How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking

by Sönke Ahrens

The extraordinary successful fitness motivation coach Michelle Segar uses this dynamic to turn even the most stubborn couch potatoes into exercise aficionados (Segar, 2015).

Reading with a pen in the hand, for example, forces, us to think about what we read and check upon our understanding.

It is the simplest test: We tend to think we understand what we read – until we try to rewrite it in our own words. By doing this, we not only get a better sense of our ability to understand, but also increase our ability to clearly and concisely express our understanding – which in return helps to grasp ideas more quickly.

The ability to express understanding in one’s own words is a fundamental competency for everyone who writes – and only by doing it with the chance of realizing our lack of understanding can we become better at it.

everyone who writes – and only by doing it with the chance of realizing our lack of understanding can we become better at it. But

The same goes for writing permanent notes, which have another feedback loop built-in: Expressing our own thoughts in writing makes us realise if we really thought them through.

The moment we try to combine them with previously written notes, the system will unambiguously show us contradictions, inconsistencies and repetitions.

The slip-box is not a collection of notes. Working with it is less about retrieving specific notes and more about being pointed to relevant facts and generating insight by letting ideas mingle.

THE SIX STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL WRITING

9 Separate and Interlocking Tasks

9.1 Give Each Task Your Undivid...

According to a widely cited study, the constant interruption of emails and text messages cuts our productivity by about 40% and m...

however it might be, it is obvious that we are surrounded by more sources of distraction and less opportunities to train our attention spans.

9.2 Multitasking is not a good idea

studies show that those who claim to multitask a lot also claim to be very good at it. Those interviewed in these studies do not see their productivity impaired by it. On the contrary, they think it’s improved. But they usually don’t test themselves in comparison with a control group.

Multitasking is not what we think it is. It is not focusing attention on more than one thing at a time. Nobody can do that.

When we think we multitask, what we really do is shift our attention quickly between two (or more) things. And every shift is a drain on our ability to shift and delays the moment we manage to get focused again. Trying to multitask fatigues us and decreases our ability to deal with more than one task.

The fact that people nevertheless believe that they can get better at it and increase their productivity can easily be explained by two factors. The first is the lack of a control group or an objective external measurement that would provide us with the feedback we need to learn. The second is what psychologists call the mere-exposure effect: doing something many times makes us believe we have become good at it – completely i...

Writing a paper involves much more than just typing on the keyboard. It also means reading, understanding, reflecting, getting ideas, making connections, distinguishing terms, finding the right words, structuring, organizing, editing, correcting and rewriting.

The slip-box provides not only a clear structure to work in, but also forces us to shift our attention consciously as we can complete tasks in reasonable time before moving on to the next one.

Together with the fact that every task is accompanied by writing, which in itself requires undistracted attention, the slip-box can become a haven for our restless minds.

9.3 Give Each Task the Right Kind...

One can be the best driver with the quickest reactions, able to adjust flexibly to different street and weather conditions. None of that will help a bit if the driver is stuck on rails. And it does not help us to have great insight into the necessity of being flexible in our work if we are stuck in a rigid organisation.

Unfortunately, the most common way people organise their writing is by making plans. Although planning is almost universally recommended by study guides, it’s the equivalent of putting oneself on rails. Don’t make plans. Become an expert.

9.4 Become an Expert Instead ...

“(An) exclusive use of analytical rationality tends to impede further improvement in human performance because of analytical rationality’s slow reasoning and its emphasis on rules, principles, and universal solutions. Second, bodily involvement, speed, and an intimate knowledge of concrete cases in the form of good examples is a prerequisite for true expertise.” – Flyvbjerg 2001, 15

The moment we stop making plans is the moment we start to learn.

To become an expert, we need the freedom to make our own decisions and all the necessary mistakes that help us learn.

it is here all about becoming a professional by acquiring the skills and experience to judge situations correctly and intuitively so you can chuck misleading study guides for good.

Real experts, Flyvbjerg writes unambiguously, don’t make plans (Flyvbjerg 2001, 19).

9.5 Get C...

Attention is not our only limited resource. Our short-term memory is also limited. We need strategies not to waste its capacity with thoughts we c...

Estimations of our long-term memory capacity are wildly diverse and rather speculative, psychologists used to tend to agree on a very specific number when it came to short-term memory: We can hold a maximum of seven things...

Zeigarnik successfully reproduced what is now known as the Zeigarnik effect: Open tasks tend to occupy our short-term memory – until they are done.

All we have to do is to write them down in a way that convinces us that it will be taken care of.

This is why Allen’s “Getting Things Done” system works:

The secret to having a “mind like water” is to get all the little stuff out of our short-term memory.

And the same is true for the work with the slip-box. To be able to focus on the task at hand, we have to make sure other, unfinished tasks are not lingering in our heads and wasting precious mental resources.

The first step is to break down the amorphous task of “writing” into smaller pieces of different tasks that can be finished in one go. The second step is to make sure we always write down the outcome of our thinking, including possible connections to further inquiries. As the outcome of each task is written down and possible connections become visible, it is easy to pick up the work anytime where we left it without having to keep it in mind all the time.

Possible subsequent tasks are open questions or connections to other notes, which we could elaborate on further or not. It also comes up in explicit reminders like “review this chapter and check for redundancies,” which belong into the project folder. Or the third option is the simple fact that something is still in our in-box waiting to be turned into a permanent note – a quick and no...

use the Zeigarnik effect to our advantage by deliberately keeping unanswered questions in our minds.

Letting thoughts linger without focusing on them gives our brains the opportunity to deal with problems in a different, often surprisingly productive way. While we have a walk or a shower or clean the house, the brain cannot help but play around with the last unsolved problem it came across. And that is why we so often find the answer to a question in rather casual situations.

9.6 Reduce the Number of Decisions

Next to the attention that can only be directed at one thing at a time and the short-term memory that can only hold up to seven things at once, the third limited resource is motivation or willpower.

Here, too, the environmental design of our workflow makes all the difference. It shouldn’t come as a surprise anymore that a close cooperation with the slip-box turns out to...

willpower is compared to muscles: a limited resource that depletes quickly and needs time to recover. Improvement through training is possible to a certain degree, but takes time and effort. The phenomenon is usually discussed under the term “ego depletion”

“Our results suggest that a broad assortment of actions make use of the same resource. Acts of self-control, responsible decision making, and active choice seem to interfere with other such acts that follow soon after. The implication is that some vital resource of the self becomes depleted by such acts of volition. To be sure, we assume that this resource is commonly replenished, although the factors that might hasten or delay the replenishment remain unknown, along with the precise nature of this resource.” – Baumeister et al., 1998, 1263f

The smartest way to deal with this kind of limitation is to cheat. Instead of forcing ourselves to do something we don’t feel like doing, we need to find a way to make us feel like doing what moves our project further along. Doing the work that need to be done without having to apply too much willpower requires a technique, a ruse.

a reliable and standardised working environment is less taxing on our attention, concentration and willpower, or, if you like, ego

decision-making is one of the most tiring and wearying tasks, which is why people like Barack Obama or Bill Gates only wear two suit colours: dark blue or dark grey. This means they have one less decision to make in the morning, leaving more resources for the decisions that really matter.