How to Take Smart Notes, by Sonke Ahrens
How to Take Smart Notes, by Sonke Ahrens
Now that I’m using Reading Refresh to keep myself up to date on books I’ve read in the past, I thought I’d share some of them as they came back up. Today is Sonke Ahren’s “How to Take Smart Notes“.
Improving my note-taking is something I’ve been working hard on for the last few years. This is not only how I take notes in real-time, but how I process them after and use them down the road.
Note-taking is one of those things that is often overlooked, and Ahrens explains why:
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.
It can hurt in the long run, but when it’s happening there is no consequence to weak note-taking.
In his book he raises something that I fall victim to quite often (as you see frequently on here), which is saving quotes verbatim. That’s not a bad thing, but quotes should always be accompanied by your insights on them, which I don’t always do. He says:
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 – your reference system.
He also gives good tips on how to organize your notes. I use Obsidian because I can quickly link to similar items, which avoids the “trouser” issue he lays out here:
Most students sort their material by topic or even by seminars and semester. From the perspective of someone who writes, that makes as much sense as sorting your errands by purchase date and the store they were bought from. Can’t find your trousers? Maybe they are with the bleach you bought the same day at your department store.
It was a fascinating book that has really helped me hone my note-taking. I still have a long way to go (it’s one of those things where you never finish, but continually improve), but I appreciate the boost it’s given me.
You can check out the full book here, or watch this 5-minute overview for a bit more on his ideas, particularly his notecard system for organizing his notes: