✍🏾 summary
Use the Zeigarnik effect by keeping unanswered questions in your mind. They're a map your interests.
Develop arguments and ideas bottom-up instead of top-down
Writing distances yourself enough to think about your argument.
When linking, ask when and where you want to see this note again.
When creating a new note, link to an existing one where possible.
- Treat each block or paragraph like a standalone note.
Structure notes exist in a Zettelkasten (ZK) because how you structure is a thought is also a thought, and therefore that should also be processed.
🔎 how i discovered it
Zettelkasten.de and a Reddit thread on notes
👀who should read it?
anyone who wants one centralized place to get the full details on the physical slip-box system for research
✨ how it changed me
This was the book that got me to stop reading books on notetaking and start taking notes, and I'll always be grateful for that.
💬 favorite quotes
A good indication that a note has been left unprocessed too long is when you no longer understand what you meant or it appears banal. In the first case, you forgot what it was supposed to remind you of. In the second case, you forgot the context that gave it its meaning.
The brain doesn’t distinguish between an actual finished task and one that is postponed by taking a note.
The secret to having a “mind like water” is to get all the little stuff out of our short-term memory.
A good structure is something you can trust. It relieves you from the burden of remembering and keeping track of everything. If you can trust the system, you can let go of the attempt to hold everything together in your head and you can start focusing on what is important: The content, the argument and the ideas
Luhmann was able to focus on the important things right in front of him, pick up quickly where he left off and stay in control of the process because the structure of his work allowed him to do this
Keep doing what you would do anyway: Read, think, write. Just take smart notes along the way.
📰 writing a paper, step by step
1. Make fleeting notes. Always have something at hand to write with to capture every idea that pops into your mind. Don’t worry too much about how you write it down or what you write it on. These are fleeting notes, mere reminders of what is in your head. They should not cause any distraction. Put them into one place, which you define as your inbox, and process them later.
2. 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. Be extra selective with quotes – don’t copy them to skip the step of really understanding what they mean.
3. Make permanent notes. Now turn to your slip-box. Go through the notes you made in step one or two (ideally once a day and before you forget what you meant) and think about how they relate to what is relevant for your own research, thinking or interests. This can soon be done by looking into the slip-box – it only contains what interests you anyway. 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 (in the slip-box or on your mind)? Can you combine ideas to generate something new? What questions are triggered by them?
4. Now add your new permanent notes to the slip-box by:
a) Filing each one behind one or more related notes (with a program, you can put one note “behind” multiple notes; if you use pen and paper like Luhmann, you have to decide where it fits best and add manual links to the other notes). Look to which note the new one directly relates or, if it does not relate directly to any other note yet, just file it behind the last one.
b) Adding links to related notes.
c) 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.
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.
Look through the connections and collect all the relevant notes on this topic (most of the relevant notes will already be in partial order), copy them into an outliner and bring them in order. Look for what is missing and what is redundant. Don’t wait until you have everything together. Rather, try ideas out and give yourself enough time to go back to reading and note-taking to improve your ideas, arguments and their structure.
Translate them into something coherent and embed them into the context of your argument while you build your argument out of the notes at the same time. Detect holes in your argument, fill them or change your argument.
📋 references
Source: How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking
Concepts mentioned:
Status: #edit
Tags: notetaking