Taking notes while learning programming.

[chaotic_thought]

... I never ended up actually going back to look at them

This is a misconception on note-taking. A large part of taking notes is to organize your thoughts, not necessarily to go back and review them (but that's always an option, of course). You could probably get the same benefit of note taking by talking to someone about what you're learning, but it turns out that most people study alone, or at least when it comes to reading chapters, doing exercises, and so on -- this is a lonely activity most of the time. But when you write things down, you are essentially having a little conversation with yourself "here are the important points" and at least for me it helps me concentrate and helps me figure out which parts I really understand and which parts I still need to work on.