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Have you ever struggled with remembering the details of what you read?
Structuring arguments for topics you are interested in?
Faced difficulty in linking new information with old to better understand the narrative?
If yes, I recommend reading How To Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens.
The book follows Niklas Luhmann’s process of storing and retrieving information called the slip- box or zettelkasten in German. Over his career which spanned 30+ years, Luhmann published 58 books and hundreds of articles on the way to completing his two-volume masterwork, The Society of Society (1997).
He credits his productivity to the slip box which became an equal thinking partner in his work.
The slip box is “a reliable and simple external structure to think in that compensates for the limitations of our brains.”
How does it work?
Writing is the medium for structuring our thoughts. To truly know what we think, we must write in our own words what we read. Doing so shows us the gaps in our understanding.
The slip box is a system for saving and retrieving thoughts and ideas. The slip box is designed to present ideas you have forgotten about. Allowing the brain to focus on thinking instead of remembering.
To do so,
We need to write down our thoughts on the things we read in our own words.
Sort the notes as per context you would want to stumble across them in.
Not topic wise. Eg. I am currently reading this book which describes the economics behind the drug trade. It talks about how the drug mafia has control over its suppliers. Continuing with that line of thought, Walmart also has a hold on its suppliers in the sense any price increase in raw materials does not get passed to the customers but is absorbed by the suppliers. Similarly for restaurants on Zomato the food delivery service. They end up absorbing higher costs rather than passing them on.So, I categorized this thought under distributor/middleman stranglehold not individual topics such as Walmart or drugs or food service apps.
How to take a note?
The most important rule - read with a pen in hand and write in your own words the most interesting details of the article/book.
I started to implement this rule this week. I can already feel how my thinking process has changed for the better.
Fleeting notes- Write down any ideas or thoughts that pop into your mind which you would like to delve into deeper at some later time. These notes serve as reminders of what is in your head.
Source notes- Whenever you read something, make notes about the content. Write down what you don’t want to forget. Keep it short and use your own words. Don’t forget to save the link or the page number of the book for easy reference.
Make permanent notes- Go through the notes made in step 1 and 2 (ideally before you forget their meaning) and think about how they relate to what is relevant for your own research or interests.
Write one note for each idea. Make references to your source note. For easy reading make each note concise eliminating the need to scroll down.
The idea is not to collect notes but to develop ideas, arguments, and discussions.
Does the latest information support, correct, contradict what you have in your slip box? Can you combine ideas to generate something new?
I always read with an eye towards possible connections in the slip box. - Luhmann
The interlinking of a note is more important than writing a note in isolation. In this manner the notes can branch out and could be infinitely extended in any direction.
Using context-based notes empowers you to make connections between notes across topics and industries. This allows for serendipity where we can delve deeper into a concept by understanding multiple disciplines.
Index- To search for notes in the slip box, add keyword tags to the notes. Link the keywords to the main index. Keywords should be chosen carefully and sparsely. Luhmann would add one or two notes next to a keyword in the index.
Keywords should always be assigned with an eye towards the topics you are interested in or working on never by looking at the note in insolation. The index should not be used as an archive, where we just take out what we put in.
The slip box is a system to think where the references between notes are more valuable than the references from the index to a single note.
Once the slip box is populated, look for clusters where chains of notes have developed. From here you can cherry pick writing topics from within the system. Doing so you never have to start from scratch.
As these concepts are already what you are interested in you don’t need willpower to pursue the topic further. By following your interest and taking the path which promises the most insight the work becomes self-propelling.
As thoughts and details have already been stored, the structure of the slip box enables you to work on multiple projects simultaneously.
I never force myself to do anything I don’t feel like. Whenever I am stuck, I do something else. - Luhmann
Only if the work itself becomes rewarding can the dynamic between motivation and reward become self-sustainable and propel the whole process forward.
I look forward to implementing this system and seeing what clusters emerge. I’m confident it will make me a better thinker and writer.
If you have a similar system you use already, do let me know how it is going.
For further understanding-
Do read Tiago Forte’s How To Take Smart Notes: 10 Principles to Revolutionize Your Note-Taking and Writing.
For how to implement the slip box I recommend this app called Notion. Here are two videos giving a primer on how to use zettelkasten in notion.
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