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

by Sönke Ahrens

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

another reason that note-taking flies mostly under the radar: We don’t experience any immediate negative feedback if we do it badly.

How can I create positive feedback for myself when I take notes well?

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.

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.

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.

What does make a significant difference along the whole intelligence spectrum is something else: how much self-discipline or self-control one uses to approach the tasks at hand (Duckworth and Seligman, 2005; Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone, 2004).

It is not so important who you are, but what you do.

This contradicts the personal development work that is focused on being, doing, having in that order. However, it does strike my curiosity that others cannot encounter my being without doing.

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.

A good structure is something you can trust.

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.

Even the best tool will not improve your productivity considerably if you don’t change your daily routines the tool is embedded in,

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

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 strive to keep the original meaning as truthfully as possible.

We need a reliable and simple external structure to think in that compensates for the limitations of our brains.

Make fleeting notes. Always have something at hand to write with to capture every idea that pops into your mind.

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.

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.

Write exactly one note for each idea and write as if you were writing for someone else: Use full sentences, disclose your sources, make references and try to be as precise, clear and brief as possible.

Now add your new permanent notes to the slip-box by: a) Filing each one behind one or more related notes

Adding links to related notes.

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.

Develop your topics, questions and research projects bottom up from within the system. See what is there, what is ...

After a while, you will have developed ideas far enough to decide on a topic to write about. Your topic is now based on what you have, not based on an unfounded idea about what the literature you are about to read might provide.

Turn your notes into a rough draft.

Edit and proofread your manuscript.

You need something to capture ideas whenever and wherever they pop into your head.

The reference system has two purposes: To collect the references (duh) and the notes you take during your reading.

The slip-box.

Fleeting notes, which are only reminders of information, can be written in any kind of way and will end up in the trash within a day or two.

Permanent notes, which will never be thrown away and contain the necessary information in a permanently understandable way. They are always stored in the same way in the same place, either as literature notes in the reference system or written as if for print, in the slip-box.

Project notes, which are only relevant to one particular project. They are kept within a project-specific folder and can be discarded or ...

Fleeting notes are there for capturing ideas quickly while you are busy doing something else. When you are in a conversation, listening to a lecture, hear something noteworthy or an idea pops into your mind while you are running errands, a quick note is the best you can do without interrupting what you are in the middle of doing.

underlining sentences or writing comments in the margins are also just fleeting notes and do nothing to elaborate on a text.

Permanent notes, on the other hand, are written in a way that can still be understood even when you have forgotten the context they are taken from.

Project-related notes can be: • comments in the manuscript • collections of project-related literature • outlines • snippets of drafts • reminders • to-do lists • and of course the draft itself.

Having a growth mindset is crucial, but only one side of the equation. Having a learning system in place that enables feedback loops in a practical way is equally important.

Expressing our own thoughts in writing makes us realise if we really thought them through.

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.

But we know today that the more connected information we already have, the easier it is to learn, because new information can dock to that information.

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 good news is that we can train ourselves to stay focused on one thing for longer if we avoid multitasking, remove possible distractions and separate different kinds of tasks as much as possible so they will not interfere with each other.

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 can better delegate to an external system.

That’s right: The brain doesn’t distinguish between an actual finished task and one that is postponed by taking a note. By writing something down, we literally get it out of our heads.

As literature notes are also a tool for understanding and grasping the text, more elaborate notes make sense in more challenging cases, while in easier cases it might be sufficient to just jot down some keywords.

Developing arguments and ideas bottom-up instead of top-down is the first and most important step to opening ourselves up for insight.

Instead of having the hypothesis in mind all the time, we want to: • Confirm that we have separated tasks and focus on understanding the text we read • Make sure we have given a true account of its content • Find the relevance of it and make connections.

After aligning our interests, we can go a step further and prime ourselves for seeking out disconfirming facts.

The ability to distinguish relevant from less relevant information is another skill that can only be learned by doing.

But with the learned ability of spotting patterns, we can enter the circle of virtuosity: Reading becomes easier, we grasp the gist quicker, can read more in less time, and can more easily spot patterns and improve our understanding of them.

When we take permanent notes, it is much more a form of thinking within the medium of writing and in dialogue with the already existing notes within the slip-box than a protocol of preconceived ideas.