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

by Sönke Ahrens

system, it is important to realise what crucial thing it prompts us to do: look for existing threads within the system to expand on.

Therefore: Make sure a new note is written, whenever possible, in direct response to an existing note, continuing the dialogue.

If your program allows linking to individual blocks within a page, feel free to write whole note sequences on a single page with each block (or paragraph) as a single note. As long as you treat each block (or paragraph) as a stand-alone note, addressable from anywhere else, you keep the granularity of your notes while benefitting from a better overview over an existing thread.

Whenever complexity has built up, it makes sense to give yourself an overview of the different aspects of a topic on such a note. This, too, is not about imposing structure onto the system, but making an implicit idea about structure explicit and therefore open to change. It is worth repeating here: How we structure a topic is how we think about a topic and therefore a thought in itself.