Turn lectures into lasting knowledge

Why traditional note-taking fails students

Most students collect information without processing it. They screenshot every slide, transcribe every word, and save everything in folders they'll never revisit. When exam season arrives, they're drowning in disorganized material with no clear path to understanding.

The real problem isn't taking the notes, but being able to turn fleeting lecture moments into knowledge that sticks.

A system that learns with you

Instead of collecting fragments, you can create a connected academic workspace where every lecture, assignment, and resource builds on what came before. Your coursework becomes a living knowledge base that reveals patterns, connections, and insights across subjects.

Here's how to transform your academic workflow from scattered to systematic:

Start with your course structure

Every course becomes a hub that attracts related material automatically. Tag any node in Tana with #Course and add basic details: instructor, semester, credits. This creates the foundation where everything else connects.

Your courses are containers that lectures, assignments and resources can link to, and they are also the organizing principle that helps you see how different topics relate to each other and your broader academic goals.

Capture lectures in real-time

In Tana, you create structure by applying supertags to any text. Write "Introduction to Psychology" and tag it #Lecture, and you've instantly created a lecture with all the fields and capabilities that come with it. Each supertag acts like a specialized app. For example a #Lecture supertag can include AI transcription, note-taking fields, and a search node to retrieve relevant resources.

During lectures, focus on understanding, not transcription. AI handles the lecture recording while you stay engaged with the actual discussion. Instead of frantically typing every word, you can ask questions, follow interesting tangents, and note what sparks your curiosity.

Tana's AI meeting notetaker can be used for both in-person and digital meetings and lectures, by optionally capturing both your microphone and speaker audio.

As you take notes, use @ to reference notes or topics from other lectures or to create new ones. This lets you trace how ideas develop over time and connect insights across different subjects.

Right-click any note and click AI Chat to start a chat about that content where you can dig deeper into concepts or clarify confusing points. Create specialized agents to help you out and develop your thinking. AI agents can be instructed to break down complex theories, generate practice questions, and connect today's material to things you've learned before. And much more!

Pro tip: When professors mention potential exam topics, tag them as #Exam question right in your lecture notes. These automatically link to the course and/or lecture, creating an instant study guide. Use these as flashcards that you review and study throughout the semester.

Track assignments that matter

Use a #Assignment tag and set the type, due date, and course. These can automatically appear in your task views, but more importantly, they connect to your lecture notes and resources so you can stay in control. This is achieved with search nodes that look through your whole graph to find the information you are looking for. And can be displayed as related content on the right so they are available where you need them.

Instead of scrambling to remember what's due when, you see how assignments build on lecture content and which resources you'll need. The system anticipates what you need to focus on next.

Create a dynamic resource library

Tag any #Resource, whether an article, book, video, url, pdf, or anything else, and connected it to relevant courses. But here's the key: resources don't just sit in folders. Relevant curriculum surfaces when you need it.

Studying for an exam? Your system shows every resource connected to that course. Writing a paper? All relevant materials appear together, along with your notes about how they connect.

Your academic dashboard

The Student hub dashboard brings everything together in one view. See today's lectures, upcoming assignments, and study sessions without switching between apps or hunting through folders.

The calendar view lets you drag tasks directly onto time slots, turning your to-do list into a realistic schedule. Click to add study sessions and watch your academic life organize itself around your actual availability.

How this changes your study habits

Before: Lecture notes live in isolation. You review by rereading everything and hoping something sticks.

After: Every lecture connects to assignments, resources, and previous knowledge. Reviewing becomes following trails of connected ideas that reinforce each other.

Before: Exam prep means gathering scattered materials and trying to remember what's important.

After: Your exam questions are already connected to specific lectures and resources. Study guides generate themselves from the connections you've built all semester.

Before: Research papers require starting from scratch every time.

After: Your resource library surfaces relevant materials across courses. Ideas from different classes naturally combine into more sophisticated thinking.

Making knowledge compound

The real transformation happens when information starts connecting itself. A concept from your psychology course illuminates something in product design. Resources from different semesters reveal patterns in your thinking.

You don't need to work harder, but you do need a system that amplifies your learning over time. Every note, every assignment, every resource becomes more valuable because it's connected to everything else.

Your academic workspace grows more useful as you use it. By graduation, you won't just have a degree, you'll have a structured knowledge base that follows you into your career. This is special.

Getting started

Ready to stop losing your best ideas to forgotten docs?

Install the free Student hub templates below to jump right into it. The template includes pre-configured course tracking, assignment management, and the academic dashboard. Start capturing your next lecture and watch your academic workflow transform from scattered to systematic.