People often ask how I learned to take notes the way I do. I really don't know! I've been drawing all my life and I doodled in class a lot - it helped me focus. When it came time to take some real notes, it seemed quite natural to illustrate them. So, from elementary school through grad school, I doodled my notes. When I discovered graphic recording, people said I was a natural. I'm not so sure about that - after all, I'd been practicing pretty much my whole life!
The picture above is my very first attempt at graphic recording, done on an 18"x24" piece of newsprint, while listening to a TED talk by Isaac Mizrahi. It was part of my master's project on visual thinking.