How to Take Smart Notes

11: GTD works because it is a holistic, all-encompassing system. We collect everything in one place and process it in a standardized way. It is a system we can trust. I have struggled for years to find a similar system for notes.

17: The “slip-box” method aligns with what I’ve been learning by experience and study about behavioral change.

Productive people work on their environment, making it easy and or enjoyable to do their work, rather than relying on willpower. They deflect rather than overcome resistance to their work. In dieting, this might be throwing away your junk food and stocking the pantry with vegetables. In task management this might be the GTD workflow. In writing and knowledge management, this is the slip-box workflow.

22: Good notes are the tangible outcome of thinking and reading.

23: Smart note workflow has an inbox just like GTD. This is where ALL notes can be dumped, even fleeting and throwaway ones.

23: Fleeting notes must be discarded or turned into permanent notes within a day or two. They are designed to be impermanent.

34: Read, listen, and watch as if writing about the ideas you encounter is the only thing that matters.

Zettelkasten is the GTD of ideas. GTD is the Zettelkasten of tasks.

Permanent notes and literature notes belong in separate locations. Literature notes will be archived and permanent notes will go into the slip box to create connections with other permanent notes.

47: Writing cannot be a linear process because thinking and learning are not linear processes. This rings so true. The beautiful memories I have of writing papers in college were the times when I was learning through writing, having to scrap my original arguments or change directions as I came across new ideas and information.

52: A virtuous cycle is when we enjoy the act of working for its own sake rather than for an external reward. Thus doing the work makes us feel like doing more work until the need for willpower is reduced or eliminated.

93: "Permanent notes per day" is a reasonable metric for learning or writing because it measures something you can directly control. It is a leading indicator.

96: Real thinking requires externalization, which is why people say "I learn by talking." Imagine how much more they could learn by writing. What does this mean about the power of prayer, especially vocal prayer?

101: Storing information is less useful and more difficult than connecting information because information only means something in the context of other information. Meaning is needed in order to remember.

• To learn is to understand; to understand is to connect new knowledge to previous knowledge; therefore, to learn is to connect new ideas to existing ideas in a meaningful way.
• The slip box is NOT organized by topic. New permanent notes must be either findable from the index or from a note that is in the index, similar to how Google crawls websites by following the links.
• The Zettelkasten Index is an index of entry points, not an index of all the notes. Most notes will be found from their connections to other notes, not by looking for them in the index.
• Marking notes by topic is an archival approach while marking notes by key words is a writing approach.
• Key words aim to identify contexts in which you'd want to find the note again.

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128: A failure to understand that the price and the value of financial products are not necessarily the same contributed to the economic collapse of 2008. This is why value investing is different from day trading or the somewhat obvious idea that one should buy low and sell high.

130: Fewer choices mean less time choosing and more time producing.

130: Structure and restrictions are necessary for creativity.

135: Don't be afraid to create a permanent note that doesn't have connections yet. They can remain orphans until I decide to look into them further, or if nothing interesting comes from them, they can fade away.

137: The ability to change course as opportunities arise is a freer form of control than attempting to adhere to a plan.

138: The more autonomy we have in our work, the more we can direct it toward our interests, the less willpower we will need to stay on task.

140: Increase productivity by working on only what you want to work on in the moment.

142: We can only learn from our experience if we receive feedback quickly and often.

150: Learning (becoming a different person with a different way of thinking) is not the same as knowledge management (storing and retrieving information).

Lacking expertise, trainees must rely on rules to develop experience.

Expecting to be able to write from a blank page is like expecting to create something from nothing.