Sean's Notes

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traditional note taking

How many pages of notes, stacks of books, Google Docs, random note apps, do you have? How many of those notes do you review? Do you even know where they are? It's a constant frustration for most who love to learn, often leading to the futile feeling of 'why even bother' taking notes.

If we take notes unsystematically, inefficiently or simply wrong, we might not even realize it until we are in the midst of a deadline panic and wonder why there always seem to be a few who get a lot of good writing done and still have time for a coffee every time we ask them. (Location 117)

how we take notes of what we encounter and what we do with them, will make all the difference for the moment we do face the blank page/screen – or rather not, as those who take smart notes will never have the problem (Location 111)

They sort their notes by topics and sub-topics, which makes it look less complex, but quickly becomes very complicated. Plus, it reduces the likelihood of building and finding surprising connections between the notes themselves, which means a trade-off between its usability and usefulness. (Location 218)

We are already doing most of the work required to consume this content. We spend a significant portion of our careers creating snippets of text, outlines, photos, videos, sketches, diagrams, webpages, notes, or documents. Yet without a little extra care to preserve these valuable resources, our precious knowledge remains siloed and scattered across dozens of different locations. We fail to build a collection of knowledge that both appreciates in value and can be reused again and again.

note-taking

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traditional note taking