How to Take Smart Notes. One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking
Software can make things considerably easier and it is exciting to explore their features. But it also brings the risk of losing sight of what is most important
Every intellectual endeavour starts with a note
INTRODUCTION
even the best breathing technique would probably not make much of a difference to our writing
Note: I disagree with that Because breathing techniques affects our ability to focus
good, productive writing is based on good note-taking
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
Every task that is interesting, meaningful and well-defined will be done
1 Everything You Need to Know
A good structure enables flow, the state in which you get so completely immersed in your work that you lose track of time and can just keep on going as the work becomes effortless
Note: Easy and functional structure endless flow stateWhat is the definition of a good structure?
The challenge is to structure one’s workflow in a way that insight and new ideas can become the driving forces that push us forward
poor students often feel more successful (until they are tested), because they don’t experience much self-doubt. In psychology, this is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect
1.1 Good Solutions are Simple – and Unexpected
The best way to deal with complexity is to keep things as simple as possible
It is not about redoing what you have done before
Note: In my opinion you need to redo a lot of things when you change your workflow Moving from app to app you lose a lot of information
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
Note: Why not There are a lot of useful insights that you left there
Even the best tool will not improve your productivity considerably if you don’t change your daily routines the tool is embedded in
Routines require simple, repeatable tasks that can become automatic and fit together seamlessly
distractions do not come so much from our environment, but our own minds
Writing is not a linear process. We constantly have to jump back and forth between different tasks
the secret to a successful organization lies in the holistic perspective
There is no point in having great tools if they don’t fit together
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
1.2 The Slip-box
Instead of adding notes to existing categories or the respective texts, he wrote them all on small pieces of paper, put a number in the corner and collected them in one place: the slip-box
His slip-box became his dialogue partner, main idea generator and productivity engine
“My project: theory of society. Duration: 30 years. Costs: zero” (Luhmann, 1997, 11). In sociology, a “theory of society” is the mother of all projects
“If I want something, it’s more time. The only thing that really is a nuisance is the lack of time.”
“I 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.”
If we work in an environment that is flexible enough to accommodate our work rhythm, we don’t need to struggle with resistance
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
1.3 The slip-box manual
Luhmann had two slip-boxes: a bibliographical one, which contained the references and brief notes on the content of the literature, and the main one in which he collected and generated his ideas,
Whenever he read something, he would write the bibliographic information on one side of a card and make brief notes about the content on the other side (Schmidt 2013, 170). These notes would end up in the bibliographic slip-box
he would look at his brief notes and think about their relevance for his own thinking and writing. He then would turn to the main slip-box and write his ideas, comments and thoughts on new pieces of paper
He usually wrote his notes with an eye towards already existing notes in the slip-box
while the notes on the literature were brief, he wrote them with great care, not much different from his style in the final manuscript: in full sentences and with explicit references to the literature from which he drew his material
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
Writing that an author struggles in one chapter to justify his method can be a much more adequate description of this chapter’s content than any quote from the text itself
The trick is that he did not organise his notes by topic, but in the rather abstract way of giving them fixed numbers
If a new note was relevant or directly referred to an already existing note, such as a comment, correction or addition, he added it directly behind the previous note
Whenever he added a note, he checked his slip-box for other relevant notes to make possible connections between them
While other systems start with a preconceived order of topics, Luhmann developed topics bottom up
He would then add another note to his slip-box, on which he would sort a topic by sorting the links of the relevant other notes.
The last element in his file system was an index, from which he would refer to one or two notes that would serve as a kind of entry point into a line of thought or topic. Notes with a sorted collection of links are, of course, good entry points.
We need a reliable and simple external structure to think in that compensates for the limitations of our brains
2 Everything You Need to Do
Writing is, without dispute, the best facilitator for thinking, reading, learning, understanding and generating ideas we have
You have to externalise your ideas, you have to write
If we write, it is more likely that we understand what we read and remember what we learn and that our thoughts make sense
2.1 Writing a paper step by step
Make fleeting notes. Always have something at hand to write with to capture every idea that pops into your mind. Don’t worry too much about how you write it down or what you write it on. These are fleeting notes, mere reminders of what is in your head. They should not cause any distraction. Put them into one place, which you define as your inbox, and process them later
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. Keep it very short, be extremely selective, and use your own words. Be extra selective with quotes – don’t copy them to skip the step of really understanding what they mean. Keep these notes together with the bibliographic details in one place
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.
The idea is not to collect, but to develop ideas, arguments and discussions. Does the new information contradict, correct, support or add to what you already have (in the slip-box or on your mind)? Can you combine ideas to generate something new? What questions are triggered by them?
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.
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
Note: Index note is a tag?
Develop your topics, questions and research projects bottom up from within the system
Turn your notes into a rough draft. Don’t 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. Detect holes in your argument, fill them or change your argument
3 Everything You Need to Have
Good tools do not add features and more options to what we already have, but help to reduce distractions from the main work, which here is thinking.
Note: This is a problem with readwise
3.1 The Toolbox
You need something to capture ideas whenever and wherever they pop into your head. Whatever you use, it should not require any thoughts, attention or multiple steps to write it down
They only function as a reminder of a thought and are not meant to capture the thought itself, which requires time to phrase proper sentences and check facts
The reference system has two purposes: To collect the references (duh) and the notes you take during your reading
The slip-box. Some prefer the old-fashioned pen and paper version in a wooden box. That’s fine – computers can only speed up a relatively minor part of the work anyway, like adding links and formatting references. They can’t speed up the main part of the work, which is thinking, reading and understanding
4 A Few Things to Keep in Mind
The slip-box, for example, would most likely be used as an archive for notes – or worse: a graveyard for thoughts
THE FOUR UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES
5 Writing Is the Only Thing That Matters
Studying does not prepare students for independent research. It is independent research
Studying, done properly, is research, because it is about gaining insight that cannot be anticipated and will be shared within the scientific community under public scrutiny
An idea kept private is as good as one you never had
the professor is not there for the student and the student not for the professor. Both are only there for the truth. And truth is always a public matter
Truth does not belong to anyone; it is the outcome of the scientific exchange of written ideas
Deliberate practice is the only serious way of becoming better at what we are doing
6 Simplicity Is Paramount
In the old system, the question is: Under which topic do I store this note? In the new
In the old system, the question is: Under which topic do I store this note? In the new system, the question is: In which context will I want to stumble upon it again?
If you sort by topic, you are faced with the dilemma of either adding more and more notes to one topic, which makes them increasingly hard to find, or adding more and more topics and subtopics to it, which only shifts the mess to another level
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 archived after the project is finished
The disadvantage is that you have to start all over after each project and cut off all other promising lines of thought. That means that everything you found, thought or encountered during the time of a project will be lost
Note: Тоже самое происходит с визуальными эффектами Создаются ассеты под проект и когда проект закрывается, то все архивируется Хотя из каждой модели можно получить пользу в будущем
The more you learn and collect, the more beneficial your notes should become, the more ideas can mingle and give birth to new ones – and the easier it should be to write an intelligent text with less effort
Fleeting notes are there for capturing ideas quickly while you are busy doing something else
if you want to focus on a text without interrupting your reading flow. Then you might want to just underline sentences or write short comments in the margins. It is important to understand, though, that underlining sentences or writing comments in the margins are also just fleeting notes and do nothing to elaborate on a text. They will very soon become completely useless – unless you do something with them
Note: Эту проблему как раз решает readwise Он помогает возвращаться к fleeting notes и создавать literature notes
Fleeting notes are only useful if you review them within a day or so and turn them into proper notes you can use late
Note: Use todoist to write fleeting notes Then transform them to permanent notes in readwise
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
A good indication that a note has been left unprocessed too long is when you no longer understand what you meant or it appears banal
The only permanently stored notes are the literature notes in the reference system and the main notes in the slip-box
Luhmann never underlined sentences in the text he read or wrote comments in the margins. All he did was take brief notes about the ideas that caught his attention in a text on a separate piece of pape
I make a note with the bibliographic details. On the backside I would write ‘on page x is this, on page y is that,’ and then it goes into the bibliographic slip-box where I collect everything I read
before he stored them away, he would read what he noted down during the day, think about its relevance for his own lines of thought and write about it, filling his main slip-box with permanent notes
In contrast to the fleeting notes, every permanent note for the slip-box is elaborated enough to have the potential to become part of or inspire a final written piece, but that cannot be decided on up front as their relevance depends on future thinking and developments
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
snippets of draft
7 Nobody Ever Starts From Scratch
I am convinced that the attempt of these study guides to squeeze a nonlinear process like writing into a linear order is the main reason for the very problems and frustrations they promise to solve
The material will cluster around the questions they returned to most often, so they don’t risk too far of a departure from their interest
When it finally comes to the decision on what to write about, you will already have made the decision – because you made it on every single step along the way, again and again every day
8 Let the Work Carry You Forward
difference between an exergonic and an endergonic reaction. In the first case, you constantly need to add energy to keep the process going. In the second case, the reaction, once triggered, continues by itself and even releases energy
Any attempts to trick ourselves into work with external rewards (like doing something nice after finishing a chapter) are only short-term solutions with no prospect of establishing a positive feedback loop
fear of failure has the ugliest name of all phobias: Kakorrhaphiophobia.
Reading with a pen in the hand, for example, forces, us to think about what we read and check upon our understanding
The ability to express understanding in one’s own words is a fundamental competency for everyone who writes – and only by doing it with the chance of realizing our lack of understanding can we become better at it
Expressing our own thoughts in writing makes us realise if we really thought them through.
Expressing our own thoughts in writing makes us realise if we really thought them through
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
Note: Именно это я испытываю от моей модели мира Информация к ней очень легко прилипает и дополняет ее
THE SIX STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL WRITING
9 Separate and Interlocking Tasks
9.1 Give Each Task Your Undivided Attention
According to a widely cited study, the constant interruption of emails and text messages cuts our productivity by about 40% and makes us at least 10 IQ points dumber
Note: Важно ограничивать отвлечение социальных сетей и месенджеров Ratio довольно хорошо с этим справляется
watching television reduces the attention span of children (Swing et al. 2010)
average length of TV soundbites has steadily declined over the last several decades (Fehrmann, 2011)
9.2 Multitasking is not a good idea
While those who multitasked felt more productive, their productivity actually decreased – a lot (Wang and Tchernev 2012; Rosen 2008; Ophir, Nass, and Wagner 2009)
what is most interesting about these studies is not the fact that the productivity and the quality of the work decreases with multitasking, but that it also impairs the ability to deal with more than one thing at a time
what psychologists call the mere-exposure effect: doing something many times makes us believe we have become good at it – completely independent of our actual performance (Bornstein 1989)
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
Note: are this all the necessary steps?
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the 1970s described “flow,” the state in which being highly focused becomes effortless (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975),16 other forms of attention, which are much less dependent on will and effort, attracted researchers’ interest
The maximum duration of focused attention seems not to have changed over time (Doyle and Zakrajsek 2013, 91)
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
9.3 Give Each Task the Right Kind of Attention
It is also easier to focus on finding the right words if we don’t have to think about the structure of the text at the same time
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
Some texts need to be read slowly and carefully, while others are only worth skimming
Oshin Vartanian compared and analysed the daily workflows of Nobel Prize winners and other eminent scientists and concluded that it is not a relentless focus, but flexible focus that distinguishes them
Note: Any book on how to improve the flexibility of the brain?
The key to creativity is being able to switch between a wide-open, playful mind and a narrow analytical frame.” (Dean, 2013, 152)
To be flexible, we need an equally flexible work structure that doesn’t break down every time we depart from a preconceived plan
Don’t make plans. Become an expert
Note: Противоречивое заявление
9.4 Become an Expert Instead of a Planner
The moment we stop making plans is the moment we start to learn
To become an expert, we need the freedom to make our own decisions and all the necessary mistakes that help us
To become an expert, we need the freedom to make our own decisions and all the necessary mistakes that help us learn
Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, researchers on expertise, have a simple explanation: Teachers tend to mistake the ability to follow (their) rules with the ability to make the right choices in real situations
According to the Dreyfuses, the correct application of teachable rules enables you to become a competent “performer” (which corresponds to a “3” on their five-grade expert scale), but it won’t make you a “master” (level 4) and certainly won’t turn you into an “expert” (level 5).
gut feeling is not a mysterious force, but an incorporated history of experience. It is the sedimentation of deeply learned practice through numerous feedback loops on success or failure
9.5 Get Closure
We can hold a maximum of seven things in our head at the same time, plus/minus two (Miller 1956)
the maximum capacity of our working memory is not seven plus/minus two, but more like a maximum of four (Cowan 2001)
Things we understand are connected, either through rules, theories, narratives, pure logic, mental models or explanations. And deliberately building these kinds of meaningful connections is what the slip-box is all about
Zeigarnik effect: Open tasks tend to occupy our short-term memory – until they are done. That is why we get so easily distracted by thoughts of unfinished tasks, regardless of their importance
we don’t 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
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
we can’t take care of everything 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
break down the amorphous task of “writing” into smaller pieces of different tasks that can be finished in one go
make sure we always write down the outcome of our thinking, including possible connections to further inquiries. As the outcome of each task is written down and possible connections become visible, it is easy to pick up the work anytime where we left it without having to keep it in mind all the time
Conversely, we can use the Zeigarnik effect to our advantage by deliberately keeping unanswered questions in our minds. We can ruminate about them, even when we do something that has nothing to do with work and ideally does not require our full attention
9.6 Reduce the Number of Decisions
Next to the attention that can only be directed at one thing at a time and the short-term memory that can only hold up to seven things at once, the third limited resource is motivation or willpower
Today, willpower is compared to muscles: a limited resource that depletes quickly and needs time to recover. Improvement through training is possible to a certain degree, but takes time and effort
“We use the term ego depletion to refer to a temporary reduction in the self’s capacity or willingness to engage in volitional action (including controlling the environment, controlling the self, making choices, and initiating action) caused by prior exercise of volition.” (Baumeister et al., 1998, 1253)
We use the term ego depletion to refer to a temporary reduction in the self’s capacity or willingness to engage in volitional action (including controlling the environment, controlling the self, making choices, and initiating action) caused by prior exercise of volition.” (Baumeister et al., 1998, 12
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. Doing the work that need to be done without having to apply too much willpower requires a technique, a ruse
It is well known that decision-making is one of the most tiring and wearying tasks, which is why people like Barack Obama or Bill Gates only wear two suit colours: dark blue or dark grey. This means they have one less decision to make in the morning, leaving more resources for the decisions that really matter
In the way we organise our research and writing, we too can significantly reduce the number of decisions we have to make
By always using the same notebook for making quick notes, always extracting the main ideas from a text in the same way and always turning them into the same kind of permanent notes, which are always dealt with in the same manner, the number of decisions during a work session can be greatly reduced. That leaves us with much more mental energy that we can direct towards more useful tasks, like trying to solve the problems in question
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 (Doyle and Zakrajsek 2013, 69)
If we don’t give ourselves a break in between work sessions, be it out of eagerness or fear of forgetting what we were doing, it can have a detrimental effect on our efforts. To have a walk (Ratey, 2008) or even a nap22 supports learning and thinking.
10 Read for Understanding
10.1 Read With a Pen in Hand
The slip-box is an idea generator that develops in lockstep with your own intellectual development. Together, you can turn previously separated or even isolated facts into a critical mass of interconnected ideas.
Drawing from the slip-box to develop a draft is more like a dialogue than a mechanical act. Therefore, the outcome is never a copy of previous work, but always comes with surprises. There will always be something you couldn’t have anticipated. Obviously, the same applies to every single step before
When we extract ideas from the specific context of a text, we deal with ideas that serve a specific purpose in a particular context, support a specific argument, are part of a theory that isn’t ours or written in a language we wouldn’t use. This is why we have to translate them into our own language to prepare them to be embedded into the new contexts of our own thinking, the different context(s) within the slip-box. Translating means to give the truest possible account of the original work using different words – it does not mean the freedom to make something fit.
As well, the mere copying of quotes almost always changes their meaning by stripping them of context, even though the words aren’t changed. This is a common beginner mistake, which can only lead to a patchwork of ideas, but never a coherent thought.
mere copying of quotes almost always changes their meaning by stripping them of context, even though the words aren’t changed. This is a common beginner mistake, which can only lead to a patchwork of ideas, but never a coherent thought
While the literature notes will be stored within the reference system together with the bibliographic details, separate from the slip-box, but still close to the context of the original text, they are already written with an eye towards the lines of thoughts within the slip-box
I always have a slip of paper at hand, on which I note down the ideas of certain pages. On the back, I write down the bibliographic details. After finishing the book, I go through my notes and think how these notes might be relevant for already written notes in the slip-box. It means that I always read with an eye towards possible connections in the slip-box
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
Whenever we explore a new, unfamiliar subject, our notes will tend to be more extensive, but we shouldn’t get nervous about it, as this is the deliberate practice of understanding we cannot skip. Sometimes it is necessary to slowly work our way through a difficult text and sometimes it is enough to reduce a whole book to a single sentence. The only thing that matters is that these notes provide the best possible support for the next step, the writing of the actual slip-box notes. And what is most helpful is to reflect on the frame, theoretical background, methodological approach or perspective of the text we read. That often means to reflect as much on what is not mentioned as what is mentioned.
Without a clear purpose for the notes, taking them will feel more like a chore than an important step within a bigger project
But with the slip-box, everything is about building up a critical mass of useful notes, which gives us a clear idea of how to read and how to take literature notes.
You need to take some form of literature note that captures your understanding of the text, so you have something in front of your eyes while you are making the slip-box note
Literature notes are short and meant to help with writing slip-box notes. Everything else either helps to get to this point or is a distraction
Different independent studies indicate that writing by hand facilitates understanding
in terms of understanding the content of the lecture, the students who took their notes by hand came out much, much better. After a week, this difference in understanding was still clearly measurable
Handwriting is slower and can’t be corrected as quickly as electronic notes. Because students can’t write fast enough to keep up with everything that is said in a lecture, they are forced to focus on the gist of what is being said, not the details. But to be able to note down the gist of a lecture, you have to understand it in the first place. So if you are writing by hand, you are forced to think about what you hear (or read) – otherwise you wouldn’t be able to grasp the underlying principle, the idea, the structure of an argument. Handwriting makes pure copying impossible, but instead facilitates the translation of what is said (or written) into one’s own words
10.2 Keep an Open Mind
While we should seek out disconfirming arguments and facts that challenge our way of thinking, we are naturally drawn to everything that makes us feel good, which is everything that confirms what we already believe we know
Raymond Nickerson puts it: “If one were to attempt to identify a single problematic aspect of human reasoning that deserves attention above all others, the confirmation bias would have to be among the candidates for consideration” (Nickerson 1998, 175)
Charles Darwin. He forced himself to write down (and therefore elaborate on) the arguments that were the most critical of his theories
Confirmation bias is tackled here in two steps: First, by turning the whole writing process on its head, and secondly, by changing the incentives from finding confirming facts to an indiscriminate gathering of any relevant information regardless of what argument it will support
Developing arguments and ideas bottom-up instead of top-down is the first and most important step to opening ourselves up for insight. We should be able to focus on the most insightful ideas we encounter and welcome the most surprising turns of events without jeopardizing our progress or, even better, because it brings our project forward
One of the most important habitual changes when starting to work with the slip-box is moving the attention from the individual project with our preconceived ideas towards the open connections within the slip-box
the more diverse the content of the slip-box is, the further it can bring our thinking forward – provided we haven’t decided on the direction upfront
Contradictions within the slip-box can be discussed on follow-up notes or even in the final paper
10.3 Get the Gist
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
we ourselves deliberately decide to take on the task of reading and being selective about it, relying on nothing other than our own judgement of what is important and what is not
Note: How can AI models help with this?
philosopher Immanuel Kant described in his famous text about the Enlightenment: “Nonage [immaturity] is the inability to use one’s own understanding without another’s guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one’s own mind without another’s guidance. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) ‘Have the courage to use your own understanding,’ is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment.” (Kant 1784)
One has to read extremely selectively and extract widespread and connected references. One has to be able to follow recurrences. But how to learn it if guidance is impossible? […] Probably the best method is to take notes – not excerpts, but condensed reformulated accounts of a text. Rewriting what was already written almost automatically trains one to shift the attention towards frames, patterns and categories in the observations
It makes sense to always ask the question: What is not meant, what is excluded if a certain claim is made?
The ability to spot patterns, to question the frames used and detect the distinctions made by others, is the precondition to thinking critically and looking behind the assertions of a text or a talk. Being able to re-frame questions, assertions and information is even more important than having an extensive knowledge, because without this ability, we wouldn’t be able to put our knowledge to use
10.4 Learn to Read
Richard Feynman once said that he could only determine whether he understood something if he could give an introductory lecture on it
If we don’t 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. This warm feeling disappears quickly when we try to explain what we read in our own words in writing
Note: Creating videos on a material can also help with this
The majority of students chooses every day not to test themselves in any way. Instead, they apply the very method research has shown again (Karpicke, Butler, and Roediger 2009) and again (Brown, Roedinger III, and McDaniel 2014, ch. 1) to be almost completely useless: rereading and underlining sentences for later rereading. And most of them choose that method even if they are taught that they don’t work
10.5 Learn by Reading
It would be surprising if teachers changed the topic in the middle of the lesson, moving on to the next chapter before anyone had the chance to really understand the first one, only to come back to the previous topic later. It would also be unexpected to test the students constantly, half of the time about things that weren’t even mentioned yet. But as much as it would probably annoy the students, who are used to having their material presented in neat categories, it would force them to make sense of what they encounter – and that would make them really learn it.
Note: Always try to challenge students and be unexpected This is the best way to learn Because this is how the life works
“Manipulations such as variation, spacing, introducing contextual interference, and using tests, rather than presentations, as learning events, all share the property that 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. Conversely, manipulations such as keeping conditions constant and predictable and massing trials on a given task often appear to enhance the rate of learning during instruction or training, but then typically fail to support long-term retention and transfer” – Bjork, 2011, 8.
When we try to answer a question before we know how to, we will later remember the answer better, even if our attempt failed (Arnold and McDermott 2013). If we put effort into the attempt of retrieving information, we are much more likely to remember it in the long run, even if we fail to retrieve it without help in the end (Roediger and Karpicke 2006)
Instead of reviewing a text, you could just as well play a round of ping-pong. In fact, chances are it would help you more because exercise helps to transfer information into long-term memory (cf. Ratey 2008). Plus, exercise reduces stress, which is good, because stress floods our brains with hormones that suppress learning processes (Baram et al. 2008).
Luhmann almost never read a text twice (Hagen 1997) and was still regarded as an impressive conversation partner who seemed to have all information ready to hand
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
11 Take Smart Notes
The educational psychologist Kirsti Lonka compared the reading approach of unusually successful doctoral candidates and students with those who were much less successful. One difference stood out as critical: The ability to think beyond the given frames of a text (Lonka 2003, 155f)
Experienced academic readers usually read a text with questions in mind and try to relate it to other possible approaches, while inexperienced readers tend to adopt the question of a text and the frames of the argument and take it as a given. What good readers can do is spot the limitations of a particular approach and see what is not mentioned in the text
Even more problematic than staying within the given frame of a text or an argument is the inability to interpret particular information in the text within the bigger frame or argument of the text
Jerome Bruner, a psychologist Lonka refers to, goes a step further and says that scientific thinking is plainly impossible if we can’t manage to think beyond a given context and we only focus on the information as it is given to us (Bruner, 1973, quoted after ibid.)
Writing brief accounts on the main ideas of a text instead of collecting quotes. And she also stresses that it is no less important to do something with these ideas – to think hard about how they connect with other ideas from different contexts and could inform questions that are not already the questions of the author of the respective text
11.1 Make a Career One Note at a Time
The technique of writing a certain amount every day was perfected by Anthony Trollope, one of the most popular and productive authors of the 19th century: He would start every morning at 5:30 a.m. with a cup of coffee and a clock in front of him. Then he would write at least 250 words every 15 minutes. This, he writes in his autobiography: “allowed me to produce over ten pages of an ordinary novel volume a day, and if kept up through ten months, would have given as its results three novels of three volumes each in the year” (Trollope, 2008, 272). And that, mind you, was before breakfast
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. And they almost always take significantly more time than expected: If you ask academic or nonfiction writers, students or professors how much time they expect it would take them to finish a text, they systematically underestimate the time they need – even when they are asked to estimate the time under the worst-case scenario and if the real conditions turned out to b
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
Academic and nonfiction writing is not as predictable as a Trollope novel and the work it involves certainly can’t be broken down to something like “one page a day.”
Putting notes into the slip-box, however, is like investing and reaping the rewards of compounded interest
Luhmann’s slip-box contains about 90,000 notes, which sounds like an incredibly large number. But it only means that he wrote six notes a day from the day he started to work with his slip-box until he died
In contrast to manuscript pages per day, a certain number of notes a day is a reasonable goal for academic writing. And that is because taking a note and sorting it into the slip-box can be done in one go
You could therefore measure your daily productivity by the number of notes written
Note: Can it be measured in Obsidian?
11.2 Think Outside the Brain
Taking permanent notes of our own thoughts is a form of self-testing as well: do they still make sense in writing? Are we even able to get the thought on paper? Do we have the references, facts and supporting sources at hand? And at the same time, writing it is the best way to get our thoughts in order.
Taking permanent notes of our own thoughts is a form of self-testing as well: do they still make sense in writing? Are we even able to get the thought on paper? Do we have the references, facts and supporting sources at hand? And at the same time, writing it is the best way to get our thoughts in order. Writing here, too, is not copying, but translating (from one context and from one medium into another). No written piece is ever a copy of a thought in our mind.
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
Any thought of a certain complexity requires writing
Note: it can be drawn as well
As we write notes with an eye towards existing notes, we take more into account than the information that is already available in our internal memory. That is extremely important, because the
Luhmann states as clearly as possible: it is not possible to think systematically without writing (Luhmann 1992, 53)
Philosophers, neuroscientists, educators and psychologists like to disagree in many different aspects on how the brain works
Almost all agree nowadays that real thinking requires some kind of externalization, especially in the form of writing. “Notes on paper, or on a computer screen […] do not make contemporary physics or other kinds of intellectual endeavour easier, they make it possible” is one of the key takeaways in a contemporary handbook of neuroscientists (Levy 2011, 290)
book “Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much” (2013) by Mullainathan and Shafir. They investigate how the experience of scarcity has cognitive effects and causes changes in decision-making processes
the first question I asked myself when it came to writing the first permanent note for the slip-box was: What does this all mean for my own research and the questions I think about in my slip-box? This is just another way of asking: Why did the aspects I wrote down catch my interest?
my first note reads plainly: “Any comprehensive analysis of social inequality must include the cognitive effects of scarcity. Cf. Mullainathan and Shafir 2013.”
Note: но ведь это literature note Нихера непонятно
11.3 Learn by not Trying
We have seen in the first step that elaboration through taking smart literature notes increases the likelihood that we will remember what we read in the long term
Transferring these ideas into the network of our own thoughts, our latticework of theories, concepts and mental models in the slip-box brings our thinking to the next level
The literature notes are going to be archived, which means the ideas would be lost in the reference system if we didn’t do something with them. That is why we transfer them into our external memory, the slip-box, with which we have an ongoing dialogue and where they can become part of our active set of ideas
There are no natural cues: Every piece of information can become the trigger for another piece of information
useful learning is to connect a piece of information to as many meaningful contexts as possible, which is what we do when we connect our notes in the slip-box with other notes
From the standpoint of evolution, it makes sense that our brains have a built-in preference to learn meaningful information and a disregard for meaningless letter combinations. But Ebbinghaus laid the foundation for a long-lasting and influential tradition of learning theories that separates understanding from learning
Memory artists instead attach meaning to information and connect it to already known networks of connections in a meaningful way
Learned right, which means understanding, which means connecting in a meaningful way to previous knowledge, information almost cannot be forgotten anymore and will be reliably retrieved if triggered by the right cues
Feynman diagrams are primarily tools to make understanding easier and his lectures are famous because they help students to really understand physics
He couldn’t stand textbooks full of pseudo-explanations (Feynman 1985) and teachers who tried to make learning easier for students by using artificial “real-life” examples instead of using their actual prior understanding as a connection point (Feynman 1963)
Ideally, new notes are written with explicit reference to already existing notes
elaborating on the differences and similarities of notes instead of sorting them by topic not only facilitates learning, but facilitates the ability to categorise and create sensible classifications
11.4 Adding Permanent Notes to the Slip-Box
An initial subsequence that attracts more and more follow-up notes can easily become a main topic with many subtopics over time (Schmidt 2013, 172). A digital Zettelkasten makes things easier:
An initial subsequence that attracts more and more follow-up notes can easily become a main topic with many subtopics over time (Schmidt 2013, 172)
Add a note to the slip-box either behind the note you directly refer to or, if you do not follow up on a specific note, just behind the last note in the slip-box. Number it consecutively; branch out if necessary. With a digital system, you can always add notes “behind” other notes anytime later as each note can follow multiple other notes and therefore be part of different note sequences
Add links to other notes or links on other notes to your new note
Make sure it can be found from the index; add an entry in the index if necessary or refer to it from a note that is connected to the index
12 Develop Ideas
12.1 Develop Topics
After adding a note to the slip-box, we need to make sure it can be found again. This is what the index is for
Note: Index looks like a database of notes
all we need from the index are entry points. A few wisely chosen notes are sufficient for each entry point
We can provide ourselves with a (temporarily valid) overview over a topic or subtopic just by making another note. If we then link from the index to such a note, we have a good entry point
The archivist asks: Which keyword is the most fitting? A writer asks: In which circumstances will I want to stumble upon this note, even if I forget about it? It is a crucial difference
Keywords should always be assigned with an eye towards the topics you are working on or interested in, never by looking at the note in isolation. This is also why this process cannot be automated or delegated to a machine or program – it requires thinking
Good keywords are usually not already mentioned as words in the note
Assigning keywords is much more than just a bureaucratic act. It is a crucial part of the thinking process, which often leads to a deeper elaboration of the note itself and the connection to other notes
12.2 Make Smart Connections
The first type of links are those on notes that are giving you the overview of a topic. These
The first type of links are those on notes that are giving you the overview of a topic. These are notes directly referred to from the index and usually used as an entry point into a topic that has already developed to such a degree that an overview is needed or at least becomes helpful. On a note like this, you can collect links to other relevant notes to this topic or question, preferably with a short indication of what to find on these notes
Luhmann collected up to 25 links to other notes on these kind of entry notes. They don’t have to be written in one go as links can be added over time, which again shows how topics can grow organically
All we have to do is to change the entry in the index to this new note and/or indicate on the old note that we now consider a new structure more fitting
Note: Index напоминает место входа Можно изобразить slip-box как место хаоса Индекс база данных входа в хаос помогает попасть на определенный трэк мыслей
The most common form of reference is plain note-to-note links. They have no function other than indicating a relevant connection between two individual notes
he was able to show how vastly different things like money, power, love, truth and justice can be seen as social inventions that solve structurally similar problems
12.3 Compare, Correct and Differentiate
If you use the slip-box for a while, you will inevitably make a sobering discovery: The great new idea you are abo
If you use the slip-box for a while, you will inevitably make a sobering discovery: The great new idea you are about to add to the slip-box turns out to be already in there. Even worse, chances are this idea wasn’t even yours, but someone else’s
What seems to be the same idea sometimes turns out to be slightly, but crucially, different. We then can explicitly discuss this difference on another note
12.4 Assemble a Toolbox for Thinking
flashcards are much more effective than cramming or reviewing information within the context of a textbook, they also have a downside: The information on flashcards is neither elaborated on nor embedded in some form of context. Each flashcard stays isolated instead of being connected with the network of theoretical frames, our experiences or our latticework of mental models
Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s partner and vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, stresses the importance of having a broad theoretical toolbox – not to be a good academic, but to have a good, pragmatic grip on reality
looking out for the most powerful concepts in every discipline and to try to understand them so thoroughly that they become part of our thinking. The moment one starts to combine these mental models and attach one’s experiences to them, one cannot help but gain what he calls “worldly wisdom.”
common but not-so-wise belief that we need to learn from experience. It is much better to learn from the experiences of others – especially when this experience is reflected on and turned into versatile “mental models” that can be used in different situations
We learn something not only when we connect it to prior knowledge and try to understand its broader implications (elaboration), but also when we try to retrieve it at different times (spacing) in different contexts (variation), ideally with the help of chance (contextual interference) and with a deliberate effort (retrieval)
12.5 Use the Slip-Box as a Creativity Machine
“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.” – Steve Jobs
Experimental scientists regularly describe their decision-making process as being based on intuition (Rheinberger 1997)
“slow hunch.” As a precondition to make use of this intuition, he emphasises the importance of experimental spaces where ideas can freely mingle (Johnson 2011).
Most often, innovation is not the result of a sudden moment of realization, anyway, but incremental steps toward improvement
The brain is more likely to notice details when it scans than when it focuses.” (Zull 2002, 142f)
12.6 Think Inside the Box
To be able to play with ideas, we first have to liberate them from their original context by means of abstraction and re-specification. We did this when we took literature notes and translated them into the different contexts within the slip-box
Abstraction should indeed not be the final goal of thinking, but it is a necessary in-between step to make heterogeneous ideas compatible
common error in thinking called survivorship bias (Taleb 2005)
In his beautifully titled book “The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking,” Oliver Burkeman describes how much our culture is focused on success and how we neglect the important lessons from failure (Burkeman 2013).
Sometimes, it is more important to rediscover the problems for which we already have a solution than to think solely about the problems that are present to us
the only thing Warren Buffett thinks about it is the relationship between price and value
Sometimes the breakthrough in a scientific process is the discovery of a simple principle behind a seemingly very complicated process
12.7 Facilitate Creativity through Restrictions
everything is reduced to a single plain-text format and collected in a single, simple slip-box system with no frills or features.
Note: Why not add images?
Even though digital programs lift the physical restrictions on the length of a note, I highly recommend treating a digital note as if the space were limited
By restricting ourselves to one format, we also restrict
By restricting ourselves to one format, we also restrict ourselves to just one idea per note and force ourselves to be as precise and brief as possible. The restriction to one idea per note is also the precondition to recombine them freely later
A good rule of thumb for working digitally is: Each note should fit onto the screen and there should be no need of scrolling
In his book “The Paradox of Choice,” Barry Schwartz used numerous examples, from shopping to career options to romance, to show that less choice ca
In his book “The Paradox of Choice,” Barry Schwartz used numerous examples, from shopping to career options to romance, to show that less choice can not only increase our productivity, but also our freedom and make it easier to be in the moment and enjoy it (Schwartz, 2007)
Not having to make choices can unleash a lot of potential, which would otherwise be wasted on making these choices. Academic writin
13 Share Your Insight
13.1 From Brainstorming to Slip-box-Storming
More people in a brainstorming group usually come up with less good ideas and restrict themselves inadvertently to a narrower
More people in a brainstorming group usually come up with less good
More people in a brainstorming group usually come up with less good ideas and restrict themselves inadvertently to a narrower range of topics (Mullen, Johnson, and Salas 1991
More people in a brainstorming group usually come up with less good ideas and restrict themselves inadvertently to a narrower range of topics (Mullen, Johnson, and Salas 1991)
13.2 From Top Down to Bottom Up
13.3 Getting Things Done by Following Your Interests
motivation is shown to be one of the most important indicators for successful students – next to the feeling of being in control of one’s own learning course
Nothing motivates us more than seeing a project we can identify with moving forward, and nothing is more demotivating than being stuck with a project tha
The risk of losing interest in what we do is high when we decide up front on a long-term project without much clue about what to expect. We can mitigate this risk considerably by applying a flexible organisation scheme that allows us to change course whenever necessary
If we accompany every step of our work with the question, “What is interesting about this?” and everything we read with the question, “What is so relevant about this that it is worth noting down?” we do not just choose information according to our interest. By elaborating on what we encounter, we also discover aspects we didn’t know
every step of our work with the
The beginning of the research project that led to the discovery of DNA’s structure was the application for a grant. The grant was not to discover DNA’s structure, but find a treatment for cancer
more control we have to steer our work towards what we consider interesting and relevant, the less willpower we have to put into getting things done
13.4 Finishing and Review
13.5 Becoming an Expert by Giving up Planning
be generally sceptical about planning, especially if it is merely focused on the outcome, not on the actual work and the steps required to achieve a goal
we can only learn from our experiences if feedback follows shortly afterwards
write, say, three notes on a specific day, review one paragraph we wrote the day before or check all the literature we discovered in an article, we know exactly at the end of the day what we were able to accomplish
According to the famous law of Parkinson, every kind of work tends to fill the time we set aside for it, like air fills every corner of a room (Parkinson 1957)
If we have the finish line in sight, we tend to speed up, as everyone knows who has ever run a marathon. That means that the most important step is to get started. Rituals help, too (Currey 2013)
13.6 The Actual Writing
If there is one piece of advice that is worth giving, it is to keep in mind that the first draft is only the first draft
14 Make It a Habit
The most reliable predictor of our behaviour in the immediate future is – surprise, surprise – the intention to do it
The trick is not to try to break w
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
AFTERWORD
The more pressure we feel, the more we tend to stick to our old routines – even when these routines caused the problems and the stress in the first place. This is known as the tunnel effect (Mullainathan and Shafir 2013)
Change is possible when the solution appears to be simple
APPENDIX
15 A glimpse into Luhmann’s Zettelkasten and a few words on software
the best note-taking apps available are characterised by their openness and flexibility