How to Take Smart Notes

by Sönke Ahrens

“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.” (Levy 2011, 270) “One cannot think without writing.” (Luhmann 1992, 53)

We write down not only those things we fear we won’t remember otherwise, but also the very things we try to memorise. Every intellectual endeavour starts with a note.

What they all have in common, though, is that they start with a blank screen or sheet of paper.[1] But by doing this, they ignore the main part, namely note-taking, failing to understand that improving the organisation of all writing makes a difference. They seem to forget that the process of writing starts much, much earlier than that blank screen and that the actual writing down of the argument is the smallest part of its development. This book aims to fill this gap by showing you how to efficiently turn your thoughts and discoveries into convincing written pieces and build up a treasure of smart and interconnected notes along the way. You can use this pool of notes not only to make writing easier and more fun for yourself, but also to learn for the long run and generate new ideas. But most of all, you can write every day in a way that brings your projects forward.

Writing is not what follows research, learning or studying, it is the medium of all this work.

any improvement in the way we organise the everyday writing, how we take notes of what we encounter and what we do with them, will make all the difference for the moment we do face the blank page/screen – or rather not, as those who take smart notes will never have the problem of a blank screen again.

There is another reason that note-taking flies mostly under the radar: We don’t experience any immediate negative feedback if we do it badly. But without an immediate experience of failure, there is also not much demand for help. And the publishing market working how it works, there is not much help in supply for this lack of demand either. It is the panic in front of the blank screen that brings students and academic writers to turn to the bookshelves full of self-help books on writing, a market publishers meet in droves by focusing on how to deal with this horse-has-already-left-the-barn situation. If we take notes unsystematically, inefficiently or simply wrong, we might not even realise it until we are in the midst of a deadline panic and wonder why there always seem to be a few who get a lot of good writing done and still have time for a coffee every time we ask them.

“Some people are just like that,” “writing has to be difficult,” “the struggle is part of the deal” are just a few of the mantras that keep too many from inquiring what exactly distinguishes successful writing strategies from less successful ones.

The right question is: What can we do differently in the weeks, months or even years before we face the blank page that will get us into the best possible position to write a great paper easily?

Most people struggle for much more mundane reasons, and one is the myth of the blank page itself. They struggle because they believe, as they are made to believe, that writing starts with a blank page. If you believe that you have indeed nothing at hand to fill it, you have a very good reason to panic. Just having it all in your head is not enough, as getting it down on paper is the hard bit. That is why good, productive writing is based on good note-taking. Getting something that is already written into another written piece is incomparably easier than assembling everything in your mind and then trying to retrieve it from there.

To sum it up: The quality of a paper and the ease with which it is written depends more than anything on what you have done in writing before you even made a decision on the topic. But if that is true (and I wholeheartedly believe it is), and the key to successful writing lies in the preparation, it also means that the vast majority of self-help books and study guides can only help you to close the barn door correctly and according to official rules – not just a moment, but many months after the horse has already escaped. With that in mind, it is not surprising that the single most important indicator of academic success is not to be found in people’s heads, but in the way they do their everyday work.

We know today that self-control and self-discipline have much more to do with our environment than with ourselves (cf. Thaler, 2015, ch. 2) – and the environment can be changed. Nobody needs willpower not to eat a chocolate bar when there isn’t one around. And nobody needs willpower to do something they wanted to do anyway. Every task that is interesting, meaningful and well-defined will be done, because there is no conflict between long- and short-term interests. Having a meaningful and well-defined task beats willpower every time. Not having willpower, but not having to use willpower indicates that you set yourself up for success. This is where the organisation of writing and note-taking comes into play.

Until now, writing and note-taking techniques were usually taught without much regard to the overarching workflow. This book aims to change that. It will present you with the tools of note-taking that turned the son of a brewer into one of the most productive and revered social scientists of the 20th century. But moreover, it describes how he implemented them into his workflow so he could honestly say: “I never force myself to do anything I don’t feel like. Whenever I am stuck, I do something else.” A good structure allows you to do that, to move seamlessly from one task to another – without threatening the whole arrangement or losing sight of the bigger picture. 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. By breaking down the amorphous task of “writing a paper” into small and clearly separated tasks, you can focus on one thing at a time, complete each in one go and move on to the next one (Chapter 3.1). A good structure enables flow, the state in which you get so completely immersed in your work that you lose track of time and can just keep on going as the work becomes effortless (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). Something like that does not happen by chance.

As students, researchers and nonfiction writers, we have so much more freedom than others to choose what we want to spend our time on. Still, we often struggle the most with procrastination and motivation. It is certainly not the lack of interesting topics, but rather the employment of problematic work routines that seems to take charge of us instead of allowing us to steer the process in the right direction. A good, structured workflow puts us back in charge and increases our freedom to do the right thing at the right time.

Having a clear structure to work in is completely different from making plans about something. If you make a plan, you impose a structure on yourself; it makes you inflexible. To keep going according to plan, you have to push yourself and employ willpower. This is not only demotivating, but also unsuitable for an open-ended process like research, thinking or studying in general, where we have to adjust our next steps with every new insight, understanding or achievement – which we ideally have on a regular basis and not just as an exception. Even though planning is often at odds with the very idea of research and learning, it is the mantra of most study guides and self-help books on academic writing. How do you plan for insight, which, by definition, cannot be anticipated? It is a huge misunderstanding that the only alternative to planning is aimless messing around. The challenge is to structure on...

And if you are a student seeking help with your writing, the chances are that you already aim high too, because it is usually the best students who struggle the most. Good students wrestle with their sentences because they care about finding the right expression. It takes them longer to find a good idea to write about because they know from experience that the first idea is rarely that great and good questions do not fall into their laps. They spend more time in the library to get a better overview of the literature, which leads to more reading, which means that they have to juggle more information. Having read more does not automatically mean having more ideas. Especially in the beginning, it means having fewer ideas to work with, because you know that others have already thought of most of them.

Good students also look beyond the obvious. They peek over the fences of their own disciplines – and once you have done that, you cannot go back and do what everyone else is doing, even if you now must deal with heterogeneous ideas that come without a manual on how they might fit together. All that means is that a system is needed to keep track of the ever-increasing pool of information, which allows one to combine different ideas in an intelligent way with the aim of generating new ideas.

Poor students do not have any of these problems. As long as they stick within the boundaries of their discipline and read only as much as they are told to (or less), no serious external system is required and...

This is why high achievers who have had a taste of the vast amount of knowledge out there are likely to suffer from what psychologists call imposter syndrome, the feeling that you are not really up to the job, even though, of all people, they are (Clance and Imes 1978; Brems et al. 1994). This book is for you, the good students, ambitious academics and curious nonfiction writers who understand that insight doesn’t come easy and that writing is not only for proclaiming opinions, but the main tool to achieve insight worth sharing.

1.1 Good Solutions are Simple – and Unexpected

There is no need to build a complex system and there is no need to reorganise everything you already have. You can start working and developing ideas immediately by taking smart notes.

Even if you don’t aim to develop a grand theory and just want to keep track of what you read, organise your notes and develop your thoughts, you will have to deal with an increasingly complex body of content, especially because it is not just about collecting thoughts, but about making connections and sparking new ideas. Most people try to reduce complexity by separating what they have into smaller stacks, piles or separate folders. They sort their notes by topics and sub-topics, which makes it look less complex, but quickly becomes very complicated. Plus, it reduces the likelihood of building and finding surprising connections between the notes themselves, which means a trade-off between its usability and usefulness. Thankfully, we don’t have to choose between usability and usefulness. Quite the contrary. The best way to deal with complexity is to keep things as simple as possible and to follow a few basic principles. The simplicity of the structure allows complexity to build up where we want it: on the content level. There is quite extensive empirical and logical research on this phenomenon (for an overview: cf. Sull and Eisenhardt, 2015). Taking smart notes is as simple as it gets. Another item of good news regards the amount of time and effort you have to put into getting started. Even though you will change considerably the way you read, take notes and write, there is almost no preparation time needed (except for understanding the principle and installing one or two f...

There is more good news. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. We only need to combine two well-known and proven ideas. The first idea lies at the heart of this book and is the technique of the simple slip-box.

The second idea is equally important. Even the best tool will not improve your productivity considerably if you don’t change your daily routines the tool is embedded in, just as the fastest car won’t help you much if you don’t have proper roads to drive it on. Like every change in behaviour, a change in working habits means going through a phase where you are drawn back to your old ways. The new way of working might feel artificial at first and not necessarily like what you intuitively would do. That is normal. But as soon as you get used to taking smart notes, it will feel so much more natural that you will wonder how you were ever able to get anything done before. Routines require simple, repeatable tasks that can become automatic and fit together seamlessly (cf. Mata, Todd, and Lippke, 2010). Only when all the related work becomes part of an overarching and interlocked process, where all bottlenecks are removed, can significant change take place (which is why none of the typical “10 mind-blowing tools to improve your productivity” tips you can find all over the internet will ever be of much help).

The principle of GTD is to collect everything that needs to be taken care of in one place and process it in a standardised way. This doesn’t necessarily mean that we actually do everything we once intended to do, but it forces us to make clear choices and regularly check if our tasks still fit into the bigger picture. Only if we know that everything is taken care of, from the important to the trivial, can we let go and focus on what is right in front of us. Only if nothing else is lingering in our working memory and taking up valuable mental resources can we experience what Allen calls a “mind like water” - the state where we can focus on the work right in front of us without getting distracted by competing thoughts. The principle is simple but holistic. It is not a quick fix or a fancy tool. It doesn’t do the work for you. But it does provide a structure for our everyday work that deals with the fact that most distractions do not come so much from our environment, but our own minds.

Unfortunately, David Allen’s technique cannot simply be transferred to the task of insightful writing. The first reason is that GTD relies on clearly defined objectives, whereas insight cannot be predetermined by definition. We usually start with rather vague ideas that are bound to change until they become clearer in the course of our research (cf. Ahrens, 2014, 134f.). Writing that aims at insight must therefore be organised in a much more open manner. The other reason is that GTD requires projects to be broken down into smaller, concrete “next steps.” Of course, insightful writing or academic work is also done one step at a time, but these are most often too small to be worth writing down (looking up a footnote, rereading a chapter, writing a paragraph) or too grand to be finished in one go. It is also difficult to anticipate which step has to be taken after the next one. You might notice a footnote, which you check quickly on. You try to understand a paragraph and need to look up something for clarification. You make a note, go back to reading and then jump up to write down a sentence that formed itself in your mind.

These are probably the reasons why GTD never really caught on in academia, although it is very successful in business and has a good reputation among the self-employed.

What we can take from Allen as an important insight is that the secret to a successful organization lies in the holistic perspective. Everything needs to be taken care of, otherwise the neglected bits will nag us until the unimportant tasks become urgent. Even the best tools won’t make much of a difference if they are used in isolation. Only if they are embedded in a well-conceived working process can the tools play out their strengths. There is no point in having great tools if they don’t fit together.

And this is the other insight of David Allen: Only if you can trust your system, only if you really know that everything will be taken care of, will your brain let go and let you focus on the task at hand.

That is why we need a note-taking system that is as comprehensive as GTD, but one that is suitable for the open-ended process of writing, learning and thinking. Enter the slip-box.

After collecting notes for a while in the way most people do, commenting in the margins of a text or collecting handwritten notes by topic, Luhmann realised his note-taking was not leading anywhere. So he turned note-taking on its head. Instead of adding notes to existing categories or the respective texts, he wrote them all on small pieces of paper, put a number in the corner and collected them in one place: the slip-box. He soon developed new categories of these notes. He realised that one idea, one note was only as valuable as its context, which was not necessarily the context it was taken from. So he started to think about how one idea could relate and contribute to different contexts. Just amassing notes in one place would not lead to anything other than a mass of notes. But he collected his notes in his slip-box in such a way that the collection became much more than the sum of its parts. His slip-box became his dialogue partner, main idea generator and productivity engine. It helped him to structure and develop his thoughts. And it was fun to work with – because it worked.

One day, he put some of these thoughts together into a manuscript and handed it over to Helmut Schelsky, one of the most influential sociologists in Germany. Schelsky took it home, read what this academic outsider had written and contacted Luhmann. He suggested that he should become a professor of sociology in the newly founded University of Bielefeld. As attractive and prestigious as this position was, Luhmann wasn’t a sociologist. He didn’t have the formal qualifications required even to become an assistant for a sociology professor in Germany. He hadn’t written a habilitation, the highest academic qualification in many European countries, which is based on the second book after the doctoral thesis. He had never held a doctorate or even obtained a sociology degree. Most people would take the offer as a huge compliment, but point out the impossibility of it and move on.

Not Luhmann. He turned to his slip-box and with its help he put together a doctoral thesis and the habilitation thesis in less than a year – while taking classes in sociology. Shortly after, in 1968, he was chosen to become professor of sociology at the University of Bielefeld – a position he would hold for the rest of his life.

In Germany, a professor traditionally starts with a public lecture presenting his or her projects, and Luhmann, too, was asked what his main research project will be. His answer would become famous. He laconically stated: “My project: theory of society. Duration: 30 years. Costs: zero” (Luhmann,...

When he finished the final chapter, almost exactly 29 and a half years later, as a two-volume book with the title “The Society of Society” (1997), it stirred up the scientific community.[3] It was a radical new theory that not only changed sociology, but stirred heated discu...

In 30 years, he published 58 books and hundreds of articles, translations not included. Many became classics in their respective fields. Even after his death, about half a dozen more books on diverse subjects like religion, education or politics were published in his name – based on almost finished manuscripts lying around in his office. There are more than a few colleagues I know who would give a lot to be as productive in their whole lifetime as Luhmann was after his death.

While some career-oriented academics try to squeeze as many publications out of one idea as possible, Luhmann seemed to do the opposite. He constantly generated more ideas than he was able to write down. His texts read as if he is trying to squeeze as much insight and as many ideas as possible into one publication.

After doing extensive research on Luhmann’s workflow, the German sociologist Johannes F.K. Schmidt concluded his productivity could only be explained by his unique working technique (Schmidt 2013, 168). That technique has never been a secret – Luhmann was always open about it. He regularly mentioned the slip-box as the reason for his productivity. From as early as 1985, his standard answer to the question of how anyone could be so productive was: “I, of course, do not think everything by myself. It happens mainly within the slip-box” (Luhmann, Baecker, and Stanitzek 1987, 142). But few gave the slip-box and the way he worked with it a closer look, dismissing his explanation as the modest understatement of a genius.

His productivity is, of course, impressive. But what is even more impressive than the sheer number of publications or the outstanding quality of his writing is the fact that he seemed to achieve all this with almost no real effort. He not only stressed that he never forced himself to do something he didn’t feel like, he even said: “I only do what is easy. I only write when I immediately know how to do it. If I falter for a moment, I put the matter aside and do something else.” (Luhmann et al., 1987, 154f.)[4]

Until recently, almost no one really seemed to believe it. We are still so used to the idea that a great outcome requires great effort that we tend not to believe that a simple change in our work routines could not only make us more productive, but the work also more fun. But doesn’t it make much more sense that the impressive body of work was produced not in spite of the fact he never made himself do anything he didn’t feel like, but because of it? Even hard work can be fun as long as it is aligned with our intrinsic goals and we feel in control. The problems arise when we set up our work in such an inflexible way that we can’t adjust it when things change and become arrested in a process that seems to develop a life of its own.

It is in the nature of writing, especially insight-oriented writing, that questions change, the material we work with turns out to be very different from the one imagined or that new ideas emerge, which might change our whole perspective on what we do. Only if the work is set up in a way that is flexible enough to allow these small and constant adjustments can we keep our interest, motivation and work aligned – which is the precondition to effortless or almost effortless work.

If we work in an environment that is flexible enough to accommodate our work rhythm, we don’t need to struggle with resistance. Studies on highly successful people have proven again and again that success is not the result of strong willpower and the ability to overcome resistance, but rather the result of smart working environments that avoid resistance in the first place (cf. Neal et al. 2012; Painter et al. 2002; Hearn et al. 1998). Instead of struggling with adverse dynamics, highly productive people deflect resistance, very much like judo champions. This is not just about having the right mindset, it is also about having the right workflow.

Sure, you need to be smart to be successful in academia and writing, but if you don’t have an external system to think in and organise your thoughts, ideas and collected facts, or have no idea how to embed it in your overarching daily routines, the disadvantage is so enormous that it just can’t be compensated by a high IQ.

The main misunderstanding stems from an isolated focus on the slip-box and a neglect of the actual workflow in which it is embedded.

The third and maybe the most important reason is the very fact that it is simple. Intuitively, most people do not expect much from simple ideas. They rather assume that impressive results must have equally impressively complicated means.

Strictly speaking, Luhmann had two slip-boxes: a bibliographical one, which contained the references and brief notes on the content of the literature, and the main one in which he collected and generated his ideas, mainly in response to what he read. The notes were written on index cards and stored in wooden boxes.

Whenever he read something, he would write the bibliographic information on one side of a card and make brief notes about the content on the other side (Schmidt 2013, 170). These notes would end up in the bibliographic slip-box.

In a second step, shortly after, he would look at his brief notes and think about their relevance for his own thinking and writing. He then would turn to the main slip-box and write his ideas, comments and thoughts on new pieces of paper, using only one for each idea and restricting himself to one side of the paper, to make it easier to read them later without having to take them out of the box. He kept them usually b...

He usually wrote his notes with an eye towards already existing notes in the slip-box. And while the notes on the literature were brief, he wrote them with great care, not much different from his style in the final manuscript: in full sentences and with explicit references to the literature from which he drew his material. More often than not, a new note would directly follow up on another note and would become part of a longer chain of notes. He then would add references to notes somewhere else in the slip-box, some of them which were located nearby, others in completely different areas ...

He did not just copy ideas or quotes from the texts he read, but made a transition from one context to another. It was very much like a translation where you use different words that fit a different context, but stri...

The trick is that he did not organise his notes by topic, but in the rather abstract way of giving them fixed numbers. The numbers bore no meaning and were only there to identify each note permanently. If a new note was relevant or directly referred to an already existing note, such as a comment, correction or addition, he added it directly behind the previous note. If the existing note had the number 22, the new note would become note number 23. If 23 already existed, he named the new note 22a. By alternating numbers and letters, with some slashes and commas in between, he was able to branch out into as many strings of thought as he liked. For example, a note about causality and systems theory carried the number 21/3d7a7 following a note with the number 21/3d7a6. Whenever he added a note, he checked his slip-box for other relevant notes to make possible connections between them. Adding a note directly behind another note is only one way of doing this. Another way is by adding a link on this and/or the other note, which could be anywhere in the system. This very much resembles, of course, the way we use hyperlinks on the internet. But, as I will explain later, they are quite different and it would be rather misleading to think of his slip-box as a personal Wikipedia or a database on paper. The similarities are obviously there, but the subtle differences are what makes this system unique.