How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking Paperback – February 7, 2024

I waffled back and forth on whether I wanted to buy this book and spend time reading it. The conflicting reviews saying it was either life changing or repetitive and failed to actually explain how to develop your own slip-box made me question whether it was a worthwhile investment. I’d been trying to figure out Zettelkasten on my own by watching YouTube videos and reading blog posts but I was still struggling. I’m the sort of person that bristles at structure and rules unless I understand why they are helpful. This book gave me that foundation. I learned enough about the system and myself to implement my own highly adapted process for how to take smart notes. Without that understanding I would have had no idea whether something I found tedious or difficult was because it was doing some serious work to form how I was thinking and learning and I should just press through it or because I needed to do it another way that made more sense in my life. The author clearly explains how Luhmann used his Zettelkasten system and then explains how we learn and why writing is the best way to learn. The most significant benefit I got from reading this book was the ability to trust that my words, thoughts, and ideas are more important to my ability to learn than trying to remember or document someone else’s words. I noticed a huge increase in my understanding and retention as well as my productivity in developing my own thoughts and ideas by implementing his recommendations. I thought it sounded tedious but it’s actually been incredibly enjoyable to develop my own collection of smart notes.

What I like about this book is that it inspires you to think differently around the information you encounter. Whether you're a student, a journalist, a blogger, or anyone doing any sort of writing or thinking, following the advice in the book should ensure that you'll not only never run out of ideas, but you'll also be better equipped to process your thoughts, develop new ideas, break down topics, and create connections between multiple ideas. Most importantly, you'll have a better idea of how each small piece of information is integral and fits into the larger picture.It's a multi-dimensional book, touching on many useful topics, and there's a lot to be learned from each chapter, I'd think even for people who're already familiar with the methodology of Niklas Luhmann and Zettelkasten note taking, upon which the book is based. At the very least, it'll serve as a great refresher.The only caveat with the book that I've found is that it lacks examples of actual notes, and a rather repetitive terminology around the different kind of notes can easily make it confusing to understand how the notes should look like. It's not difficult to find answers on the internet, and even Luhmann's own notes can be found online, but including some examples in the book would make it even more complete.All in all, a great book and much recommended! While the title, description, and even a relatively short length make it sound like the book is exclusively focusing on the note-taking and Luhmann's system specifically, it goes way beyond those topics and teaches you to be an overall better thinker.

This book presents several key ideas and techniques for improving one's workflow as a writer. It's based on the methods of sociologist Niklas Luhmann, who in the 1960s created a huge Wiki-like database of index cards. I learned about his "Zettelkasten" (slip-box) method years ago, but there was very little information on it in English. Lately that is changing. Fortunately, the method works even better with computers, and there is a variety of software out there that can handle this way of working. I use ConnectedText and Bear, but there are plenty of others that can implement all or most of the method. "Zettelkasten," the one the author recommends, didn't quite fit my needs, but I may revisit it. In any case, the book doesn't rely on any particular program. For that matter, if you really wanted, you could work with index cards, à la Luhmann.The main ideas are simple but profound. A few were especially helpful. 1) Work bottom-up, amassing notes on what interests you, rather than top-down, trying to fit into a preconceived plan. When it comes time to write, you will have a large storehouse from which to draw. 2) Separate notes on reading/study from one's own thoughts. Just that one idea is already making a huge difference in my productivity and enjoyment of writing. 3) Create opportunities to be surprised later, by linking your ideas together as much as possible, via tags, categories, or whatever your program of choice calls them. When the size of your note stash reaches critical mass, you begin to find new or forgotten relationships between ideas. The author brings in plenty of other useful points, drawn from various disciplines.I noticed some very ungenerous reviewers gave it one star, because they wanted examples. A silly demand, really, since the method is essentially non-linear, so any step-by-step example would have necessarily had to be trivial. You could also say that the book itself is a fine example of the method in action.Unlike so many tomes on writing, this book is well-written. I didn't see a translator credit, and if there wasn't one, then even more props to the author and editor. The physical book, published via Create Space, is quite aesthetically pleasing.