Hi Ian,
Tournevis and Dominik are definitely on the right track (thanks for responding – keep it up!).
Another word similar to context is the word setting. It’s the situation surrounding your note-taking process.
Here’s a brief concrete example from a university student –
Goal: Do well in Chemistry class
Context: In-person classes with a teacher who talks too fast but does fun experiments, and a textbook that’s mostly boring but has decent diagrams.
Process: Bullet-point notes in class, add textbook diagrams to those notes outside of class, then summarize the unit on a big poster before each test.
Outcome: Got an ‘A’ on the final test
Does that help?