How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking

How to Take Smart Notes

One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking

2017 • 188 pages

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Average rating4

15

I probably highlighted too many passages in this book. I would compare it to “Getting Things Done” by David Allen in terms of presenting new ideas and a practical application to them. It presents an organized system to take notes based on the Zettelkasten Method. Zettelkasten was developed and used by this German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1927???1998). The idea is not to organize notes by topic, but rather have them stored in an abstract way (he used a numbering system on index cards). Each note is “atomic” containing only one idea with its references and reasoning. The goal is to produce notes that can be linked together in a way that encourages thinking and learning within the system. I got inspired by the book and I'm currently giving it a try to build my own Zettelkasten using the Obsidian.

December 20, 2020