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

by Sönke Ahrens

Every intellectual endeavour starts with a note.

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.

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.

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

One of the most difficult tasks is to rigorously delete what has no function within an argument – “kill your darlings.”38 This becomes much easier when you move the questionable passages into another document and tell yourself you might use them later.

The trick is not to try to break with old habits and also not to use willpower to force oneself to do something else, but to strategically build up new habits that have a chance to replace the old ones.

Read with a pen in your hand, take smart notes and make connections between them. Ideas will come by themselves and your writing will develop from there. There is no need to start from scratch. Keep doing what you would do anyway: Read, think, write. Just take smart notes along the way.

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