Personal Notes
Published Jul 10, 2026
Reading a lesson and want to capture a definition, a question, or a "come back to this" flag without losing your place? Personal Notes lets you jot down anything worth remembering right inside the lesson viewer, anchored either to a specific section or to the whole lesson. Notes are private to you, they persist across sessions, and you can browse and manage every note you've written from one place at /notes. This guide is for learners who want their own running commentary on the curriculum — the kind you'd normally scribble in a margin.
What you'll need
- A learner account (register and verify your email, then sign in — notes are tied to your account).
- A published lesson open in the focused lesson viewer at
/learn/lessons/[lessonId].
That's it. Notes are a learner feature; you don't need admin rights, and nothing you write here is visible to instructors or other learners.
How to add a note while you read
- Open any published lesson from
/learn. You'll land in the single-column reading view with the four sections —main_explanation,practical_explanation,key_principles, andsummary. - Open the notes drawer from the lesson viewer. It slides in from the side and stays docked while you keep reading, so you never lose the lesson text behind it.
- Choose an anchor. This is the core decision:
- Anchor to a section when the thought is about one specific part — a formula in
key_principles, a caveat inpractical_explanation. - Anchor to the whole lesson when the note is broader — an overall takeaway, a question spanning several sections, or a reminder to revisit before a mock interview.
- Anchor to a section when the thought is about one specific part — a formula in
- Type your note and save. It's stored immediately against your account and the lesson (and the section, if you anchored to one).
- Repeat as you go. A single lesson can hold as many notes as you like — mix section-anchored and lesson-level notes freely.
Tip: Anchor to a section whenever you can. A note pinned to practical_explanation is far easier to relocate later than a pile of lesson-level notes with no context.
How to review and manage your notes
Everything you've written lives at /notes. Open it from the dashboard to see your notes across every lesson in one list — not just the one you're currently reading. From there you can read them back, edit wording, and delete anything that's gone stale.
Use /notes as a personal study index. Before a mock interview or when a lesson resurfaces on your spaced-review schedule, skim the notes you left on that topic to reload context fast. Because notes persist, a note you wrote weeks ago is still exactly where you left it.
When it goes wrong
Notes are deliberately simple, so most issues come down to where a note landed or whether you're signed in as the same learner.
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| A note isn't where you expected in the lesson | It was anchored to the whole lesson, not the section | Check /notes, or re-add it anchored to the section |
| Notes drawer opens but nothing is saved | You aren't signed in, or your session expired | Sign back in — notes are tied to your account |
| You don't see notes from another device | You're on a different account | Log in with the same learner email everywhere |
| Can't find an old note in the current lesson | It's filed under a different lesson | Search from /notes, which spans all lessons |
Note: Notes are private and personal. They are separate from discussions (lesson-scoped threads other learners can see) and from issue reports (which flag a problem to admins). If you want to ask a question out loud or start a conversation, use discussions; if a section looks broken, file an issue report. Use notes for your own private memory.
What you get
A private, persistent layer of your own thinking sitting on top of the curriculum:
- Margin notes without the margins — capture ideas exactly where they occur, anchored to a section or the whole lesson.
- One index for everything —
/notescollects every note across every lesson, so your study material grows with you. - Zero friction to revisit — notes survive sessions and devices, ready when a lesson comes back around on spaced review or before an interview.
Next: pair notes with bookmarks to save lessons you want to return to, mark lessons complete to feed your progress summary (completion %, accuracy, streak), and when a note is really a question, open Lucy from the lesson — she'll fold that lesson's content into her answer so you get a grounded reply instead of a generic one.