How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking β for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers
Ahrens, SΓΆnke. 2017. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking β for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. Charleston: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform.
Highlights
Everybody writes. Especially in academia β location: 85
writing doesnβt necessarily mean papers, articles or books, but everyday, basic writing. We write when we need to remember something, be it an idea, a quote or the outcome of a study. β location: 86
Every intellectual endeavour starts with a note. β location: 90
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. β location: 98
Writing is not what follows research, learning or studying, it is the medium of all this work. β location: 106
There is another reason that note-taking flies mostly under the radar: We donβt experience any immediate negative feedback if we do it badly. β location: 111
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. β location: 115
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? β location: 121
They struggle because they believe, as they are made to believe, that writing starts with a blank page. β location: 125
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. β location: 126
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. β location: 129
the single most important indicator of academic success is not to be found in peopleβs heads, but in the way they do their everyday work. β location: 133
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 β location: 137
Self-discipline or self-control is not that easy to achieve with willpower alone. β location: 142
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) β and the environment can be changed. β location: 147
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. β location: 149
βI never force myself to do anything I donβt feel like. Whenever I am stuck, I do something else.β β location: 158
A good structure is something you can trust. β location: 160
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. β location: 161
By breaking down the amorphous task of βwriting a paperβ 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 β location: 163
of note-taking that turned the son of a brewer into one of the most β location: 156
The challenge is to structure oneβs workflow in a way that insight and new ideas can become the driving forces that push us forward. β location: 176
it is usually the best students who struggle the most. Good students wrestle with their sentences because they care about finding the right expression. β location: 185
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. β location: 188
a system is needed to keep track of the ever-increasing pool of information, which allows one to combine different ideas in an intelligent β location: 192
poor students often feel more successful (until they are tested), because they donβt experience much self-doubt. β location: 196
those who are not very good at something tend to be overly confident, while those who have made an effort tend to underestimate their abilities. β location: 199
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 β location: 203
writing is not only for proclaiming opinions, but the main tool to achieve insight worth sharing. β location: 206
it is not just about collecting thoughts, but about making connections and sparking new ideas. β location: 213
The best way to deal with complexity is to keep things as simple as possible β location: 218
It is not about redoing what you have done before, but about changing the way of working from now on. β location: 223
There is really no need to reorganise anything you already have. Just deal with things differently the moment you have to deal with them anyway. β location: 224
Routines require simple, repeatable tasks that can become automatic and fit together seamlessly β location: 234
Only when all the related work becomes part of an overarching and interlocked process, where all bottlenecks are removed, can significant change take place β location: 235
βGetting Things Doneβ (Allen, 2001). β location: 239
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. β location: 240
a βmind like waterβ - the state where we can focus on the work right in front of us without getting distracted by competing thoughts. β location: 244
the secret to a successful organization lies in the holistic perspective. β location: 260
Everything needs to be taken care of, otherwise the neglected bits will nag us until the unimportant tasks become urgent. β location: 261
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 donβt fit together. β location: 262
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. β location: 266
βI 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.β β location: 326
The best way to maintain the feeling of being in control is to stay in control. β location: 334
it's better to keep your options open during the writing process rather than limit yourself to your first idea. β location: 335
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 β which is the precondition to effortless or almost effortless work. β location: 337
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 β location: 342
This is not just about having the right mindset, it is also about having the right workflow. β location: 344
Sure, you need to be smart to be successful in academia and writing, but if you donβt 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 canβt be compensated by a high IQ. β location: 349
The trick is that he did not organise his notes by topic, but in the rather abstract way of giving them fixed numbers. β location: 392
We need a reliable and simple external structure to think in that compensates for the limitations of our brains. β location: 413
Everybody is motivated when the finish line is within reach. β location: 423
Writing these notes is also not the main work. Thinking is. Reading is. Understanding and coming up with ideas is. And this is how it is supposed to be. The notes are just the tangible outcome of it. β location: 445
Writing is, without dispute, the best facilitator for thinking, reading, learning, understanding and generating ideas we have. β location: 448
Notes build up while you think, read, understand and generate ideas, because you have to have a pen in your hand if you want to think, read, understand and generate ideas properly anyway. β location: 449
as Levy writes: βno matter how internal processes are implemented, (you) need to understand the extent to which the mind is reliant upon external scaffolding.β β location: 454
If we write, it is more likely that we understand what we read, remember what we learn and that our thoughts make sense. β location: 457
- Make fleeting notes. Always have something at hand to write with to capture every idea that pops into your mind. β location: 463
- Make literature notes. Whenever you read something, make notes about the content. β location: 469
Keep it very short, be extremely selective, and use your own words. Be extra selective with quotes β donβt copy them to skip the step of really understanding what they mean. β location: 470
- 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. β location: 473
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. β location: 477
Now add your new permanent notes to the slip-box β location: 481
- Develop your topics, questions and research projects bottom up from within the system. β location: 490
Just follow your interest and always take the path that promises the most insight. Build upon what you have. β location: 493
Do not brainstorm for a topic. Look into the slip-box instead to see where chains of notes have developed and ideas have been built up to clusters. β location: 495
Donβt cling to an idea if another, more promising one gains momentum. β location: 496
The more you become interested in something, the more you will read and think about it, the more notes you will collect and the more likely it is that you will generate questions from it. β location: 497
After a while, you will have developed ideas far enough to decide on a topic to write about. β location: 500
Look for what is missing and what is redundant. Donβt wait until you have everything together. β location: 504
Turn your notes into a rough draft. Donβt simply copy your notes into a manuscript. Translate them into something coherent and embed them into the context of your argument while you build your argument out of the notes at the same time. β location: 506
Edit and proofread your manuscript. Give yourself a pat on the shoulder and turn to the next manuscript. β location: 509
Every idea adds to what can become a critical mass that turns a mere collection of ideas into an idea-generator. β location: 521
Academic writing in itself is not a complicated process that requires a variety of complicated tools, but is in constant danger of being clogged with unnecessary distractions. β location: 543
Few of these techniques are particularly complicated in themselves, but they are usually used without any regard to the actual workflow, which then quickly becomes a mess. β location: 551
the slip-box is not introduced as another technique, but as a crucial element in an overarching workflow that is stripped of everything that could distract from what is important. β location: 558
To have an undistracted brain to think with and a reliable collection of notes to think in is pretty much all we need. Everything else is just clutter. β location: 562
πͺ¨ Tool Box
We need four tools: Β·Β Β Β Β Β Β Something to write with and something to write on (pen and paper will do) Β· A reference management system (the best programs are free) Β· The slip-box (the best program is free) Β· An editor (whatever works best for you: very good ones are free) More is unnecessary, less is impossible. β location: 564
we sometimes forget that the handling is as important as the possibilities of the tool itself. β location: 617
Writing is what follows: In the beginning stands the question to be answered, followed by an overview of the literature, the discussion of it and the conclusion. This, according to this thinking, prepares you for doing independent research. β location: 644
Studying does not prepare students for independent research. It is independent research. β location: 647
There is no such thing as private knowledge in academia. An idea kept private is as good as one you never had. β location: 650
Making something public always means to write it down so it can be read. β location: 651
the professor is not there for the student and the student not for the professor. Both are only there for the truth. β location: 655
Everything within the university aims at some kind of publication. β location: 656
It is public because in the discussion, it does not matter anymore what the author meant, only what is there in writing. β location: 659
This is why the presentation and the production of knowledge cannot be separated, but are rather two sides of the same coin β location: 663
Focusing on writing as if nothing else counts does not necessarily mean you should do everything else less well, but it certainly makes you do everything else differently. β location: 671
Having a clear, tangible purpose when you attend a lecture, discussion or seminar will make you more engaged and sharpen your focus. β location: 673
you will elaborate on the meaning, which will make it much more likely that you will remember it. β location: 679
And by doing everything with the clear purpose of writing about it, you will do what you do deliberately. β location: 680
single line of a manuscript, you will improve your reading, thinking and other intellectual skills just by doing everything as if nothing counts other than writing. β location: 682
the question is: In which context will I want to stumble upon it again? β location: 729
Canβt find your trousers? Maybe they are with the bleach you bought the same day at your department store. β location: 731
The slip-box is designed to present you with ideas you have already forgotten, allowing your brain to focus on thinking instead of remembering. β location: 738
To be able to decide on a topic, one must already have read quite a bit and certainly not just about one topic. β location: 854
By focusing on what is interesting and keeping written track of your own intellectual development, topics, questions and arguments will emerge from the material without force. β location: 867
As writing has not accompanied their previous work, they have to either start with something completely new (which is risky) or retrace their ideas (which is boring). β location: 875
The advice to think about what to write about before you write comes both too early and too late. Too late, as you already have passed up the chance to build up written resources when you face the white sheet of paper or the blank screen, but also too early, if you try to postpone every serious content-related work until you have made a decision on the topic. β location: 882
writing is not a linear process, but a circular one: the problem of finding a topic is replaced by the problem of having too many topics to write about. β location: 888
How can you not feel threatened by an empty page if you have literally nothing at hand to fill it with? β location: 894
Once we get into the workflow, it is as if the work itself gains momentum, pulling us along and sometimes even energizing us. This is the kind of dynamic we are looking for. β location: 920
Only if the work itself becomes rewarding can the dynamic of motivation and reward become self-sustainable and propel the whole process forward β location: 928
Nothing motivates us more than the experience of becoming better at what we do. β location: 938
Seeking feedback, not avoiding it, is the first virtue of anyone who wants to learn, or in the more general terms of psychologist Carol Dweck, to grow. β location: 939
Ironically, it is therefore often the highly gifted and talented students, who receive a lot of praise, who are more in danger of developing a fixed mindset and getting stuck. β location: 944
they tend to focus on keeping this impression intact, rather than exposing themselves to new challenges and the possibility of learning from failure. β location: 946
Embracing a growth mindset means to get pleasure out of changing for the better (which is mostly inwardly rewarding) instead of getting pleasure in being praised (which is outwardly rewarding). β location: 947
To seek as many opportunities to learn as possible is the most reliable long-term growth strategy. β location: 949
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 β location: 951
The linear model of academic writing comes with very few feedback opportunities, and even those are usually spread out over time β location: 954
It is not just about increasing the number of opportunities to learn, but also to be able to correct the mistakes we inevitably make. β location: 958
Reading with a pen in the hand, for example, forces, us to think about what we read and check upon our understanding. β location: 961
We tend to think we understand what we read β until we try to rewrite it in our own words. β location: 962
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. β location: 977
the more connected information we already have, the easier it is to learn, because new information can dock to that information. β location: 984
Ahrens - The Six Steps to Successful Writing
the constant interruption of emails and text messages cuts our productivity by about 40% and makes us at least 10 IQ points dumber. β location: 999
While those who multitasked felt more productive, their productivity actually decreased β a lot β location: 1020
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. β location: 1026
All these are not just different tasks, but tasks requiring a different kind of attention. It is not only impossible to focus on more than one thing at a time, but also to have a different kind of attention on more than one thing at a time. β location: 1039
βflow,β the state in which being highly focused becomes effortless (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), β location: 1044
If the critic constantly and prematurely interferes whenever a sentence isnβt perfect yet, we would never get anything on paper. β location: 1074
We need to get our thoughts on paper first and improve them there, where we can look at them. β location: 1075
If we try to please the critical reader instantly, our workflow would come to a standstill. β location: 1076
It is important, though, to understand outlining not as the preparation of writing or even as planning, but as a separate task we need to return to throughout the writing process on a regular basis. β location: 1084
It would be ridiculous to adhere to a general formula and read every text in the same way, β location: 1093
academic writing requires the whole spectrum of attention. To master the art of writing, we need to be able to apply whatever kind of attention and focus is needed. β location: 1096
it is not a relentless focus, but flexible focus that distinguishes them. β location: 1101
successful problem solving may be a function of flexible strategy application in relation to task demands.β β location: 1103
The key to creativity is being able to switch between a wide-open, playful mind and a narrow analytical frame.β β location: 1107
we need an equally flexible work structure that doesnβt break down every time we depart from a preconceived plan. β location: 1110
The moment we stop making plans is the moment we start to learn. β location: 1122
The widespread praise for planning rests on the misconception that a process like writing an academic text, which is highly dependent on cognition and thinking, can rely on conscious decision-making alone. β location: 1128
To be able to become an expert, we need the freedom to make our own decisions and all the necessary mistakes that help us learn. β location: 1136
Teachers tend to mistake the ability to follow (their) rules with the ability to make the right choices in real situations. β location: 1149
success in academic writing depends to a great degree on the organization of its practical side. β location: 1167
The workflow around the slip-box is not a prescription that tells you what to do at what stage of writing. On the contrary: It gives you a structure of clearly separable tasks, which can be completed within reasonable time and provides you with instant feedback through interconnected writing tasks. β location: 1168
becoming a professional by acquiring the skills and experience to judge situations correctly and intuitively so you can chuck misleading study guides for good. β location: 1172
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. β location: 1177
it is so much easier to remember things we understand than things we donβt. β location: 1195
Things we understand are connected, either through rules, theories, narratives, pure logic, mental models or explanations. β location: 1197
the Zeigarnik effect: Open tasks tend to occupy our short-term memory β until they are done. β location: 1211
we donβt actually have to finish tasks to convince our brains to stop thinking about them. All we have to do is to write them down in a way that convinces us that it will be taken care of. β location: 1213
as we canβt take care of everything once and for all right now, the only way to do that is to have a reliable external system in place where we can keep all our nagging thoughts about the many things that need to be done and trust that they will not be lost. β location: 1217
To be able to focus on the task at hand, we have to make sure other, unfinished tasks are not lingering in our head and wasting precious mental resources. β location: 1219
The first step is to break down the amorphous task of βwritingβ into smaller pieces of different tasks that can be finished in one go. β location: 1221
The second step is to make sure we always write down the outcome of our thinking, including possible connections to further inquiries. β location: 1222
the third limited resource is motivation or willpower. β location: 1241
Acts of self-control, responsible decision making, and active choice seem to interfere with other such acts that follow soon after. β location: 1251
The smartest way to deal with this kind of limitation is to cheat. Instead of forcing ourselves to do something we donβt feel like doing, we need to find a way to make us feel like doing what moves our project further along. β location: 1258
a reliable and standardised working environment is less taxing on our attention, concentration and willpower, or, if you like, ego. β location: 1262
Breaks are much more than just opportunities to recover. They are crucial for learning. They allow the brain to process information, move it into long-term memory and prepare it for new information β location: 1273
If you understand what you read and translate it into the different context of your own thinking, materialised in the slip-box, you cannot help but transform the findings and thoughts of others into something that is new and your own. β location: 1291
the idea is not to copy, but to have a meaningful dialogue with the texts we read. β location: 1303
Whenever we explore a new, unfamiliar subject, our notes will tend to be more extensive, but we shouldnβt get nervous about it, as this is the deliberate practice of understanding we cannot skip. β location: 1322
Without a clear purpose for the notes, taking them will feel more like a chore than an important step within a bigger project. β location: 1330
Handwriting is slower and canβt be corrected as quickly as electronic notes. β location: 1348
if you are writing by hand, you are forced to think about what you hear (or read) β otherwise you wouldnβt be able to grasp the underlying principle, the idea, the structure of an argument. β location: 1350
If insight becomes a threat to your academic or writing success, you are doing it wrong. β location: 1393
Instead of having the hypothesis in mind all the time, we want to: Β·Β Β Β Β Confirm that we have separated tasks and focus on understanding the text we read, Β·Β Β Β Β Make sure we have given a true account of its content Β· Find the relevance of it and make connections. β location: 1397
The slip-box forces us to be selective in reading and note-taking, but the only criterion is the question of whether something adds to a discussion in the slip-box. β location: 1407
What we are looking for are facts and information that can add something and therefore enrich the slip-box. β location: 1410
moving the attention from the individual project with our preconceived ideas towards the open connections within the slip-box. β location: 1411
Yes, we have to be selective, but not in terms of pros and cons, but in terms of relevant or irrelevant. β location: 1414
The slip-box is pretty agnostic about the content it is fed. It just prefers relevant notes. It is after reading and collecting relevant data, connecting thoughts and discussing how they fit together that it is time to draw conclusions and develop a linear structure for the argument. β location: 1422
It is the practice of looking for the gist and distinguishing it from mere supporting details. β location: 1427
Patterns that help us navigate texts and discourses are not only theories, concepts or the respective terminology, but also typical mistakes we automatically scan an argument for, general categories we apply, writing styles that indicate a certain school of thought or mental models we learn or develop from different insights and can collect like a great and ever-increasing set of thinking tools. Without these tools and reference points, no professional reading or understanding would be possible. β location: 1432
Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) βHave the courage to use your own understanding,β β location: 1445
Taking smart notes is the deliberate practice of these skills. Mere reading, underlining sentences and hoping to remember the content is not. β location: 1467
βThe principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool,β β location: 1482
The moment we become familiar with something, we start believing we also understand it. On top of that, we also tend to like it more (Bornstein 1989). While β location: 1485
the mere-exposure effect: The moment we become familiar with something, we start believing we also understand it. On top of that, we also tend to like it more β location: 1484
If we donβt try to verify our understanding during our studies, we will happily enjoy the feeling of getting smarter and more knowledgeable while in reality staying as dumb as we were. β location: 1488
And while writing down an idea feels like a detour, extra time spent, not writing it down is the real waste of time, as it renders most of what we read as ineffectual. β location: 1492
The majority of students chooses every day not to test themselves in any way. β location: 1502
almost completely useless: rereading and underlining sentences for later rereading. β location: 1504
deliberate practice is demanding; it requires effort. β location: 1512
βThe one who does the work does the learning,β β location: 1515
They make it harder for the student to learn because they set everything up for reviewing, taking away the opportunity to build meaningful connections and to make sense of something by translating it into oneβs own language. It is like fast food: It is neither nutritious nor very enjoyable, it is just convenient. β location: 1520
they appear during the learning process to impede learning, but they then often enhance learning as measured by post-training tests of retention and transfer. β location: 1528
When we try to answer a question before we know how to, we will later remember the answer better, even if our attempt failed β location: 1532
the best-researched and most successful learning method is elaboration. β location: 1546
Elaboration means nothing other than really thinking about the meaning of what we read, how it could inform different questions and topics and how it could be combined with other knowledge. β location: 1547
Working with the slip-box, therefore, doesnβt mean storing information in there instead of in your head, i.e. not learning. On the contrary, it facilitates real, long-term learning. β location: 1556
There is a clear division of labour between the brain and the slip-box: The slip-box takes care of details and references and is a long-term memory resource that keeps information objectively unaltered. That allows the brain to focus on the gist, the deeper understanding and the bigger picture, and frees it up to be creative. Both the brain and the slip-box can focus on what they are best at. β location: 1561
Writing brief accounts on the main ideas of a text instead of collecting quotes. β location: 1579
We think about what they mean for other lines of thoughts, then we write this explicitly on paper and connect them literally with the other notes. β location: 1583
Academic or nonfiction texts are not written like this because in addition to the writing, there is the reading, the research, the thinking and the tinkering with ideas. β location: 1596
It does make sense to break down the work into manageable and measurable steps, but pages per day donβt work that well as a unit when you also have to read, do research and think. β location: 1602
You could therefore measure your daily productivity by the number of notes written. β location: 1621
The brain alone is too eager to make us feel good β even if it is by politely ignoring inconsistencies in our thinking. β location: 1632
real thinking requires some kind of externalization, especially in the form of writing. β location: 1655
common way to embed an idea into the context of the slip-box is by writing out the reasons of its importance for your own lines of thought. β location: 1664
Why did the aspects I wrote down catch my interest? β location: 1675
Forgetting, then, would not be the loss of a memory, but the erection of a mental barrier between the conscious mind and our long-term memory. β location: 1735
The first step of elaboration is to think enough about a piece of information so we are able to write about it. The second step is to think about what it means for other contexts as well. β location: 1798
retention is facilitated by acquisition conditions that prompt people to elaborate information in a way that increases the distinctiveness of their memory representations.β β location: 1802