Are you an effective listener? If you are like most adults, you probably answered “yes”. How would you rate your listening skills?

• excellent 

• very good 

• good 

• average 

• not very good 

• poor

Studies show that most people think of themselves as “good” or “very good” listeners. When asked to rate others, however, the same people often say those around them have “weak” listening skills. Clearly, these studies show that most people don’t listen as effectively as they think they do. Other studies show that people who are good listeners usually do well at work, and vice versa.

Have you ever felt that people just weren’t listening to you when you were trying to tell them something?

YES NO SOMETIMES

Do you find your mind wandering when you should be listening to something? Do you have trouble paying attention when someone speaks for any length of time?

YES NO SOMETIMES

Do you have trouble remembering things you’ve been told, like how to get someplace? Or how to do something?

YES NO SOMETIMES

If you answered “yes” or “sometimes” to any of these questions, you are like most other people. Some of your difficulty may come from the fact that you are not an auditory learner, but chances are the reason is a lot simpler. You have never had the chance to learn how to listen or to develop your listening skills. Listening skills are rarely taught, perhaps because it is so difficult to instruct people on what to do inside their heads, but there are definitely strategies you can use to improve your listening ability.

The rest of this module will suggest ways for you to develop your listening skills. With good listening skills, your life will be easier at home, at school, or in the workplace.

The Purpose of Listening

There is no doubt that effective listening is an extremely important life skill. Why is listening so important?

Listening serves a number of possible purposes, and the purpose of listening will depend on the situation and the nature of the communication.

1. To specifically focus on the messages being communicated, avoiding distractions and preconceptions.

2. To gain a full and accurate understanding into the speakers point of view and ideas.

3. To critically assess what is being said. 

4. To observe the non-verbal signals accompanying what is being said to enhance understanding.

5. To show interest, concern and concentration.

6. To encourage the speaker to communicate fully, openly, and honestly.

7. To develop an selflessness approach, putting the speaker first.

8. To arrive at a shared and agreed understanding and acceptance of both sides views.

Often our main concern while listening is to formulate ways to respond. This is not a function of listening. We should try to focus fully on what is being said and how it's being said in order to more fully understand the speaker.

Common Physical Barriers to Listening

These types of ineffective listening generally relate to patterns of thinking. However, there may also be physical barriers to listening.

These affect your physical ability to concentrate on a speaker and/or to hear their words or message. They include, but are not limited to:

• Too much noise around you. It can be hard to listen effectively if there is too much background noise. This can happen at a party, or in a crowded room, for example, but may also include having the television on in the background.

• Trying to listen to more than one conversation at a time. There is some overlap here with background noise, because it could include having the television or radio on while attempting to listen to somebody talk, being on the phone to one person and talking to another person in the same room, or simply trying to talk to two people at once.

• You are distracted by something else in your environment. Sadly, our brains are fairly fickle things, and easily distracted. A movement out of the window, or a stray thought, can derail listening. Your smartphone showing you a notification can be a major distraction—which is why it is advisable to put it away if someone wants to speak to you. Many people also find that they can distract themselves, for example, by doodling, or fiddling with something. However, for others, this can be a way of helping them to focus by distracting their hands, but not their brains.

• You find the communicator attractive or unattractive and you pay more attention to how you feel about them and their physical appearance than to what they are saying. This can also apply when someone has an accent: you may find yourself listening to the cadence, and not the words or meaning.

• You are not interested in the topic/issue being discussed and become bored. This rapidly leads to you becoming distracted and ceasing to pay attention.

• Feeling unwell or tired, hungry, thirsty or needing to use the toilet, too hot or too cold. Physical discomfort is a huge distraction. It is almost impossible to concentrate effectively when you feel uncomfortable in some way.

• Being stressed about something else that is happening in your life. When you have a lot going on in your life, it is much harder to calm your internal dialogue and simply listen to someone else.

• Being on the phone rather than speaking face-to-face. A considerable amount of communication is in body language and facial expression. You therefore have to concentrate much harder on the phone, to fully ‘hear’ the speaker’s message. When you are speaking on the phone, it may be helpful to emphasise your tone of voice more, to ensure that your message is clearly heard.

• If you don’t really understand what someone is saying, perhaps because of their choice of words, or because they have a strong accent. Under these circumstances, it is tempting to just ‘switch off’. However, instead, you should try to listen harder, and ask for clarification if you don’t understand.

Signs of Ineffective Listening

Signs of possible inattention while listening include:

• Lack of eye contact with the speaker. Listeners who are engaged with the speaker tend to give eye contact. Lack of eye contact can, however, also be a sign of shyness.

• An inappropriate posture, such as slouching, leaning back or ‘swinging’ on a chair, leaning forward onto a desk or table and/or a constantly shifting posture. People who are paying attention tend to lean slightly towards the speaker.

• Being distracted - fidgeting, doodling, looking at a watch, yawning.

• Inappropriate expressions and lack of head nods. Often when a listener is engaged with a speaker, they nod their head. This is usually an almost subconscious way of encouraging the speaker and showing attention. Lack of head nods can mean the opposite: that listening is not happening. The same can be true of facial expressions. Attentive listeners use smiles as feedback mechanisms and to show attention.

• Having a ‘faraway’ look may be a sign that someone is daydreaming.

However, it is important to be aware that these do not always follow. For example, sometimes people with specific learning difficulties such as autism may find it harder to maintain eye contact. Those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may use doodling or ‘fidget toys’ as a way to help them to concentrate.

You may also detect ineffective listening in other ways, and especially in how someone responds.

For example, a sudden change in topic is likely to be a sign of inattention. When a listener is distracted, they may suddenly think about something else that is not related to the topic of the speaker and attempt to change the conversation to their new topic. Jumping in with advice is also often a sign that someone is not properly listening, because it means that they have been thinking about how to respond, rather than taking the message on board.

The listening process begins with attending. This simply means telling your brain to (1) make a commitment to listen and (2) pay attention to what it hears. For example, if someone has a sure-fire method of picking lottery numbers, you will probably pay close attention. If, on the other hand, you are really hungry, you may not pay attention to the teacher’s lesson, but you will definitely hear the bell on the ice cream truck down the street. You can and do choose which sounds you will attend to, so with practice you can teach your brain to attend “on command”.

Because speakers use body language, gestures, and facial expressions as well as words to make their meaning clear, a large part of attending involves paying attention to these as well. Experts agree that you can often tell more about what a people mean from their actions as they speak than you can from the words they use.

The next step in the listening process is understanding. How well you understand depends on a lot of factors. Here are some of them:

• Is the message in a language you can understand?

• Do you understand the words (vocabulary)?

• Do you have a need for the information you are hearing? Is the message something you care about?

• Is the person speaking believable?

• Do you want to know what that person is saying?

• Do you agree with the person speaking?

• Do you have the same values as the person speaking?

Understanding only happens when the message your brain creates is very similar to the message that the speaker intended to send. For example, you are angry when a friend tells you that “John got a new car.” John owes you $500 and you think he should have paid you back before he went off and bought a brand new flashy sports car. Later, you discover that the “new car” was really his family’s old car, which they gave to him. Obviously your friend meant “new to John” not “new from the dealer”. Where did the misunderstanding come from? How could you (or the speaker) have avoided it?

Because communication is a two-way street, with messages going back and forth between the sender and receiver, your response to the speaker is also part of listening. Speakers use a listener’s response (feedback) to judge how accurately their message is being received. Feedback includes smiling, nodding, gesturing, leaning forward as well as asking questions to show your level of interest and understanding. It lets the speaker know that you are paying attention and whether you understand. When listeners look puzzled, a good speaker will repeat or rephrase the message until their faces show understanding. If listeners slouch and look bored, they show the speaker that they are not attending to the message or that they don’t care about it. When this happens, speakers often become angry or impatient, so they give up and part of the message goes unsent. These are the times when communications break down and misunderstandings (particularly in relationships) begin. The receiver must “work” to understand the message, and avoid misunderstandings.

EXERCISE
Experiment with the listening process by doing each of the following:

1. Listen to something new or unfamiliar like a science program or world news broadcast. Try your best to understand. Then write down three things you remember, even if you didn’t understand them.

2. Listen to a piece of classical (or some unfamiliar form) music. Can you hear individual notes? What emotions did you feel? What message did youvreceive? What do you think the composer intended you to feel?

3. Listen to a foreign language broadcast. Can you hear individual sounds? Can you hear words that sound like English words? What words did you hear? How long were you able to listen before you felt your attention drifting away?

4. Watch a video of a movie but start towards the end. Can you feel yourself “stretching” to grasp the meaning? What clues did you use to decide who the “good guys” were or to understand the relationship between two characters?

5. Go to coffee break or lunch with friends. Don’t say anything...just listen. What did you observe? How did you feel? Did your friends notice you weren’t talking? How did they react?

6. a) After listening to anything for 5 minutes, write down what you remember.
   b) Listen for another 5 minutes, but wait 2 or 3 hours before trying to write anything down.
   c) Right after you finish part (b), go back and read your notes from part (a). Write down anything else you “just” remembered.
   d) What conclusions can you come to about listening?
   

The last piece of the listening process has to do with remembering the message so that it will remain useful to you over time. In general, people remember only about half of what they have heard, even right after the message has been received. Within eight hours of receiving a message, only about 35% of it is remember, and that amount drops to 25% after two months, even for good listeners.12

Listening requires effort; it doesn’t just happen. Listeners must do something to transfer information into long term memory if they want it available later. How the listener chooses to remember depends on his/her learning style and specific needs.

A Non-listening

Non-listening takes place when receivers consciously or unconsciously decides not to “hear” anything at all. Their brains seem to simply stop processing sound waves and little or no meaning gets through. A friend could tell them the winning lottery numbers an hour before the draw, and it wouldn’t “register”. Non- listening has its uses, but far too often it is a “bad” habit that people fall into without meaning to. It happens when people stop listening for the wrong reasons. Here are some of the reasons why people “tune-out” when they should be listening.

•  The speaker is hard to understand. He/she slurs, mumbles, or has a speech problem.

• The speaker is not believable.

• The speaker is disorganized. The listener has found the ideas hard to follow.

• The speaker’s words don’t meet the listener’s needs.

• The listener doesn’t understand the vocabulary. The speaker uses too many unfamiliar or technical words.

•  The listener doesn’t understand the language well. The speaker is not using the listener’s first language.

• The listener is afraid of what he/she may hear.

• The listener is narrow-minded. The speaker’s words threatens a personal opinion.

• The listener is lazy or tired. Listening takes as much effort as physical activity.

• The listener is focused on him/herself and isn’t interested in anything else.

EXERCISE

1. List three situations when non-listening is a good idea.

2. List three situations when non-listening will get you in trouble.

3. Under what circumstances are you most likely to non-listen?

4. How would you get a non-listener’s attention?

5. Intentionally non-listen when a friend speaks. What happens?

Marginal Listening

Marginal listening is a little like skim reading. Listeners pay only enough attention to the sounds around them to “tune-in” when the messages are important and “tune-out” when that aren’t.

You need to “tune out” sounds that don’t affect you. For example, if you live near a railway track or under an airport approach, do you hear every train or plane that passes? When you are listening to the radio, do you listen to all the commercials or all of the news items? As a parent, do you focus on every sound your children make, or are you more likely to pay attention only to the silences, which usually signal that they are into something they should be doing?

When you work in a busy office or when you are studying, you need to block out distractions like children playing, TVs roaring, tires squealing, or fire sirens blaring, but you may need to hear the phone ring so you can find out when to pick up your spouse. You probably already do a lot of marginal listening without thinking about it.

Marginal listening means “keeping your ears open” for key words or sounds that will tell you when to start listening and paying attention. For instance, although parents always hear their child crying, they often only pay attention to crying that signals pain or fear. You may not hear what is on the radio until the station plays a particular tune or sounds to signal the start of news and/or weather reports. Effective listeners adapt these natural “filtering” skills until they are able to “filter” out what they don’t need and accurately identify what they want to attend to.

As well, they know how to focus their attention and listen even when

• they don’t agree with the speaker’s opinion?

• they are tired? hungry? frustrated? angry?

• their personal problems overwhelm you?

• they think something will be too difficult for them? they encounter new ideas?

• they think a topic, like history, classical music, etc. is boring or “stupid”?

Good listeners (and learners) never tune out automatically. They always make sure that the messages they decide to ignore are only those that are not important to them.

EXERCISE

1. When is marginal listening a good idea? A bad idea?

2. If you were listening marginally to someone, what would you do to make him/her think that you were really paying careful attention? Is it a good idea to pretend to listen? Why? Why not?

3. Listen to the radio for at least half an hour while you are doing something else. Does your attention fade in and out? What made you start listening carefully? When did you tune out? How might know this help you learn to study better?

4. What do you do to make yourself pay attention to the radio (TV), when it’s really important?

5. Play the TV while you are doing something else. Count the number of commercials in half an hour. Count the number of different characters who appear in a half hour.

6. How many times in a day do you find yourself listening marginally?

Attentive Listening

Attentive listening means listening with a purpose. This is the kind of listening to do when you have decided to pay attention because you need the informatioPerhaps you are at a lecture on how to use the Internet, or maybe you are listening to a friend tell you how to get to someplace special. Once you have decided that the message is important to you, you focus your attention fully on everything the speaker says and does. Attentive listening is really just concentrating on the what you hear and using all your energy to understand the message. It takes place when you are listening to instructions, lectures, explanations, directions, or anything you need to remember.

EXERCISE
Arrange to watch or listen to a half hour news broadcast at the same time every day for at least two weeks. Try to concentrate and stay tuned-in for the whole time. Every time your mind wanders put a check mark on a piece of paper and then tell yourself to refocus and start paying attention. Keep a separate record for each day. After a week, tally the results and prepare a bar chart. Did your attention span increase over the week? Make another chart after two weeks. Did you see any improvement? Why?

Critical Listening*

Critical listening is really a part of attentive listening. It takes place when you are looking for correct and accurate information. Not everything you hear or everyone you listen to provides accurate messages, so the listener has to judge or evaluate both the speaker and the message before deciding to accept or reject it. Good listeners need to develop strategies to help them evaluate what they listen to.

Critical listening skills are helpful many times during every day. When you are shopping for a new car, you need to decide how much of what the salesperson tells you is fact, what is opinion, what is exaggerated, and which details are not being presented. When a friend tells you that your blind date has a terrific personality, you need to judge his/her words. Is it his/her way of saying the person doesn’t look like a magazine model? Is it true because your friend knows that personality is important to you? When someone is talking about a co-worker or classmate, you need to decide how much is true, how much is wishful thinking, or how much is revenge or jealousy. You even need to listen critically to the information you hear in class. Does what you are hearing match what you have read/heard somewhere else? Does it seem realistic and sensible?

* The word “critical” does not necessarily mean finding fault with something. It means evaluating the speaker and the message to see if it is a true message and one that applies to you.

Much of what you listen to every day is designed to persuade you to change your mind or act in a certain way. Commercials coax you to buy a new laundry detergent or try a particular brand of soft drink. Motivational speakers try to get you to change the way you live or to buy into a “guaranteed” money-making scheme. Friends present arguments to make you join their church, move to a different location, or participate in a group activity. You need to listen critically so you can separate the facts from the persuasion.

Persuasion is often the speaker’s goal. As a listener, it is your responsibility to evaluate the speaker’s truthfulness and motivation as well as understand and evaluate the accuracy of his/her message before you act.

To be a critical listener, you should

1. Decide whether the speaker has the experience and knowledge to give the correct information.

2. Decide whether the speaker is impartial.

3. Decide if the speaker’s sources and facts are reliable.

4. Decide whether there is enough information to make a good decision.

5. Decide whether the speaker’s reasoning is accurate and logical.

Exercise

1. Listen to at least three commercials. List the facts you hear. List all the persuasive words and images in the commercial. (You may want to tape the commercials so that you can watch them several times.)

2. Listen to a coffee break conversation. How much of it is fact? How much is opinion? How important is it to the speaker that you agree with him/her?

3. Create a situation where a professional salesman is trying to sell you something. Listen critically to his/her sales pitch. How much is fact? How much is exaggerated? How much is opinion? How much of the pitch is based on getting you emotionally involved?

Appreciative Listening

The word appreciate means to grasp the quality or significance of something and is often used to mean the ability to understand, enjoy or admire the excellence of something. Often appreciative listening relates to music or literature. It involves both attentive and critical listening as well as open-mindedness. When you are listening to appreciate something, you are really cooperating with the person presenting the message and allowing their words (or music) to create a mood or image they have in their heads enter your mind.

1. Have a positive attitude about what you are going to hear.

In general, attentive listening is easy if you are interested in, or need, the information. If, however, you decide it will be too difficult, boring, or doesn’t relate to you, listening attentively will be difficult. The first step to listening attentively is to talk yourself into a positive attitude before you start listening. Your brain is both your best ally and worst enemy. If you have a negative attitude, your brain will automatically pay less attention. No matter how hard you try to listen, your brain will actually prevent you from absorbing and understanding. On the other hand, if you are positive, your brain will help you listen with less effort and remembering will be easier. If you have a “yes, I can” attitude, your brain will make sure you do listen and learn.

2. Make a commitment to listen attentively.
Just as in other kinds of learning, you must decide that you are going to listen carefully and focus on the speaker’s words. If you have even a whisper of a doubt in your mind about whether you are going to listen, you will find your mind wandering and you will end up doing marginal listening instead of paying full attention.

3. Be physically fit. Listening is actually a physical activity just like running, walking, or exercising. When you listen attentively your heart rate increases, your respiration speeds up, and your temperature rises. You can increase your listening abilities by simply making sure that you are physically fit.

4. Be Alert. If you are tired, your body simply doesn’t have the resources to listen and understand effectively. When there is something you want to know or learn, make sure to get a good night’s sleep before you expose yourself to the information.

5. Eat Smart. Eat a little bit before you go into a listening session from which you need to get information. If you try to listen right after a big meal, your body will be diverting energy to digestion and leaving little for concentration. After a big meal, your body naturally wants to sleep, so you may fall asleep in class after a big meal with lots of sweets? On the other hand, make sure you are not hungry. Hunger will also distract you and keep you from paying full attention.

6. Be comfortable. Find a seat that is comfortable to sit in. Don’t be too warm or too cold. Sit where you can hear well and see the speaker clearly. In a classroom or lecture situation, sit in the front of the room. The closer you are to the speaker, the more likely you are to pay attention because you feel that the speaker can see you and will notice if you fall asleep or if your attention wanders. Those people who sit in the back have usually already made a decision that they aren’t really interested and don’t intend to listen. They may talk, eat, fidget...all things that will distract your attention.

Be an active listener. Make regular eye contact with the speaker. This helps you pay attention and concentrate. It also gives the speaker the feedback he/she needs. Sit up straight and even lean forward a little. This is part of making a commitment to listen. With this posture, you are telling yourself and the speaker that you intend to listen. It also means that you are more likely to remember.

Listen to the Whole Message Before Making a Judgement. Don’t jump to conclusions. Listen critically to everything the speaker says before making an decisions or taking any actions.

Paraphrase As you listen, put the speaker’s ideas into your own words. This makes sure that you understand what is being said. It also makes the ideas your own. If you can paraphrase what a speaker says it means you understand. Your brain can only use and store information that makes sense to you in your own words.

Concentrate 

Focus on the details you are hearing and work to keep your mind from wandering by simply telling yourself “listen to this”. Concentrating 100% of the time is difficult for anyone, but you can work to increase your concentration. As you listen to something, simply place a check mark on a piece of scrap paper every time you find your attention has wandered. At the end of the presentation, count the number of check marks. Just making a check mark acts as a reminder to listen and refocus on the message. Soon, your brain will catch itself daydreaming and, through practice, will automatically put you back on track.

Concentrating means listening to the whole message before you act. When you are trying to follow oral instructions, it is often tempting to try to do each step as it is given. This rarely works because you have to shift your attention away from the words you are hearing to the activities you are trying to perform. Listen to the whole set of instructions first.  

Remove Distractions.

Small things can eat away at your ability to concentrate: a ticking clock, a pile of unfinished laundry, the telephone, a wobbly desk. When you find your attention wandering, identify the thing that distracted your attention and do something about it.

12. Learn to Block Out Distractions

Some distractions can’t be removed, so you must learn to live with them. With practice and a commitment to listen, you can learn to block out the unimportant sounds around you just as easily as you block out the sounds of heavy traffic or household noises.

Be Prepared.
In a formal listening situation, prepare yourself to listen by reading and thinking about the topic before you arrive. Do as much as you can to learn specific vocabulary and concepts before you start to listen, so that you don’t have to waste time and energy understanding the basics.

Listen for Main Ideas

Well-prepared lectures, lessons, and oral presentations are designed to make listening easier. The introduction should contain the main idea and purpose in a clear thesis statement. For instance, “Spousal abuse, whether it is physical or psychological, robs everyone involved. Its effects fan out from the act itself like ripples in a pond causing lasting harm to everything and everyone
it touches. Understanding its widespread effects is the first step to eliminating it.” Listen for these and focus on them. The main idea will probably be restated several times during the presentation. Each time you hear it, use it to refocus your attention.

Listen for major headings

The introduction of an oral presentation will also probably include a “blueprint” statement which clearly outlines the major points the speaker will cover. Here’s an example: “Spousal abuse reaches out and changes forever the life of not only the abused individual, but also those of the abuser, the immediate family, the extended family, and the whole community.” Remember these major headings as you listen, and mentally tick them off as the speaker deals with each one in turn.

Listen for numbered lists

Effective speakers understand that listening can be more challenging than reading, so they use strategies to help the listeners keep track of the information they are presenting. In the presentation on spousal abuse, the speaker might say, “Spousal abuse strikes at least FIVE targets. The FIRST and most obvious is....” A SECOND major loser in this domestic tragedy is....” “Perhaps the MOST TRAGIC CASUALTIES in these situations are the children.” “THE FOURTH IMPORTANT GROUP of victims are....” “THE FIFTH AND LAST, but by no means least affected, is ....”

Listen for repetition.

One thing that makes listening more difficult than reading is the fact that the listener can’t go back and review or reread the material. For this reason, a good speaker includes lots of repetition of the main points and important details. When introducing major headings, the speaker may actually say, “The abuser and the abused are definitely victims, but perhaps the most tragic victims in these situations are the children.” Listening for these repetitions not only helps you remember the major points, but also helps the listener keep track of where the speaker is in his/her overall speech.

Listen for transitions and other structural devices.

Transitions like “however”, “in addition”, or “on the other hand” act like sign posts to show the listener where the speaker is going next. Sections of an oral presentation can be highlighted with words like “Let’s review what we know so far.” or “Before continuing, an investigation of some side issues is in order.” or “In conclusion”.

Pay attention to visuals.

Charts, graphs, overheads, props or anything you can see have an important place in oral presentations. They help you understand the main ideas and visualize the importance of details like statistics. As well, they can act as a mnemonic that will make it easier for you to remember. Visuals are included to help you understand. Be sure to make full use of them as you listen or speak.

Pay attention to the speaker’s voice.
Speakers use their voices to underline important words, phrases, or sections of their presentation. The voice sends about 30% of the actual message. When the speaker speaks slowly, the information is usually important. Pauses allow the listeners to gather their thoughts and review what has been said. As well, presenters add emotion to their speeches with pitch and tone. It is particularly important to pay attention to these when the presentation is persuasive. Be aware that the speaker may use his/her voice to get an emotional response from you and to make you more open to persuasion.

Watch the speaker’s body language, gestures, facial expressions.

Textbooks on communications suggest that as much as 50% of any oral message is sent with body language. Learn to watch for gestures, facial expressions, and posture as you listen. They cannot only tell you a lot about the speaker’s truthfulness, enthusiasm, and expertise, but they can also act as a memory aid. In other words, “listen between the lines” to get the full meanin

Ask Questions.
To listen successfully, the listener needs to understand the message being sent clearly. If you don’t understand, or even if you just feel “fuzzy”, ask the speaker for more information or clarification. Don’t give up until YOU do understand. Some people feel uncomfortable asking questions, particularly in a group situation, for fear they may look “stupid”. Work to get rid of this notion! There is no such thing as a “stupid” question. If you have a question, it’s probably because the speaker didn’t meet your learning needs. Think of yourself first and ask for the information YOU need. You will soon discover that in most casesmany people had the same need for information or clarification that you did, but they were just afraid to ask, so you will be doing everyone a service.

Listen critically.

Select what is important in any message. Filter out your own (or the speaker’s) anger, hostility, fatigue. Evaluate the believability and accuracy of the message by thinking about the speaker’s experience, knowledge, and motives as well as the logic, supports, and statistics of the content. Keep an open mind and don’t jump to conclusions or make a final judgement until you’ve listened to the whole presentation. Pay attention to what is left out as well as what is included. Sometimes people are persuasive because they omit the negative details.  

Make Notes
Taking notes while someone is speaking is a skill that requires lots of practice because it is easy to get so involved in writing that you stop listening for minutes at a time. When you finally do tune-in again, you may have missed some really important facts or concepts. Here are some tips:
Don’t try to write every word. Record mostly main ideas, major headings, important supports, dates, and statistics.
Use the “empty” moments to make your notes. Speakers deliver words at

about 120 words a minute, but your brain works two or three times faster than that. Often you can predict what the speaker will say next, so once you’re sure where the speaker is going with a thought, you can make a quick note. If some of the material is familiar to you or you already grasp a concept well, use these moments for recording other important ideas.

Develop your own short hand symbols like $ for dollars or money; ( for positive or good; ~ for important; for future, toward, to, direction; a for past, yesterday, from; : for now, today. For words that you write often create your own symbols like ¶ for paragraph; L for required, necessary; È for with; Í for what; Ñ for not, never, don’t.

Use short forms where possible and develop your own abbreviations like “imp” for important; “ing” for ingredients; “ss” for small; “bb” for big, large. Rewrite your notes immediately after a presentation. Because you are using short forms and abbreviations, your notes may be next to meaningless if you leave them in this form too long. Rewrite them in longer form while your memory of the presentation is still clear. Add details, facts and explanations to your point form lists as soon as possible. Rewriting your notes in greater detail serves several purposes. First, it ensures that your notes will be meaningful days or weeks later. Second, it takes advantage of your short term memory. Third, writing is an effective way for many people to learn new materials. Fourth, it acts as a review and helps place the information in your long term memory.

Review What You’ve Listened to within 2 to 3 hours...then daily or weeklyç.
Listening is like any other form of learning: “Use it, or lose it.” To be useful, review information regularly so all of it will be available when you want it.