# How to Take Smart Notes  ## Metadata - Author: [[Sönke Ahrens]] - Full Title: How to Take Smart Notes - Category: #books ## Highlights - “Notes on paper, or on a computer screen [...] do not make contemporary physics or other kinds of intellectual endeavor easier, they make it possible … no matter how internal processes are implemented [...you..] need to understand the extent to which the mind is reliant upon external scaffolding.” ([Location 53](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=53)) - There is another reason that note-taking flies mostly under the radar: We don’t experience any immediate negative feedback if we do it badly. But without an immediate experience of failure, there is also not much demand for help. ([Location 139](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=139)) - it is more likely that some form of rationalization will cloud the view of the actual reason, which is most likely the difference between good and bad note-taking. ([Location 145](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=145)) - it is not surprising that the single most important indicator of academic success is not to be found in people’s heads, but in the way they do their everyday work. In fact, there is no measurable correlation between a high IQ and academic success – at least not north of 120. ([Location 162](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=162)) - A good structure allows you to do that, to move seamlessly from one task to another – without threatening the whole arrangement or losing sight of the bigger picture. ([Location 189](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=189)) - A good structure is something you can trust. It relieves you from the burden of remembering and keeping track of everything. 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. By breaking down the amorphous task of “writing a paper” 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 (Chapter 3.1). 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 (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). Something like that does not happen by chance. ([Location 191](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=191)) - How do you plan for insight, which, by definition, cannot be anticipated? It is a huge misunderstanding that the only alternative to planning is aimless messing around. 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. We do not want to make ourselves dependent on a plan that is threatened by the unexpected, like a new idea, discovery – or insight. ([Location 206](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=206)) - Only if nothing else is lingering in our working memory and taking up valuable mental resources can we experience what Allen calls a “mind like water” - the state where we can focus on the work right in front of us without getting distracted by competing thoughts. The principle is simple but holistic. It is not a quick fix or a fancy tool. It doesn’t do the work for you. But it does provide a structure for our everyday work that deals with the fact that most distractions do not come so much from our environment, but our own minds. ([Location 277](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=277)) - 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. ([Location 302](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=302)) - “If I want something, it’s more time. The only thing that really is a nuisance is the lack of time.” ([Location 351](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=351)) - “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.” ([Location 365](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=365)) - Even hard work can be fun as long as it is aligned with our intrinsic goals and we feel in control. The problems arise when we set up our work in such an inflexible way that we can’t adjust it when things change and become arrested in a process that seems to develop a life of its own. ([Location 371](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=371)) - Studies on highly successful people have proven again and again that 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 (cf. Neal et al. 2012; Painter et al. 2002; Hearn et al. 1998). ([Location 381](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=381)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Instead of struggling with adverse dynamics, highly productive people deflect resistance, very much like judo champions. This is not just about having the right mindset, it is also about having the right workflow. It is the way Luhmann and his slip-box worked together that allowed him to move freely and flexibly between different tasks and levels of thinking. It is about having the right tools and knowing how to use them – and very few understand that you need both. ([Location 383](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=383)) - He did not just copy ideas or quotes from the texts he read, but made a transition from one context to another. ([Location 431](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=431)) - 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. ([Location 449](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=449)) - We need a reliable and simple external structure to think in that compensates for the limitations of our brains. ([Location 457](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=457)) - Writing is, without dispute, the best facilitator for thinking, reading, learning, understanding and generating ideas we have. 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. If you want to learn something for the long run, you have to write it down. If you want to really understand something, you have to translate it into your own words. Thinking takes place as much on paper as in your own head. “Notes on paper, or on a computer screen [...] do not make contemporary physics or other kinds of intellectual endeavour easier, they make it possible,” neuroscientist Neil Levy concludes in the introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics, summarizing decades of research. ([Location 494](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=494)) - Thinking, reading, learning, understanding and generating ideas is the main work of everyone who studies, does research or writes. If you write to improve all of these activities, you have a strong tailwind going for you. If you take your notes in a smart way, it will propel you forward. ([Location 505](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=505)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - As the only way to find out if something is worth reading is by reading it (even just bits of it), it makes sense to use the time spent in the best possible way. We constantly encounter interesting ideas along the way and only a fraction of them are useful for the particular paper we started reading it for. Why let them go to waste? Make a note and add it to your slip-box. It improves it. Every idea adds to what can become a critical mass that turns a mere collection of ideas into an idea-generator. ([Location 568](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=568)) - Imagine if we went through life learning only what we planned to learn or being explicitly taught. I doubt we would have even learned to speak. Each added bit of information, filtered only by our interest, is a contribution to our future understanding, thinking and writing. And the best ideas are usually the ones we haven’t anticipated anyway. ([Location 580](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=580)) - There is this story where NASA tried to figure out how to make a ballpoint pen that works in space. If you have ever tried to use a ballpoint pen over your head, you have probably realised it is gravity that keeps the ink flowing. After a series of prototypes, several test runs and tons of money invested, NASA developed a fully functional gravity-independent pen, which pushes the ink onto the paper by means of compressed nitrogen. According to this story, the Russians faced the same problem. So they used pencils (De Bono, 1998, 141). The slip-box follows the Russian model: Focus on the essentials, don’t complicate things unnecessarily. ([Location 590](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=590)) - Just by writing down these questions and making possible connections explicit in writing are the concepts and theories being investigated. Their limitations become as visible as their particular angle on a problem. By explicitly writing down how something connects or leads to something else, we force ourselves to clarify and distinguish ideas from each other. ([Location 1805](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06WVYW33Y&location=1805))