Taking notes while learning is two things — noting down interesting points and free-writing where I’m just writing down what I’ve learnt.
Write drunk, edit sober. You can always remove stuff after writing it down, but once forgotten, it’s hard to remember again. I’ve probably deleted 99% of my notes because they were irrelevant later. But in the moment, they were important.
No notes will matter if you don’t go back to them. So, being choosy has a higher probability of you getting excited about noting and also reading them again.
Jotting is very personal, and probably no one but me would understand what it means. And it is generalized; unless you know what it means and where to use it, it’s easy to misinterpret it (just like any holy book).
With the internet, noting down facts is unnecessary. However, the reason to remember the facts should be written down which acts as a cue to either remember or re-search for the information.
Therefore from (2) and (3), Jotting should also include ideas of where to use the concept learnt, real or imaginary.
Free-writing can be useful for both mapping the territory and to see which places haven’t been covered. In that sense, it’s great for checking what you know and also the areas which you might not be clear about.
Since it’s the map of the entire territory you care about, it can overlap with what others care about too, especially if it’s the basics since basics in a field are common to many.