Notes on how to take smart notes

Some of my takeaways from reading How to Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens.

The book describes the principles of Zettelkasten, which I find useful in deciding how to write my day-to-day notes in Obsidian.

Make 3 kinds of notes

  1. When you have an idea, make fleeting notes: reminders of what is in your head now, to be read later
  2. When you find an idea, make literature notes: things to remember about your understanding in your own words
  3. Regularly, before you forget what you meant, turn the notes from the above steps into permanent notes:
    1. Focus on "what is relevant?"
    2. Don't collect, but develop ideas by combining ideas
    3. Link notes to relevant notes, ensure it is eventually linked to the index

In terms of lifetimes:

  • Fleeting notes: to be reworded and deleted ASAP
  • Permanent notes:
    • Literature notes in the reference system
    • Notes in the slip box
  • Project notes: can be removed when the project is done

To remember, understand

It is much easier to remember what we understand.

In my mind, understanding an idea can be thought of as knowing where it sits in relation to other ideas. For example, whether they are synonymous, opposite, related, derivative, generalising, etc. I think one sign that someone understands an idea is the ability to explain it simply (as in the famous quote attributed to Einstein), and in different terms, and to come up with examples, or analogies. Another is to be able to break down the ideas to its basic building blocks.

I guess an idea is easier to remember if we enforce a connection from it to existing things (that we may remember and understand much better)

Ahrens said to understand an idea we ought to ask ourselves questions, such as:

  • How does this fact fit into my idea of ...?
  • How can this phenomenon be explained by that theory?
  • Are these two ideas contradictory or do they complement each other?
  • Isn’t this argument similar to that one?
  • Haven’t I heard this before?
  • Above all: What does x mean for y?

Write down open tasks to free up brain space

Bluma Zeigarnik successfully reproduced what is now known as the Zeigarnik effect: open tasks tend to occupy our short-term memory — until they are done.

That is why we get so easily distracted by thoughts of unfinished tasks, regardless of their importance. But thanks to Zeigarnik’s follow-up research, we also know that we don’t actually have to finish tasks to convince our brains to stop thinking about them. All we have to do is to write them down in a way that convinces us that it will be taken care of.