How to Take Smart Notes

High-Level Thoughts

Writing is not a linear process. Establishing a simple system to document knowledge and work within frees up short term memory to focus on the task at hand. Highly successful people create smart working environments around them that avoid unecessary resistance.

Summary Notes

Every intelligent endeavor starts with a note. (Page 1)

What can we do differently in the weeks, months or even years before we face the blank page that will get us into the best possible position to write a great paper easily? (Page 3)

Having a clear structure to work in is completely different from making plans about something. If you make a plan, you impose a structure on yourself; it makes you inflexible. To keep going according to plan, you have to push yourself and employ willpower. This is not only demotivating, but also unsuitable for an open-ended process like research, thinking or studying in general. (Page 6)

The best way to deal with complexity is to keep things as simple as possible and to follow a few basic principles. The simplicity of the structure allows complexity to build up where we want it: on the content level. (Page 9)

Writing is not a linear process. (Page 11)

Only if you can trust your system, only if you know everything will be taken care of, will your brain let go and let you focus on the task at hand. (Page 12)

Studies on highly successful people have proven again and again that success is not the result of strong willpower and the ability to overcome resistance, but rather the result of smart working environments that avoid resistance in the first place. (Page 17)

By doing everything with the clear purpose of writing about it, you will do what you do deliberately. (Page 38)

"Specifically, the problem-solving behavior of eminent scientists can alternate between extraordinary levels of focus on specific concepts and playful exploration of ideas. This suggests that successful problem solving may be a function of flexible strategy application in relation to task demand. (Vartanian 2009, 57)" (Page 63)

"On one hand, those with wandering, defocused, childlike minds seem to be the most creative; on the other, it seems to be analysis and application that's important. The answer to this conundrum is that creative people need both... The key to creativity is being able to switch between a wide-open, playful mind and a narrow analytical frame. (Dean, 2013, 152)" (Page 63)

Things we understand are connected, either through rules, theories, narratives, pure logic, mental models, or explanations. And deliberately building these kinds of meaningful connections is what the slip-box is all about. (Page 69)

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. (Page 70)

It is well known that decision-making is one of the most tiring and wearying tasks, which is why people like Barack Obama or Bill Gates only wear two suit colors: dark blue or dark grey. (Page 73)

We reinvent and rewrite our memory every time we try to retrieve information. (Page 95)

Luhmann states as clearly as possible: it is not possible to think systematically without writing (Luhmann 1992, 53). (Page 95)

Make it a habit to always ask what is not in the picture, but could be relevant. (Page 126)

Change is possible when the solution appears to be simple. (151)