That means you have to figure a lot of stuff out yourself. Killing them as they land into your notesīlinking cursor whenever you have to write In fact, it turns out that the same trick was used by a German Sociologist in his little-known note-taking framework - the Zettelkasten Method - that allowed him to produce 70 books in 30 years.Īnd of course, this wouldn’t be complete if you didn’t learn anything practical, so I’ll teach you that little-known note-taking framework, so you can take smart notes that will: In fact, this problem existed even in the early days of the web, so you’ll also discover how Tim Berners-Lee - inventor of the Web - used one genius trick to solve it. From there, you’ll discover how categories produce a false sense of order. So to solve that, we’ll investigate the problem at its roots: Specialization. Ultimately, the more we add notes, the less useful they also become. The more we add notes, the more difficult using our notes become. But at the cost of inter-categorical insight. Information is organized, notes are easy to check, and the method is easy to teach. Undoubtedly, using predetermined categories made everything feel easier. As you’ll soon discover, it’s the main culprit behind the ineffectiveness of conventional note-taking. That’s because conventional note-taking uses predetermined categories. Note-taking is supposed to improve the way we connect ideas, and ultimately, unravel new insight. Our notes are supposed to help us become more creative, more productive, and more prolific as knowledge workers. Instead of extending our abilities, it rather dampens them. Is a means to it retention is merely a side effect.Ĭonventional note-taking, however, defeats this purpose. Point of note-taking isn’t just to capture We rarely evenįirst place! I figured that caused all the confusion. Note-taking because the way we’re told to do it isn’t working. Much less those we can use for a lifetime. It was rather the way we’re taught to do it - we’re not taught to produce useful notes,
Wasn’t note-taking itself that’s wasteful. Notes? More importantly, why wouldn’t anyone Information, but they do it in a way that allows idea development. It’s just that they took notes differently. Heck, even cooks take notes to develop their ideas! Tiago Forte takes (extremely) systematic notes. (Everybody knows Tim Ferriss.) Journalists take notes. That’s when I stumbled upon a profound pattern in productive writers: Some content creators are more prolific than others by a large extent, and the common thing they have is they take notes.īest selling author Ryan Holiday takes a lot of notes - that was one “secret” that made him a prolific writer. (in that order)Įver since college, note-taking didn’t make sense…until I wanted to become a better writer myself. “What really is the point of note-taking?” Started doing knowledge work that I started asking the same question again: Some people think I am, but they’ve got it all wrong - I used Anki in place of note-taking, that’s why. It was tremendous freedom! I didn’t know you could score high on exams without even copying a word from a single slide. I stopped taking them religiously, at least. In that case, though, I’d rather use superior methods like Spaced Repetition and Method of Loci.Īnd so in college, I stopped taking notes. You might say we take notes “for better retention”, but I, too, thought retention was the goal of note-taking. You know what I mean - you take borderline legible notes, get them checked, and then get a “good job” for all the hand cramps. I’ve always thought note-taking was wasteful ever since I was in grade school. I mean, our notes don’t even get returned to. “ Why do we take notes in the first place?”Īsking that question more often. After reading this, make sure you implement what you learned, and then check out the “Further Readings” section. But, I do think this will help you understand the Zettelkasten Method (the how part) better if you’re a beginner. By no means is this guide perfect, nor am I trying to imply that this is the only way to do it. Author’s Note: This is the Zettelkasten guide I wish existed when I started.
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