#Stay smart notes how to

“When we look for patterns and think beyond the most obvious interpretation of a note, when we try to make sense of something, combine different ideas and develop lines of thought, we do exactly that: we build up a “ latticework of mental models” instead of just “remembering isolated facts and try and bang ’em back.” Sönke Ahrens Lesson #2: Understand Luhmann’s Secret Slip-Box Method

#Stay smart notes how to

If you’re a student, or you’re simply working an office job, learning how to take notes will save you from your shortsightedness and give you the mental capacity to change your life for the better. You’ll never stall on your writing, and you’ll also think faster and better because you’ll have a strong foundation of ideas that you can rely on. If you’re a writer, the library of notes you collect will liberate you from the struggle of the empty piece of paper. Actually, it’s turning students into planners – planning how to pass exams, not taking the time to actually understand the introduced ideas.Īccording to the author, truly groundbreaking discoveries happen when you have streams of ideas that you can later examine, think about, and mix. Our institutions focus on memorizing fixed plans, facts, dates, and isolated ideas, so we can pass the exams.īut this narrow view and people’s inability to think beyond the learned material rarely leads to interesting insights. Sadly, this is not how most self-help books and even how our schools operate. And eventually, to come up with new interesting conclusions that can be of assistance in your daily life. The technique that will be discussed in the following lessons aims to give you the flexibility to think about your ideas in more depth. Once you establish a clear and easy-to-follow system of idea-collection, what follows is giving yourself permission to play with your findings so you can make new discoveries. While the context of the importance of note-taking in the book is primarily aimed towards writers, and helping them create better material faster, I think that everybody can benefit from the approach mentioned in this short practical volume. Having a good note-taking system relieves you from the burden of remembering to-do items, scheduled appointments, but most importantly, helps you create a rich library of ideas and insights which you can later access on demand. Yet, the simple habit of taking note of the things you found interesting in your day-to-day life can become the catalysts of your positive transformation – basically, it can save you from mediocrity. Note-taking might sound, seem even, unworthy of your time if you are not in academia. Lesson #1: Note-Taking is an Important Life Skill Lesson #5: Generate New Ideas Using Your Slip-Box.Lesson #4: Focus on The Essentials to Take Smart Notes.Lesson #3: Incorporate The Slip-Box Method In Your Life.Lesson #2: Understand Luhmann’s Secret Slip-Box Method.Lesson #1: Note-Taking is an Important Life Skill.Sönke Ahrens wants to inspire us to start creating a “latticework of mental models”, not just to pursue remembering isolated facts. True power comes when you start combining your findings. The gist of the book is to write down everything you find interesting and also to organize all the entries in one place.

The effectiveness of your manuscript relies heavily on your note-taking skills. Good writing doesn’t necessarily mean slow writing.

If you’re a writer, or an aspiring academic, How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens will introduce you to the leading methodology to take effective notes so you can later use them to generate new and better ideas on paper. Created by Niklas Luhmann, a German sociologist, and philosopher, this extraordinary and non-linear way of taking notes is now one of the best-known techniques to put ideas on paper in order to remember things, craft academic papers faster, think deeply, and make connections between topics. This book is a detailed dissertation of the famous Zettelkasten note-taking method – or slip-box in English. Written by book fanatic and online librarian Ivaylo Durmonski. Covering the key ideas and proposing practical ways for achieving what’s mentioned in the text. This is a comprehensive book summary of the book How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking by Sönke Ahrens.