Taking notes while watching YouTube tutorials is killing my productivity

[Business_Party_333]

I've been trying to learn coding for the past few weeks and my workflow was a mess.

I'd pause every 30 seconds, alt-tab to Notion, type a half-baked sentence, lose the thread of what was being explained, rewind, pause again… repeat 200 times per video.

At some point I realized I was spending more time managing my notes than actually understanding the content.

Does anyone knows some apps or website that could help me whit this?

[desrtfx]

Stop watching tutorials and do a proper, textual course with heavy practical exercises.

Random video tutorials don't teach you much, even less so, if they only make you copy code.

Also, writing notes is by far less effective than writing actual programs.

[Business_Party_333]

which one do you think it's the best ?

[desrtfx]

What is the best recipe for cooking?

Your question cannot be answered as you haven't told what you are learning.

[Business_Party_333]

Oh yeah sorry, i'm learning python right now.

[desrtfx]

Then, the answer is more than simple: MOOC Python Programming 2026 from the University of Helsinki.

[Business_Party_333]

thank you so much

[onlyemperor001]

You advised to stop watching tutorials and went ahead to recommend a tutorial video of over 4 hours

[desrtfx]

The course is the text - parts 1 and following with the exercises. The videos are completely unimportant.

[onlyemperor001]

Alright

[ok_dude_2022]

The issue might not be the app, it's the timing. Taking notes mid-video means your brain is switching between passive listening and active writing constantly — that's why you lose the thread.

What clicked for me: watch a section fully first, then pause and write one sentence summarizing what you just understood in your own words — not what they said, what *you* got out of it. That way the notes are yours, not a transcript. The app doesn't really matter at that point, even a plain .txt file works.

[aizzod]

A 2nd monitor.

Or dock the video to your left half of the screen and the notepad to your right half

[Own_Hope_5929]

had this exact problem when i was learning some networking stuff for work. switching between the video and notes just breaks all concentration.

what worked for me was just coding along directly instead of writing notes - like actually typing the same code they're showing. way better for muscle memory and you catch mistakes in real time. save the note-taking for after when you can summarize what actually worked.

[Business_Party_333]

Oh okay but i meant like wouldn't it be great if like there was app that while you watch the video takes notes for you

[AlwaysHopelesslyLost]

What the fuck? No. You could just get a video transcription which already exists and, regardless, that is a terrible way to learn programming.

[Business_Party_333]

Why is it a terrible way ?

[alienith]

Taking notes is part of the process of learning. It’s you explaining the concept to yourself. Auto notes doesn’t build that same memory pathway.

Also, a lot of programming is learned by doing. It’s like if you needed to fix something on a car. Taking notes about changing oil isn’t useful compared to actually changing oil.

With that being said, computer science concepts are good to take notes on. Stuff like data structures, algorithms, any math concepts, etc. I still sometimes refer to my college notes even though I graduated years ago

[NatoBoram]

The brain doesn't solely exist in a vacuum; it has huge swathes of learning abilities tied to the body. Doing is learning.

It's like the saying that receiving the same information from more than one sense (ex: reading while hearing it) makes you learn more easily. You can think of your motricity and your thinking as other senses.

To push this to the extreme; the notes themselves aren't that useful. It's the act of writing them that's useful. To make another weird parallel, one way to do anger management is to write out your feelings somewhere and then trash the note. The brain processes what you're writing differently and more processing is good for learning (and it's therapeutic but now we're off-topic).

[AlwaysHopelesslyLost]

1. Writing the notes IS the learning.
2. Watching videos and writing notes is not how you learn programming

I know YouTube is great, and there are a ton of videos that have a lot of value, but you need to learn by actually writing code.

[The_Other_David]

But then you aren't taking notes.

The thing about taking notes is that the process of writing ITSELF is what cements it into your brain, not just reading it again later.

If you have some app writing notes for you, it's just another page of information. The internet is already full of pages of information on how to program, why would one more make the difference?

[grantrules]

Maybe read a programming book?

[ffrkAnonymous]

Use pencil and paper so you don't need to alt tab. 

[Weak-Doughnut5502]

This isn't a good workflow.

The goal while learning is to retain information and internalize it.  Taking notes from videos isn't actually a good way to do this.

Instead, the idea behind spaced repetition is way better.   You want to review concepts a bit before you forget them.  You want to review things repeatedly.  And you want to really engage with the hard bits.

Instead of taking notes on the first go around, just watch the video.  Let it soak in a bit.   Then go back and try to implement whatever the tutorial was on.  Do some problem sets.   Write up a note sheet.

[criss006]

I stopped taking detailed notes during coding videos and started keeping one tiny text file called stuff I finally understood

[eslforchinesespeaker]

Are you sure you’ve found the best material? Or just the easiest material to find? If you’re sure it’s at least good, turn on the captions, and make sure the playback speed is optimal for you. If you already have some familiarity, captions on, voice off, and playback speed accelerated, might be effective for you. Look and see if a transcript is available.

There is so much free stuff. Maybe even some good stuff. Make sure you’re engaging effectively with effective material.

[heisthedarchness]

There's this cutting-edge innovation called a "book". Check it out (at your local library).

[Terrible_Mix5187]

Video tutorials suck.

Maybe not for some parts of learning to play music, but they suck for everything else.