How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers

• research
• torefactor
• book
• productivity

Book by Sönke Ahrens

#book #productivity #research #torefactor

1. I do not know how to pronounce the author’s name
2. Longest book title seen so far
3. A brewer’s son used this technique to become one of the most productive scientist in the 20th century

1. Having an efficient note-taking system helps you to learn more and be more productive, especially for academic purposes.
2. The Zettelkasten note taking system are for capturing, connecting, and developing thoughts in a non-linear fashion, which enables the emergence of better ideas, topics, questions, and outputs.
3. The value of permanent notes in the slip box increases over time.

1. Hey I have been taking not smart notes for AP Seminar, English, and Chinese research, and that’s not very fun and efficient, so why not learn to take smarter notes?
2. Recently stumbled across the Zettelkasten note taking method for research and it looks quite complicated. Maybe this system (which I assume will be in this book) will improve capital for further production
3. Just adopted a note-taking system for my next AP Seminar research. It’s definitely better but maybe it can be even better
4. Certainly more research projects in the future.

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Nice! Problem that I face when doing AP Seminar research is exactly the problem identified by this book. And what this book claims to teach is exactly what I want to do for my AP Seminar research.

• The chapters are short and sweet :). Could read one in ten minutes if speed is needed.
• Hits right on the point. Exactly what is needed right now.

Better AP Seminar research? Better AP Research research? Time spent reading this book pays off?

No longer taking research notes the old way. Never ever going back to that terrible method. New system hybridising Zettelkasten and Marginnote thus created.

Hmmm it looks like that Marginnote isn’t the right way to do it either. With all due respect, neither is Notion. So… enters Obsidian. Donc, gradual migration?

“Notes on paper, or on a computer screen […] do not make contemporary physics or other kinds of intellectual endeavor easier, they make it possible… no matter how internal processes are implemented […you…] need to understand the extent to which the mind is reliant upon external scaffolding.” (Lewy 2011, 270)

“Routines requires simple, repeatable tasks that can become automatic and fit together seamlessly. Only when all the related work becomes part of an overarching and interlocked process, where all bottlenecks are removed, can significant change take place.”

“No matter how internal processes are implemented, (you) need to understand the extent to which the mind is reliant upon external scaffolding” (2011, 270)

We write whenever we want to convey message or remember something; it’s an indispensable step when we learn. When it comes to improving writing, the emphasis is too often put onto the writing instead of the note-taking before writing, which serves as a medium for effective writing. By learning to take better notes, you improve the quality of your academic writing while reducing stress. Having a systematic note-taking method that clearly define and make meaningful what you are doing will make research as easy as eating chocolate.

We need a system that we can trust to breaks down research into small effortless steps therefore get you into flow easily. Good research should not have a clear plan and deadline, nor is it aimless; motivation, ideas, and productivity should instead come from research process itself. The higher the quality of the research, the harder and more stressful it has to be, and this book is for ambitious people who wants to do high quality research.

Simplicity is the key to seamless research. Get rid of distractions from our own mind by offloading the work to a system that we trust.

An inspiring story of the German researcher Niklas Luhmann. He doesn’t have a high academic degree but read literature for fun and take notes. He organise the notes, put them in slip-boxes, and make connections. Eventually his work became academic papers that are accepted and made him a professor in sociology. The following 30 years he continues to be prolific and influential with his note-taking system without much assistance from other people.

Success is not the result of hard work, strong will power, and ability to overcome resistance, but reducing resistance in your system and environment.

His system contains two slip-boxes: one for reference and one for his ideas. The reference system is essentially a brief annotated bib. The main box is for short ideas restricted to one card that is formally written and has references to a wide range of other notes everywhere.

When taking notes do not quote it but keep the original meaning as truthful as possible. All notes are numbered for identification; branches are indicated by alternating numbers and letters.

Do not categorise notes by topic as some notes fit into multiple. Use links instead, as well as an index of notes that can serve as entry points.

Don’t have to do this manually now because computer programmes can do it.

Steps other than taking notes when researching is mostly surprisingly easy:

1. When the ideas, arguments, quotes, and references are already available in organised structure and order, it’s an enjoyable task to turn it into linear text.
2. When a rough is already ready with all the information needed, it is an enjoyable task to rephrase and tweak the language.
3. When all the notes and ideas are available, it’s an enjoyable task to organise them into order.
4. Writing notes is also easy
5. The hardest part os reading, thinking, and coming up with ideas.

Writing notes is the main part of research. It is a way to facilitate thinking. (of course, disagreement, discussion, presentation, Feynman method also helps)

This is just assuming that you are writing one paper at a time

1. Fleeting notes to capture ideas quickly that will be processed and organised later
2. Literature notes about any literature that are read. Don’t copy quotes. Only write what is important. Keep it short for easy review.
3. Permanent notes to develop ideas based on the two other notes. Use full sentences, make references to sources, be precise and concise, and then throw away and forget about the fleeting notes and literature notes used for that permanent note.
4. Then put the permanent note into the Zettelkasten behind related notes by creating links and indexing.
5. Repeat reading literature and developing ideas. Change ideas based on reading and reading based on ideas. Never be stuck with an idea. Follow changing interests and investigate new questions.
6. Decide topic and write about it based on notes you have, not unfounded ideas.
7. Write rough draft by translating notes.
8. Review draft.

Real situation: the steps can overlap. For intellectual growth.

You research something for exactly the information you need, but what is the point of reading you look for something that you already know.

“Accidental encounters make up the majority of what we learn”. Take extra time to write note about something not directly related to our research

Academic writing is not complicated, but tools and methods tangle together to make things complicated; they can be counterproductive when combined. Notion is a good example, maybe Noodletools, maybe unnecessary colour coding.

There are also many reading methods being taught, including the ones I use, the ones in english and seminar. Maybe they have made things complicated. I can’t tell but let’s see what method this book offers.

Highlighting things and writing notes in the margin is definitely not going to help as there won’t be time to go back to it. That was how it was done for AP Seminar mock performance task and it made things complicated.

Something to quickly take temporary fleeting note. Unclutter does this pretty well. Process and delete once in a while

Go takesmartnotes.com for programmes

Handling tools is as important as the tools themselves.

continue

Analysing literature with the sole purpose of answering a question does not prepare you for independent research, yet many people do that in schools and universities. Independent research is the study of a large range of literature and then writing about their connections. When we write for whatever purpose, we improve our reading and thinking.

A note box is very simple, yet it lets you achieve a lot, just like cargo boxes that transformed the shipping industry.

In the zettelkasten system, permanent notes are kept in a main note box instead of separating them by topics. By putting things in a unified location, you are going to do more thinking as you make connections between notes. A good question to ask when taking notes is: in what situation will it be fun to stumble this note again after forgetting about it.

Compared to the conventional research note-taking system, you don’t deliberately take notes that are specific for a project and then forget all the ideas after the project is done. The zettelkasten system, however, lets you collect insightful thinkings based on a wider range of topics and save them for later.

Some rules:

• Project notes that are only relevant to a project should be kept seperate from the main system.
• Avoid trying to collect everything, because you will never going to come back to them when you have too many notes.
• Do not only collect notes specific to a topic or project because taking a wider variety of notes allows you to make more connections. Same idea as the one mentioned in Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.
• Do not treat all notes as fleeting notes. Permanent notes need to be clear, well written, and contains all the information you need to understand it later.
• Luhmann never underline or highlight anything when he reads. He simply record down the bibliographic details on note papers so that he never have to come back to cite things.

(Another note taking system around on the internet is the evergreen notes or digital gardening system. It is similar in many ways: collecting ideas, making connections, and developing permanent ideas. But it got some cool modern features built into it. Worth looking into.

“The white sheet of paper - or today: the blank screen - is a fundamental misunderstanding” (Nassehi 2015, 185)

This chapter argues that writing never starts from scratch and is never linear. All of our intellectual works start from our previous knowledge. The research method taught in schools and universities - start by choosing a topic, then read and write about it - is in a way contradictory to the natural way of synthesising and developing ideas. Instead, we should read a lot and see what topics or questions emerge based on what we have read.

It is quite interesting that, while english academic writing guides often tell you the linear process of finding a topic and writing a perfect paper, german writing guides often tell you to lower your expectations and on the quality. This principle is surprisingly similar to English TED Talk: The downside of maladaptive perfectionism.

A limitation to this method might be that people have to have a critical mass of wide-ranged existing knowledge and and notes before they can do research this way. Also, this system is probably designed more for independent research and can be hard to implement for a research assignment.

People are motivated to work when working itself is rewarding as opposed to discouraging. When work is fun, easy, and rewarding, we enter a virtuous cycle, something like the flow state and will enjoy continue working, whereas if we always feel stuck, we will start procrastinating.

The best reward we can get from researching and academic writing is to feel like that we are better at what we do. The Zettelkasten system helps to create this experience since we are thinking and improving our knowledge base every time we take literature notes and develop permanent notes.

Speaking of knowledge base, connections are crucial. The zettelkasten, especially when it is a digital one, allows us to create our own version of wikipedia with our own mental model and style.

Talks about how to focus on researching. Mentions information overload, multitasking is counterproductive. When writing academic text, the different tasks requires seperate attention, that way we can enter the flow state, which might also be achieved by Deep Work (Book). Extreme perfectionism in writing in which writers try to make their writing ready for print is not profession at all English TED Talk: The downside of maladaptive perfectionism.

“Don’t make plans. Become an expert . . . The moment we stop making plans is the moment we start to learn.”

We also need to be flexible when writing; that means without a plan, because when we are truely expert in writing, we don’t need a plan as we will have the intuition of what to do, like the self correction mechanism mentioned in Psycho Cybernatics. Doing so requires deliberate training to rewire the brain as described in Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything.

Exactly how to write without a plan? Maybe needs some trials and errors.

Our working memory is limited (see Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything), so we have to try to reduce the number of things we need to remember and remember things by understanding them. Among them, thoughts on unfinished tasks are very distracting, so use an external system like the one in Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity; unfinished tasks like extended research questions can also be handled by the Zettelkasten system, where they will be picked up while exploring connections in the knowledge base.

Another physical memory to working is motivation, so if we can find a way to research without using too much willpower, it will be easier. Though we have to decide what to write and how we want to write it, we can reduce the decision on our workflow and environment to focus on the more important decisions.

“I would advise you to read with a pen in your hand and enter in a little book short hints of what you feel that is common or that may be useful; for this will be the best method of imprinting such portcullis in your memory.”

• Benjamin Franklin

Writing notes while reading and translating the idea into different context in your own words helps you to better understand and remember the information. More importantly, make connections when writing literature notes to build up interconnected critical mass of notes.

Highlighting and annotating in the margin is useless. Literature notes should be in one’s own words but as close to the original meaning as possible. It need to be short and easy for later use. Writing literature notes in Zotero will create citation detail automatically. However, experiment shows that taking literature notes by hand lead to the same fact retention but significant higher understanding compared to typing notes in a computer.

Avoid confirmation bias when taking notes. Convention way of question hypothesis bias is a very good at leading to confirmation bias so shun that. Instead, focus only on understanding the text.

Selective reading requires Deliberate Practice of deciding what’s most relevant. Taking notes is a good way to do that as we are forced to find what’s important to take note.

Explaining what you have learnt ensures that you understand it. When orally explaining it to someone else is unavailable, writing is a very good method. Never read and reread something and pretend that you have gained knowledge.

“The principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool” (Feynman 1985, 342)

Learning is supposed to take Deliberate Practice and is going to be difficult, so never try to make it easy as that is a good way to fool yourself into thinking that you are learning.

“When we try to answer a question before we know how to, we will later remember the answer better, even if our attempt failed (Arnold and McDermott 2013)

Elaboration is the best learning method.

Luhmann almost never read a text twice (Hagen 1997)

Taking quotes without a context is a terrible thing to do. Thinking beyond the text is the way to go.

Writing many pages is scary, but one page at a time is easy. Some people have minimum writing word count per day, but this doesn’t quite work for academic writing since research is involved.

Interestingly, studies show that academic writers almost always underestimate how much time they will need to finish a paper, and many are never finished.

Luhmann had a total of 90000 notes in his slip box. That’s only 6 notes per day.

Writing is the thinking process; it avoids jumping straight to the conclusion without proper thinking.

The heading looks rather aligned with Taoism

“Forgetting . . . facilitates long-term learning”

Wait why is it talking about memory now. Skip since Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything already has it. Use Elaborative Encoding.

Textbooks often have pseudo-explanations (like AP Physics and AP Econ). That’s no good.

pass

Use an index to mark notes that lead to a chain of thought. Use keywords for each notes to facilitate insightful thinking.

Old notes sometimes remind us if the ideas that we thought are original. When that happens, we can make comparisons.

Having a wide-ranged theoretical toolbox is very helpful as concepts from many different disciplines helps us to better process information.

Writing itself makes you realise where there are holes in things. I’m never sure what I think until I see what I write. And so I believe that, even though you’re an optimist, the analysis part of you kicks in when you sit down to construct a story or a paragraph or a sentence. You think, ‘Oh, that can’t be right.’ And you have to go back, and you have to rethink it all.
—Carol Loomis

One a critical mass is built up in the zettelkasten, writing becomes very easy: you have already done lots of thinking, so all you need to do is to look for clusters of notes. When trying to put together notes into some coherent writing, our brain starts analysing and will thus identify gaps and loopholes.

Brainstorming is no good: it does not produce high quality ideas. Slip-box-storming instead builds off of existing scaffold as there are always questions and thoughts done in the slip box.

Repetitive elaboration of existing ideas with open-mindedness also helps us to reexamine its limitations and to play with it, thereby sparking innovation. In a sense, “the best artists and scientists were hobbyists”.

Being a hobbyist, then, means we have to love our course of study and have freedom therein. When we think our research is worth doing, we can be very motivated.

Write multiple manuscripts simultaneously also helps because the byproduct of one writing can be the material for another production. When cutting away content from a writing, save them somewhere, because they might become useful some later time.

Well, writing other books. I always work on different manuscripts at the same time. With this method, to work on different things simultaneously, I never encounter any mental blockages.
(Luhmann, Baecker, and Stanitzek 1987, 125–55)

Additionally, breaking up writing process into smaller, note card writing tasks helps to solve The Zeigarnik Effect. By doing this, writing also becomes writing down ideas for yourself, which is way easier to do.

Make it easy as discussed in Atomic Habits