He was originally not an academic, but he started writing down notes and thoughts and linking them together. The origin of the slip-box / Zettelkasten method starts with Niklas Luhmann. “Writing is, without dispute, the best facilitator for thinking, reading, understanding and generating ideas we have.” Niklas Luhmann & Zettelkasten Writing notes accompanies the main work, which is the reading, thinking, and understanding, and coming up with ideas.
This allows us to keep our interest and motivation aligned and do “almost effortless” work. With writing this means that the topic and questions can change and we need to stay flexible. If you want to stay in control it’s better to keep your options open. You can focus on the ideas, the content, and the argumentation. If you have a system that works properly, you don’t need to hold all information in your own head. Combining and incorporating pieces of written of information into a whole is easier – you never have to start with a blank page. But that is false: writing starts with good note-taking. People struggle exactly because they believe that writing starts with an empty page.
Take smart notes how to#
Only the terror of the blank screen when we start to write is a trigger to investigate how to actually write. And maybe that is the reason why we rarely think about this writing, the everyday writing, the note-taking and draft-making.”Īnother reason why people don’t look into note-taking more often is that there is no immediate negative feedback if we do it wrongly. “Writing is not what follows research, learning or studying, it is the medium of all this work. Book Summary & NotesĪll text that is quoted & italicized is taken directly from the book. If you’re interested in note-taking and Zettelkasten also check out my article on creating a digital commonplace book, or an overview of personal knowledge management systems.
Not just if you’re a student that needs to write a thesis, or an academic working on a paper, but for everyone that reads and wants to remember and use that information.įor more details and reviews go to Amazon. In How to Take Smart Notes Ahrens describes what makes the Zettelkasten method so powerful, and how by developing good note-taking habits we basically do the legwork for many of our intellectual and creative efforts. He attributed this productivity to his note-taking system. It was originally invented by Niklas Luhmann, an academic who produced a prodigious amount of work in his career, covering a wide range of subjects. The system described in the book is based on the Zettelkasten method, an easy and intuitive way to take notes and to actually start use them. How to Take Smart Notes is by far the best thing I’ve read on note-taking and how to apply the things you’ve read and studied.
0 kommentar(er)
