TwosWrite things down

How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens

How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens

by Parker · 125 things on Twos

"One cannot think without writing." - Luhmann
We write when we need to remember something, be it an idea, a quote or the outcome of a study
We write when we want to organize our thoughts and when we want to exchange ideas with others
We write down not only those things we fear we won't remember otherwise, but also the very things we try to memorize
Every intellectual endeavour starts with a note
Getting something that is already written into another written piece is incomparably easier than assembling everything in your mind and then trying to retrieve it from there
It is not so important who you are, but what you do
Having a meaningful and well-defined task beats willpower every time
“I never force myself to do anything I don’t feel like. Whenever I am stuck, I do something else.”
By breaking down a task into small and clearly separated tasks, you can focus on one thing at a time, complete each in one go and move on to the next one
A good structure enables flow, the state in which you get so completely immersed in your work that you lose track of time and can just keep on going as the work becomes effortless
Learn in a way that generates real insight, is accumulative and sparks new ideas
The first idea is rarely that great and good questions do not fall into your lap
You have to know a vast amount of knowledge to be able to see how little you know in comparison
Those who are not very good at something tend to be overly confident, while those who have made an effort tend to underestimate their abilities
Good students constantly raise the bar for themselves as they focus on what they haven’t learned and mastered yet
High achievers who have had a taste of the vast amount of knowledge out there are likely to suffer from what psychologists call imposter syndrome, the feeling that you are not really up to the job, even though, of all people, they are
Insight doesn’t come easy and writing is not only proclaiming opinions, but the mail tool to achieve insight worth sharing
Its not just about collecting thoughts, but about making connections and sparking new ideas
Only if you can trust your system, only if you really know that everything will be taken care of, will your brain let go and let you focus on the task at hand
Even hard work can be fun as long as it is aligned with our intrinsic goals and we feel in control
Success is not the result of strong willpower and the ability to overcome resistance, but rather the result of smart working environments that avoid resistance in the first place
It is about having the right tools and knowing how to use them
We need a reliable and simple external structure to think in that compensates form the limitations of our brains
All you have to do is to have a pen in your hand while you are doing what you are doing anyway (or a keyboard under your fingers). Writing notes accompanies the main work and, done right, it helps with it. Writing is, without dispute, the best facilitator for thinking, reading, learning, understanding, and generating ideas we have. Notes build up while you think, read, understand and generate ideas, because you have to have a pen in your hand if you want to think, read, understand and generate ideas properly anyway. If you want to learn something for the long run, you have to write it down. If you want to really understand something, you have to translate it into your own words. Thinking takes place as much in paper as in your own head
You have to externalize your ideas. You have to write
Make fleeting notes. Always have something at hand to write with to capture every idea that pops into your mind
Put them into one place and process them later
Make literature notes. Whenever you read something, make notes about the content. Write down what you don’t want to forget or think you might use in your own thinking or writing. Keep it very short, be extremely selective, and use your own words.
Make permanent notes.
The idea is not to collect, but to develop ideas, arguments and discussions.
Does the new information contradict, correct, support or add to what you already have? Can you combine ideas to generate something new? What questions are triggered by them?
Write exactly one note for each idea and write as if you were writing for someone else: use full sentences, disclose your sources, make references and try to be as precise, clear and brief as possible.
Now add your new permanent notes to the slip box by:
Filing each one behind one of more related notes
Adding links to related notes
Making sure you will be able to find this note later by either linking to it from your index or by making a link to it on a note that you use as an entry point to a discussion or topic and is itself linked to the index
Develop your topics, questions and research projects bottom up from within the system
Just follow your interest and always take the path that promises the most insight
Don’t cling to an idea if another, more promising one gains momentum
The more you become interested in something, the more you will read and think about it, the more notes you will collect and the more likely it is that you will generate questions from it
After a while, you will have developed ideas far enough to decide on a topic to write about
Make time for more reading
Turn your notes into a rough draft
Edit and proofread
The toolbox
Something to write with and something to write on
A reference management system
The slip-box
An editor
Zotero
Takesmartnotes.com
http://zettelkasten.danielluedecke.de/
An idea kept private is as good as one you never had
Making something public is always means to write it down so it can be read
You cannot rephrase anything in your own words if you don’t understand what it is about
By doing everything with the clear purpose of writing about it, you will do what you do deliberately. Deliberate practice is the only serious way of becoming better at what we are doing
Fleeting notes: only reminders of information, can be written in any kind of way and will end up in the trash within a day or two
There for capturing ideas quickly while you are busy doing something else
Useful is you review them within a day or so and turn them into proper notes you can use later
Permanent notes: will never be thrown away and contain the necessary information in themselves in a permanent understandable way. They are always stored in the same way in the same place, either in the reference system or, written as if for print, in the slip-box
Written in a way that can still be understood even when you have forgotten the context they are taken from
Project notes: only relevant to one particular project. They are kept within a project-specific folder and can be discarded or archived after the project is finished
If you want to do anything for a long time, focus on one thing that is satisfying and repeatable
Nothing motivates us more than the experience of becoming better at what we do. And the only chance to improve in something is getting timely and concrete feedback
The most reliable predictor for long term success is having a growth mindset
To seek as many opportunities to learn as possible is the most reliable long term growth strategy
The ability to express understanding in ones own words is a fundamental competency for everyone who writes - and only by doing it with the chance of realizing our lack of understanding can we become better at it
Trying to multitask fatigues us and decreases our ability to deal with more than one task
We need to get our thoughts on paper first and improve them there, where we can look at them
It is easier to focus on finding the right words if we don’t have to think about the structure of the text at the same time
The moment we stop making plans is the moment we start to learn
Our short term memory is limited. We can hold a maximum of 7 things in our head at the same time
Things we understand are connected, either through rules, theories, narratives, pure logic, mental models or explanations
How does this fact fit into my idea of...?
What does x mean for y?
Once we make a meaningful connection to an idea or fact, it is difficult not to remember it when we think about what it is connected with
The way we organize everyday information makes a big difference not only for long-term memories, but short-term as well
We don’t have to finish tasks to convince our brains to stop thinking about them. All we have to do is to write them down in a way that convinces us that it will be taken care of
The secret to have a mind like water is to get all the little stuff out of our short term memory by having a reliable external system in place where we can keep all our nagging thoughts about the many things that need to be done and trust that they will not be lost
Willpower is a limited resource that depletes quickly and needs time to recover
Read with a pen in hand and write short notes to remember what you read
To get a good paper written, you only have to rewrite a good draft; to get a good draft written, you only have to turn a series of notes into a continuous text; and a series of notes is just a rearrangement of the notes you already have
Sometimes the only thing that is done is underlining sentences and making some comments in the margins of a book, which is almost like taking no notes at all. And more often than not, reading is not accompanied by taking notes, which is, in terms of writing, almost as valuable as not having read at all
Two psychologists tried to find out if it made a difference if students in a lecture took notes by hand or by typing them into their laptops (Mueller and Oppenheimer 2014). They were not able to find any difference in terms of the number of facts the students were able to remember. But in terms of understanding the content of the lecture, the students who took their notes by hand came out much, much better. After a week, this difference in understanding was still clearly measurable
Handwriting makes pure copying impossible, but instead facilitates the translation of what is said into ones own words
Read with an open mind
Taking notes on the ideas and arguments against your ideas is the most valuable way to avoid our own confirmation bias
Focus on the most insightful ideas we encounter and welcome the most surprising turns of events without jeopardizing our progress or, even better, because it brings our project forward
Distinguish the gist from the mere supporting details
A worldly wise person is someone with a broad set of tools and knows how to apply them
“Immaturity is the inability to use ones own understanding without another’s guidance. This is self-imposed if it’s cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance. Dare to know! ‘Have the courage to use your own understanding,’ is therefore the motto of Enlightenment.” - Immanuel Kant
The ability to use ones own understanding is a challenge, not a given
“The best method to learn is to take notes—not excerpts, but condensed reformulated accounts of a text. Rewriting what was already written almost automatically trains one to shift the attention towards frames, patterns, and categories in the observations, or the conditions/assumptions, which enable certain, but not other descriptions” - Luhmann
Continuing the practice of getting the gist improves your ability over time
“If you can’t say it clearly, you don’t understand it yourself.” - John Searle
A coach is not there to do the work, but to show us how to use our time and effort in the most effective way
“The only one who does the work does the learning.” - Doyle
It is like fast food: it is neither nutritious nor very enjoyable, it is just convenient
Exercise helps you transfer information into long-term memory
Stress floods our brains with groom ones that suppress learning processes
The best researched and most successful learning method is elaboration
Writing, taking notes and thinking about how ideas connect is exactly the kind of elaboration that is needed to learn. Not learning from what we read because we don’t take the time to elaborate on it is the real waste of time
Experienced readers read a text with questions in mind and try to relate it to other possible approaches
Without understanding information within its context, it is also impossible to go beyond it, to reframe it and to think about what it could mean for another question
Writing is the best way to get our thoughts in order
Writing is the best way to get our thoughts in order
By explicitly writing down how something connects or leads to something else, we force ourselves to clarify and distinguish ideas from each other
Taking notes increases the likelihood that we will remember what we read in the long term
Transferring ideas into the external memory also allows us to forget them
Forgetting actually facilitates long-term learning
Learning and understanding mean making connections in a meaningful way to previous knowledge
The more we know, the more information we have to connect new information to, the easier we can form long-term memories
"Creativity is just connecting things. When you asl creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something." - Steve Jobs
Thinking works much better when we have the very things we think about in front of our eyes
Not having to make choices can unleash a lot of potential, which would otherwise be wasted on making these choices
"Writing itself makes you realize where there are holes in things. I'm never sure what I think until I see what I write." - Carol Loomis
"We cannot break with a certain way of thinking if we are not even aware that it is a certain way of thinking." - Jeremy Dean
Motivation is shown to be one of the most important indicators for successful students—ext to the feeling of being in control of one's own learning course
The more control we have to steer our work towards what we consider interesting and relevant, the less willpower we have to put into getting things done
By taking notes, we collect en passant the material for our future writings in one place
Never force yourself to do anything, only what comes easily
"When I am stuck for one moment, I leave it and do something else." - Luhmann
Learning, thinking, and writing should not be about accumulating knowledge, but about becoming a different person with a different way of thinking. This is done by questioning one's own thinking routines in the light of new experiences and facts
Change is possible when the solution appears to be simple