Smart Note Taking - 10 Principles

How To Take Smart Notes: 10 Principles is a great read which elaborates precisely on note-taking, quoting the book How To Take Smart Notes which itself got some inspiration from the note-taking technique called The Slip-Box from Niklas Luhmann; the method is also described in the blog post.

So, the 10 principles go as follows:

Writing is not the outcome of thinking; it is the medium in which thinking takes place

Notes we take are the byproduct of our reading, as the means to organize our thoughts and to keep track of the information we consume; writing ideas down in our own words help us reinforce our understanding which is key to learning.

This is a big difference, compared to know something at a surface level.

Do your work as if writing is the only thing that matters

A lots of information is inherently public knowledge, from write-ups to shared notes, and hence a lot of attention goes into the ultimate quality of what we produce.

Nobody ever starts from scratch

It is rare that we elaborate on some random idea, we rather identify a personal interest or several related interests, which undergoe(s) some sort of research or R+D ultimately resulting in knowledge.

Our tools and techniques are only as valuable as the workflow

Having a repeatable process to collect & organize our ideas is key for a good outcome, a workflow simple enough that focus primarily on the essence of thinking and note taking, no extra clutter.

Standardization enables creativity

The article uses the analogy of cargo shipping and containers, it does not matter what is being shipped because the container will serve us fine regardless; having a common structure or format for our notes removes second-guessing, we don’t need to worry about how to make sense of the notes we are taking, whether they give continuity to the context, we simply focus on thinking, writing & reflecting.

Our work only gets better when exposed to high-quality feedback

Feedback plays an instrumental role in the betterment of our process and its outcome, learning to process & prioritize it; moreover, being a repetitive process, scrutinizing the feedback we get is key improve it.

Work on multiple, simultaneous projects

Having multiple interests that could lead to running multiple things at a time, in its under this situation that all this makes more sense or seems more useful, productive and manageable.

Organize your notes by context, not by topic

We should organize the information contextually rather than topic->subtopic, where the latter eventually could become a challenge to navigate as things pile up; going by context however, brings the challenge of associating the right context for a given new topic.

Always follow the most interesting path

To strive to invest time in what lies atop our interests, though this can be quite the challenge in our day to day; however, a good start could be to identify what we are truly interested in, before we proceed further.

Investing time in what we like is naturally a great motivator and productivity boost, since we connect better with the problem at hand, our energy and will-power will never be greater than in this situation.

Save contradictory ideas

We need opposing ideas to strengthen others, build a stronger argument and reinforce our understanding, even open up new questions; moreover, this help us develop theories, consider alternate paths rather than closing and jumping early into conclusions.