During medical school, I spent hours scribing lectures, paragraphs from text books, and tutorial notes. Writing repetitively. Scraping to learn and retain every fact my brain could hold. Oh, how I wish I had known about visual note taking back then.
I discovered this form of learning support, also known as sketch-noting or info-doodling, about two years ago. During a meeting, I watched my Department Head scribble and scrawl all over a page. The upshot was a hut on an island and an isolated palm tree, which did not mean much to me, but for him it represented the essence of what was being discussed. I asked what he was doing. He told me about sketch-noting and pointed me in the direction of a couple of well-known authors in the field.