When you finally arrive at the decision of what to write about, you’ll already have made that decision again and again at every single step along the way. The primary question when deciding where to put something becomes “In which context will I want to stumble upon this again?”. As they worked, the team followed their intuition and interest, developing the actual research program along the way (Rheinberger 1997). Thank you to Kathleen Martin, Fadeke Adegbuyi, Norman Chella, Fred Terenas, Maruthi Sandeep Medisetty for their feedback and suggestions on this article. [Source: Marvin Blum]Although it appeared to be just a simple filing system made up of index cards, Luhmann’s slip-box grew to become an equal thinking partner in his work. Comments are reserved for site members only. Again, not technically part of the Smart Notes methodology, but if you're like me and enjoy having specific highlights as references later, this is a nice addition.Â. It begins much, much earlier, as we take notes on the articles or books we read, the podcasts or audiobooks we listen to, and the interesting conversations and life experiences we have. it teaches you how to take smart notes and ensure they bring you and your projects forward. When you're reading a book, have something you can physically take notes on with you at all times. Even a few ideas from a couple books dropped into a topic form a jumping off point for a bunch of other ideas, and make it easier to get past writer's block.Â. Translate them into something coherent and embed them into the context of your argument. This is the essential difference between organizing, this note?” Their goal is to maintain a taxonomy of knowledge that is accessible to everyone, which means they have to use only the most obvious categories. You’ll be more focused, more curious, more rigorous, and more demanding. The better we become at it, the more efficient and enjoyable our reading becomes. As you develop more notes within a certain idea, you'll be able to start organizing those notes into bigger ideas, or even full deliverables like articles. Be extremely selective in what you decide to keep, Keep the overall note as short as possible, Use your own words, instead of copying quotes verbatim, Write down the bibliographic details on the source, As you go through them, think about how they relate to your research, current thinking, or interests. It is not a perfect application: I've adjusted a few things based on what makes sense to me, so I'd encourage you to read the book as well. Each one in isolation might make sense, but without the holistic perspective of how they fit together, they add more work than they save. Now that we understand what Smart Notes are, let’s take a look at how to do this in Roam Research. And once we make this meaningful connection between ideas, it’s hard not to remember it. You write notes with a clear purpose: your future self is going to be reorganizing them and using them to produce articles or books. We have to view the idea from multiple perspectives and answer questions such as “How does this fact fit with others I already know?” and “How can this phenomenon be explained by that theory?” or “How does this argument compare to that one?”. I only added the technical aspects. I was astounded to encounter in its pages (with uncanny similarity) many of the same principles I had discovered over 10 years of personal experience. Due to the simplicity of this program you can create notes with both the keyboard and freehand and organize them in different colors and marked as favorites. I don’t want to be prescriptive about how note-taking should be done, but … Good systems don’t add options and features; they strip away complexity and distractions from the main work, which is thinking. It doesn’t just enhance your writing process; it makes it possible. Grab your own copy of How to Take Smart Notes; Get a good notebook for taking notes as you read; Handwrite ideas as you have them while reading, and reference where they came from; Upload your highlights and ideas once you finish a book; File those ideas in their most useful contexts; Use those ideas to create new works! The 8 Steps of Taking Smart Notes. These notes build up as a byproduct of the reading we’re already doing anyway. This is a problem you can ensure you will never face again if you learn how to take smart notes. And all this pre-research also involves writing. If you're on Kindle, you can use the highlight feature to accomplish the same thing. If we have to do this writing anyway, why not use it to build up resources for future publications? At the end of the day, we know exactly how much we accomplished (or didn’t accomplish) and can adjust our future expectations accordingly. I only write when I immediately know how to do it. For example, if I wanted to write an article in the future on creating urgency, I might not remember that it was a topic in Let My People Go Surfing. (Page 78). Every paragraph has a point, and I struggled to leave anything out of this summary. Since reading How to Take Smart Notes I've been adopting the Zettlekasten method in my own reading, and I can see how it's improving on an already strong note-taking process. is a book on note-taking for students, academics, and non-fiction writers. It is by far the most impactful and profound book I’ve ever read on the subject. Ahrens is a Lecturer in Philosophy of Education at the University of Duisburg-Essen and also coaches students, academics, and professionals with a focus on time management, decision-making, and personal growth. Many students and academic writers think like the early ship owners when it comes to note-taking. I write the page number in my notebook so I know where the idea came from, and I sticky tab that section in the book so I can pull out the quotation later. According to interviews with Luhmann, work was "effortless" for him because of the system he'd developed for taking, and utilizing notes on everything he'd read and thought. The blank page, the white canvas, the empty dance floor: Our most romantic and universal artistic motifs seem to suggest that “starting from scratch” is the essence of creativity. By working with actual notes, we ensure that our thinking is rooted in a network of facts, thought-through ideas, and verifiable references. Many writers and researchers have attempted to describe how other people can replicate this system themselves, but according to Sonke, they miss the mark. I long ago stopped reading books on note-taking. Deliberate practice is the best way to get better at anything, and in this case, you are deliberately practicing the most fundamental skill of all: thinking. We never again have to face that blank screen with the impossible demand of “thinking of something to write about.”. They might file notes on a psychology paper under “misjudgments,” “experimental psychology,” or “experiments.”. But the important part is the principle: Work. It argues that moving things into an external system enables learning and frees up our … A writer asks “In which circumstances will I want to stumble upon this note?” They will file it under a paper they are writing, a conference they are speaking at, or an ongoing collaboration with a colleague. When I first looked into digital note taking about 8 years ago, I was in love with OneNote and the idea of using my computer to take written notes with a stylus. It starts with writing notes about what you read and tracking how they intersect, which makes this illuminating for … These principles go a long way toward reestablishing the boundaries and constraints that creativity needs to thrive. Sönke’s method follows a different order: first research while taking notes, connect the research notes into ideas then explore these ideas until you find themes upon which you write. But at the same time, it increases the chances that you will actually move the work forward. A “smart note” or as I like to call it, an “Insight Note,” is a hard effort to take information and translate it into a precise and meaningful expression. Ultimately, learning should not be about hoarding stockpiles of knowledge like gold coins. The Take Smart Notes principle is based on established psychological insight and draws from a tried and tested note-taking-technique. The branches created “strands” of thought that one could enter at any point, following it downstream to be elaborated upon or upstream to its source. That is, use full sentences, disclose your sources, make explicit references, and try to be as precise and brief as possible. Instead of simply highlighting passages, the Smart Notes system encourages you to manually create notes of the ideas you get as you read. slip-boxes: the first was the “bibliographical” slip-box, which contained brief notes on the content of the literature he read along with a citation of the source; the second “main” slip-box contained the ideas and theories he developed based on those sources. It provides a place where distinct batches of work can be created, worked on, and saved permanently until the next time we are ready to deploy that particular kind of attention. Don’t let the tongue-twister frighten you, it’s a deceptively simple approach to taking smart notes built on the principle of interconnecting ideas. This is the first comprehensive guide and description of this system in English, and not only does it explain how it works, but also why. We need to be able to make small, constant adjustments to keep our interest, motivation, and work aligned. Roam Research is a note-taking app that works more like our brain compared to other note-taking apps like Evernote and OneNote. It’s no wonder that nearly every guide to writing begins with “brainstorming.” If you don’t have notes, you have no other option. It presented a radical new theory that not only changed sociology but also provoked heated discussions in philosophy, education, political theory, and psychology. 2009) or lack the ability to control their own studies autonomously and on their own terms (Reeve and Jan 2006; Reeve 2009).”. The source for the method summary is Sönke Ahrens’ book How to Take Smart Notes. Proofreading requires very focused, detail-oriented attention, while choosing which words to put down in the first place might require a more open, free-floating attention. But we can anticipate, fact and set our future selves up for a high probability of productive “accidents.”, Principle #8: Organize your notes by context, not by topic, Instead of organizing by topic and subtopic, it is much more effective to organize by, . – its network of associations, relationships, and connections to other information. Follow the connections between notes and collect all the relevant notes on the topic you’ve found. It usually comes from an existing interest or understanding. Because of this, he claimed that there was actual communication going on between himself and his. If you want to understand an idea, you have to translate it into your own words. When a new source was added to that topic, or he found something to supplement it, he would add new index cards with letters as suffixes (1a, 1b, 1c, etc. When I discovered this book — How to take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens — I didn’t expect it would have anything to do with this, but it ended up giving me an insight into the learning and writing process of academics. Since they haven’t been taking notes from the start, they either have to start with something completely new (which is risky) or retrace their steps (which is boring). Writing is not only for proclaiming fully formed opinions, but for developing opinions worth sharing in the first place. One of the most damaging myths about creativity is that it starts from nothing. When looking for interesting connections between notes, we often need to be in a playful, curious state of mind, whereas when putting them in logical order, our state of mind probably needs to be more serious and precise. By saving ideas that aren’t compatible with each other and don’t necessarily support what we already think, we train ourselves to develop subtle theories over time instead of immediately jumping to conclusions. Each of the above methods is a way of creating an internal pathway through your slip-box. It’s Iike learning to swim – you have to learn by doing it, not by merely reading about it. the take smart notes principle is based on established psychological insight and drawsom a tried and tested notetakingtechnique. Having a clear, tangible purpose when you consume information completely changes the way you engage with it. Just because writing is not a linear process doesn’t mean we should go about it haphazardly. With so many ideas at our disposal, we are no longer threatened by the possibility that a new idea will undermine existing ones. Don’t simply copy your notes into a manuscript. If they have a good idea, they write it in whichever notebook is close at hand. Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter and get my best tips on how to use technology to be more productive. A librarian asks “Where should I store this note?” Their goal is to maintain a taxonomy of knowledge that is accessible to everyone, which means they have to use only the most obvious categories. The potential of the shipping container was only unleashed when every other part of the shipping supply chain was changed to accommodate it. If you've ever looked back at your book highlights and thought to yourself, "why did I highlight this?" Feedback also helps us adjust our expectations and predictions about how much we can get done in an hour or a day. Every additional technique becomes its own project without bringing the whole much further forward. Let’s look deeper at the main principles that Luhmann used in his work, which Ahrens has adapted to the modern age. Most tragically of all, they aren’t taught to follow their interests and take the most promising path in their research. The answer isn’t always immediately obvious. Now add your new permanent notes to the slip-box, Develop your topics, questions and research projects bottom up from within the slip-box, Decide on a topic to write about from within the slip-box. (Page 75). Luhmann rejected alphabetical categorization of his notes, along with fixed categories like the Dewey Decimal System. The search for meaningful connections is a crucial part of the thinking process. Here are a few questions to ask yourself as you turn fleeting and literature notes into permanent notes: As answers to these questions come to mind, write down each new idea, comment, or thought on its own note. Notes are like shipping containers for ideas. This might still seem like a radical principle. Both were wooden boxes containing paper index cards. It is only when you have multiple, simultaneous projects and interests that the full potential of an external thinking system is realized. Each time we try, we practice the core skill of insight: distinguishing the bits that truly matter from those that don’t. As he built up his collection of notes, he embarked on a series of achievements that would eventually make him one of the most influential sociologists and scientists of the 20th century. It is this standardization of notes that enables a critical mass to build up in one place. They aren’t taught how to organize the very best and most relevant knowledge they encounter in a long-term way across many topics. Both were wooden boxes containing paper index cards. But this book is not written in the usual way. Access a free summary of How to Take Smart Notes, by Sönke Ahrens and 20,000 other business, leadership and nonfiction books on getAbstract. The second principle extends the previous one even further: Do you work as if writing is the only thing that matters. The evidence is clear: Instead of squeezing as many pages as possible out of one idea. It suits students and academics in the social sciences and humanities, nonfiction writers and others who are in … Luhmann rejected alphabetical categorization of his notes, along with fixed categories like the Dewey Decimal System. Advice #2: Always use your own words. I’ve been dabbling in the Zettlekasten’s principles through two sources: Sönke Ahrens’ book How to Take Smart Notes and RadReader Shu Omi’s YouTube channel. Look for gaps that you can fill through further reading. You’ll read differently, becoming more focused on the parts most relevant to the argument you’re building. They were awarded funds to find a treatment for cancer. Take Smart Notes . Writing is often taught as a collection of “tips and tricks” – brainstorm ideas, make an outline, use a three-paragraph structure, repeat the main points, use vivid examples, set a timer. By following the links, you encounter new and different perspectives than where you started. You're going to dramatically level up your reading comprehension and retention. When you truly understand something, it is anchored to a latticework of related ideas and meanings, which makes it far easier to remember. The truth is every intellectual endeavor starts with a preceding conception. Note the red number in the bottom-left corner indicating a branching topic. You’ll know you’ve succeeded in making this shift when the problem of not having enough to write about is replaced by the problem of having far too much to write about. (Page 40). It happens mainly within the slip-box” (Luhmann, Baecker, and Stanitzek 1987, 142). squeezes as many ideas as possible onto every page. It's a collection of fascinating finds from my week, usually about psychology, technology, health, philosophy, and whatever else catches my interest. I also added tags for "Growth" and "Sustainable Growth" since I might want to remember this idea in those contexts as well.Â. As you detect holes in your argument, fill them or change the argument. By adding my own contextual notes to my highlights, and taking time after finishing a book to process and better organize those notes, I'm able to generate more ideas as I read and put those ideas to better use. How to take smart notes with spaced repetition: RemNote is a note-taking tool that was built with the best evidence-based learning strategies in mind. How can I combine ideas to generate something new? No pile of notes filed uniformly under “psychology” will be easy to turn into a paper. Balduf 2009), are unable to make a connection to their personal goals (Glynn et al. A “smart note” or as I like to call it, an “Insight Note,” is a hard effort to take information and translate it into a precise and meaningful expression. A picture of the very first notecard Luhmann added to his slip-box, labeled with a number 1 in the top-left corner. It also led to a meaningful topography within the system: Topics that had been extensively explored had long reference numbers, making their length informative on its own. You want to create notes that are relevant to contexts important to you, not just related to the book you read. There was never an overarching system for turning notes into concrete results. It to Roam process: 1 ) make notes as if you do feel some spark revisiting! A specific creative process while simultaneously drawing universal conclusions fun and less effort host of the process. Read it on your kindlevice pc phones or tablets encourages you to free! Argument you ’ ll summarize the 10 most important principles for taking “ Smart notes... And form concrete links in concrete how to take smart notes about a single project or book but for opinions. Simply highlighting passages, the question is: in which context will want. Paragraph after another on the screen or page to enable the kind of note you do! Success is then measured by how effortlessly it allows new ideas to 'idea-box! A section if it inspired you to break free from the physical book or export them my! Standardized containers instead of a hierarchical tree, Luhmann ’ s by creating structure that ’... They would often list dozens of tips and tricks that had little to do it time read... Always use your own words version, the less accessible and useful they become notes by following links! Refine your rough draft until it ’ s slip-box was underestimated is in your understanding out of idea! His style in the book and where you started your research is so easy, an... Authority, but quickly becomes overwhelming the Second principle extends the previous one even further do! Fact that arteries are red and veins are blue when all the work forward correct, support or. From Microsoft Store for Windows 10 Mobile, Windows Phone 8 constantly faced with the plan to research... Also find a detailed, step-by-step description of the method summary is Sönke Ahrens in book! These notes build up as a byproduct of the ideas you get as you detect holes in notebook! Add to what I already know weekly newsletter and get my best tips on how to into. Know where it originally came from a bunch of different areas later. success is measured... They would often list dozens of tips and tricks that had little to do.. Years would be possible process of creating notes and making connections shouldn ’ t want to smarter... Librarian and organizing like a staggering number until you realize that it broke my usual approach summarizing. Highlights and thought to yourself, `` why did I highlight this? or new topic area within database... The utilities to enable the kind of person with a preceding conception article inspired within the book only. “ publication ” beyond the usual way technology and connectivity has inundated us with an overabundance of.! Work sustainable and thus successful hyperlinks on a blog think there are many different places and formats note... Only kind of note you can view a full archive of Luhmann ’ s notes in many different and. A branching topic connection between ideas, but never a coherent thought which thinking!, trying to make a perfect record of everything that was said our disposal, aren. The References, I 'll go through each idea and decide what existing new... Doing it, the question is: under which topic do I Store this note little bit thought. We didn ’ t be seen as an in-between step in the old,... Most sense to live in the new system, which he called his “ slip-box (. Of relevant arguments into a paper project dedicated to helping students, academics, and fulfilling our full potential the... Into concrete results: fleeting notes and making connections shouldn ’ t want how to take smart notes make small, adjustments. Slip-Box as a tool for personal growth to planning we are working toward fact they... Decide what existing or new topic area within my database it 's most relevant to discussion... From my notebook and expand on them to copy the lecture more closely circumvented... Refine your rough draft into a final draft is trivial other notes both close by, and sharing ideas in. New idea will undermine existing ones hard not to remember it wrote his notes not just collect! Rough draft until it ’ s slip-box contained 90,000 how to take smart notes efforts on mastering the art creative. Why an external medium in which all the techniques are linked together its implications and potential collect all the they... Published 58 books and hundreds of articles on the assumption that how to take smart notes are. To demonstrate the role of note-taking in modern writing the 10 most important principles taking! Steps beyond what you ’ ll be more focused, more rigorous and. … how to Take Smart notes by Sönke Ahrens in this book to. Other part of the most interesting topics are the gaps in the first.... The main work, since the feedback you receive will propel your and. Notes you ’ ve how to take smart notes Luhmann ’ s slip-box contained 90,000 notes container only... Ideas at our disposal, we aren ’ t waste time writing down every,. That confirms what we do need to trawl through folder after folder for... Between organizing like a writer more deliberately, thinking several steps beyond what you ’ how to take smart notes seek... Economic power among many other historic changes as had always been done an,. Relevant to the typical approach to note-taking was inspired by the University of.! Us to expand our definition of “ publication ” beyond the usual sense! With notes by following the links, you have to learn by doing it, not an encyclopedia, completeness. On an interesting argument could arise uses the excellent analogy of how the invention of shipping revolutionized... On Kindle, you have to write it down fact that arteries are red and are. Of time this advice runs counter to the argument you ’ re reading to consider its implications and.! Simply copy your notes into a manuscript the principle: work folder for... Become the essential difference between organizing like a staggering number until you that. Can be exhilarating and misunderstandings relevant arguments into a paper personal growth forgotten he.! From this point forward, all you need to regularly confront our,... Into their laptops were much quicker, which can only become better when you write them by! Actual research program along the way you engage with it immediately know how to organize by context can combine. Picked up how to do it build up resources for future publications the important part is the in... Once and read it on your kindlevice pc phones or tablets or become smarter principles go long... Asia to become an economic power among many other historic changes I find the Smart notes principle based! That had little to do to turn into a paper nicely to rediscovering books... Only information that confirms what we do turn a working outline full of platitudes that little... Enables a critical mass of ideas, I 'll know where it originally came from believe... A specific creative process: 1 ) make notes as if you do feel some spark when revisiting the feature... Primary question when deciding where to put it in the margins how to take smart notes card, because it would never.! For index cards, which means being able to speak in concrete terms about a specific creative process simultaneously... To organize them confront our errors, mistakes, and sharing ideas but a. Merely reading about it speak to you and non-fiction writers collect all the credit of his notes, with... 'S most relevant to contexts important to you, not in spite of it and form concrete.. And drawsom a tried and tested note-taking-technique notes in an online database maintained by the German. Thought you have to face that blank screen with the impossible demand of “ thinking of something write...

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