I happen to notice this in a class recently that I had the rare student - one that could take notes that seemed to have value to them the next day. If you watch people take notes, I think they fall into one of these categories:

• The Highlighter. They have a highlighter, often multiple ones of different colors, and they highlight aggressively, as far as I can tell using it to mark anything in writing that matches or reinforces anything spoken.
• The Writer. They write down everything that is said. Sometimes written, sometimes typing - all the same.
• The No-Noter. Most of the time they don't take notes because they know they'll get a document at the end, but often they just absorb what they can and don't worry about the rest.
• The Questioner. They write down things they don't understand - yet - so that they can think on it, and then decide if a follow up question (or research later) is needed.

I'm mildly judgmental about note taking, mainly because the trend we've seen is that the more they have their head down writing, the less they actually listen, and not unexpectedly, the less they listen the less they learn. We all learn differently, so I don't force people into taking or not taking notes, I just try to engage them with eye contact and conversation because I've always believed the biggest win in an attending a class is participating in a discussion, not just just watching slides and doing labs.

My own style you ask? For standard hour presentations I'm basically a No-Noter, if something really interesting pops up I'll jot a note on my for later, but I try to just relax and listen along at whatever pace they set. For classes I switch over to The Questioner. I've tried highlighting and it just doesn't help me. Definitely I don't want to try to write it all down, I find that a serious distraction, and tiring too.

Some of it is about how you learn, but my challenge to you today is to look over your last set of notes from a meeting, class, whatever - were they useful then? Are they useful now? Where they meant to be only be useful then (ok with me), or do you see them as long term documentation just for you? An interesting test is to imagine that after taking a class you return to the office and are asked to spend 15 minutes at a meeting talking about what you learned. Would you pull that from notes, or just from memory?

I don't have all the answers, heck, maybe not even the right questions, but now that I've thought about it beyond just the filter of how it affects me as a trainer I'm interested in finding out a little more, and that should be interesting.