Relying on willpower and self-discipline is foolish. (RKL: Much like poor eating habits with delayed punishment, poor note-taking can become a bad habit.) It’s not until we face a blank page and a deadline that we’re punished for poor note-taking or rewarded for good note-taking. The benefits of taking good notes and the pains of taking poor notes are delayed. One reason we don’t pay attention to note-taking is that we don’t receive immediate positive or negative feedback.
The key is to create a system that allows you to accumulate and develop insights as you discover them. Plans also require willpower to execute, which can demotivate you. Planning ahead can make you inflexible and limit your thinking. Good thinking is open-ended and relies on the ability to pivot with each new insight. Good thinking requires a system, not a plan For example, writing an argument down lets you look at it from a distance and scrutinize it. The deepest level of thinking requires externalization. We depend on external structures to help us improve our thinking. We can only make so many good decisions a day.
The slip box system provides a reliable place to export your distracting ideas. This is where temporary notes can come in handy. To be able to focus, we have to get any distracting stuff out of our short-term memory.
#Take smart notes plus#
We can only hold an average of seven separate items, plus or minus two, in our short-term memory at a time. We can only focus on one thing at a time. To really understand something, translate it into your own words. Written notes are tangible outcomes of learning and thinking. (For more on this, see Consequences of Erudite Vernacular Utilized Irrespective of Necessity: Problems with Using Long Words Needlessly.) The simpler you write, the more intelligent you appear to the reader. We often start with a vague idea that we transform into interconnected insights with research. When you’ve amassed enough notes, they come together to form larger pieces of content. Writing starts with a thought in your mind that you turn into a note. We write to remember, to think, and to share. Writing is a fundamental part of the way we learn. And fewer books focus on note-taking systems. The second category focuses on dealing with writer's block.įew books break writing down to first principles. The first category focuses on the elements of style. There are two main categories of books on writing. It also details the psychological principles that make the slip box note-taking system so effective.
#Take smart notes how to#
How to Take Smart Notes provides a step-by-step guide to Niklas Luhmann's note-taking system: the slip box ("Zettelkasten" in German). He has worked for many universities including the University for the German Federal Armed Forces. Sönke Ahrens is the author of How to Take Smart Notes.