How to Take Smart Notes

by Sönke Ahrens

We have seen in the first step that elaboration through taking smart literature notes increases the likelihood that we will remember what we read in the long term. But this was only the first step. Transferring these ideas into the network of our own thoughts, our latticework of theories, concepts and mental models in the slip-box brings our thinking to the next level. Now we elaborate these ideas within different contexts and connect them with other ideas in a durable fashion. The literature notes are going to be archived, which means the ideas would be lost in the reference system if we didn’t do something with them. That is why we transfer them into our external memory, the slip-box, with which we have an ongoing dialogue and where they can become part of our active set of ideas. Transferring ideas into the external memory also allows us to forget them. And even though it sounds paradoxical, forgetting actually facilitates long-term learning. It is important to understand why, because there are still many students who shy away from using an external memory. They fear that they would have to choose between remembering things in their heads (which wouldn’t require an external memory) or in the external memory (which then would be forgotten in the internal memory). That this is a false choice becomes obvious as soon as we understand how our memory truly works.