Short answer: most MBBS notes never get read twice because they are transcripts, not tools. Notes that survive till exam day are short, written in your own words, one page per topic, with diagrams instead of paragraphs. If your notes take as long to read as the chapter, they are not notes.
One topic, one page
Set a hard limit: one page per topic. That limit forces you to choose what matters, and choosing is learning. A page on heart failure should hold the causes, the classic signs, the first investigation, and the first-line drugs. It should not hold the whole pathophysiology chapter. If something does not fit, it probably does not need to be in your revision notes.
Write in your own words, always. Copying sentences from the book feels fast and teaches nothing. When you rewrite a concept in plain language, you find out immediately whether you understood it. If you cannot explain it simply, you do not know it yet, and that is useful information, not a failure.
Write it after you recall it
The best time to write notes is after you have tried to recall the topic, not during the lecture. Listen in class and mark what matters. Later, close the book and write what you remember. Then open the book and fill the gaps in a different color. The gaps you fill are the exact facts you would have forgotten, and now they are marked.
This works because recall is the learning, not the writing. Students who write beautiful notes during class and never test themselves end up with folders full of notes they cannot remember. Students with messy recall-based notes remember more, because every page cost them effort.
Diagrams beat paragraphs
For pathways, cycles and classifications, draw instead of writing. A flowchart of the clotting cascade, a diagram of heart failure management, or a table of anemia types will be revised ten times more often than the same content as paragraphs. When exam week comes, you will reach for the diagram page first. Everyone does.
Turn notes into questions
Notes become far more powerful when they become flashcards. Take each page and turn its headings into questions: what is the drug of choice here, what is the first investigation, what does this ECG show. Turn your notes into flashcards on Ominsol and let the review schedule bring them back at the right gaps. For the schedule itself, read our 1-4-7 flashcard rule, and for a subject to practice it on, try our pharmacology method next.