s block, enabling you to craft notes that reflect YOUR knowledge, rather than mere highlights and quotes.

Unlike other courses that focus on teaching apps, we concentrate on breaking bad note-taking habits holding you back.

You’ll explore mindset shifts for self-expression, apply the methods that put these mindsets into practice, and leave with a map to support you in choosing the best method based on your time and objectives.

Is the Active Note-Taking course right for you?

1. Have you been considering taking notes for a while, but are unsure about the first step?

You are still looking around for the “best note-taking app” before you get started. You want to learn “the right way” before taking the first step.

In the meantime, you regret not having taken notes last week when you had an interesting idea you can’t quite remember now.

2. Have you begun taking notes, but find yourself stuck in simply copying and pasting other people's words?

You have tried writing your thoughts, but end up with a poor paraphrasing of what another person has said. In the end, you decide that their words explain the ideas better and it takes less work to just copy/paste.

When you look back, your notes don’t reflect YOUR knowledge. Instead, they reflect the ideas you would hope to know.. one day.

3. Have you been sitting down to write, but can’t come up with anything more than a paragraph?

You have decided to make note-taking a habit, but when it is time to write… nothing. You either stare at a blank page or you spend more time self-criticising every single thought that comes to mind than writing.

Hours have passed, you are tired, and yet you couldn’t come up with more than a single paragraph. You end up wondering whether this practice is worthy of your effort or if there is something wrong with you (there is nothing wrong with you, you just need the right method to support you 😊).

This course was developed to help you:

1. Break free from perfectionism

There is good perfectionism (that pushes you towards excellence) and there is maladaptive perfectionism (that paralyses you).

In this course, I teach you the mindset shifts you can do to break free from maladaptive perfectionism, and the methods you can use to convert these mindset shifts into action.

2. Capture your unique insights

If someone asks you to send them a portfolio explaining your expertise, you can’t send them a collection of quotes and highlights, right?

Instead, you will send a book you wrote, give a talk, write articles, or provide another form of content expressing your knowledge and demonstrating your expertise. Your notes are the birthplace for that portfolio. They are the place where you can capture your understanding of what you read and observe, and where you can make sense of the expertise that only exists within your mind.

In this course, we will forget highlights and quotes (for a moment) and focus only on helping you express yourself. You will be introduced to a series of methods you can use for knowledge capture and will leave with a map with the best method you can use depending on your time availability and self-expression goals.

3. Get rid of writer’s block

There are multiple types of writer's block and different reasons for each. In this course we will focus on eliminating 3 types:

• The Blank Page. When you stare at a blank page with too many things in mind but you don't know how to start writing.
• The Empty Mind. When you stare at a blank page because you believe you have nothing to say.
• The Infinite Loop. When you write for hours but can't produce more than a single paragraph (that you are still not happy about).

While also trying to minimise an extra one:

• The Attention Thief. When multiple things, including your thoughts, pull your attention apart.

Here is what is inside

When you purchase the Active Note-Taking self-paced course, you will receive access to the Prolific Researcher platform (in Mighty Networks) where you can get 2-year access to:

• Micro-lessons so you can squeeze learning around your free time. Individual lessons vary from 2 to 16 minutes.
• Different types of lessons:
  • Conceptual lessons, where I explain how the mindsets and methods work.
  • Reflective lessons, where you are invited to reflect on your practice.
  • Challenge accepted lessons, where we will explore your natural way of dealing with a note-taking challenge.
  • Do it with me lessons, where we put into practice a method for self-expression.

• 142 minutes of content so you can go through it all in less than 2h 30min.
• 6 mindsets to look out for.
• 11 methods you can use for different self-expression purposes.
• The Knowledge Capture Decision Framework, which you can use to choose the method that works best for you (see sneak peek at the image below).

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you provide video captions?

Yes, all videos contain automatically generated captions (English only).

Does this course teach how to organise our notes?

No. If your goal is to learn how to organise your notes, I suggest the Foundations of Idea Management bundle (which includes Active Note-Taking).

If you want a full PKM solution tailored for researchers, I suggest the Build Your Knowledge Portfolio bundle (which also includes Active Note-Taking).

What is the refund policy?

This course follows a 'no impulse buying' policy.

That means, if you happen to have purchased on an 'impulse' and regretted up to 5 days later. Let me know via contact@biancapereira.me and I will issue you a full refund.

No refunds are given after 5 days.

Do you provide lifetime access?

Is it my lifetime? Your lifetime? The course platform’s lifetime?

I don't like to promise "lifetime" access to anything because it is hard for me to envision when a product will be discontinued and vague for you at the time of purchase.

Instead, I prefer to provide a fixed date for access to the product. You will have access to this course for 2 years counting from the date of your purchase.

That means I commit I will provide you access for 2 years so you don’t need to care about it being discontinued. But also, in 2 years you most likely won’t need (or care) about this course anyway. You will have outgrown it already.