An informational book that describes and advocates for the note taking system of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. The author's primary claim is that Luhmann's system of keeping a slip-box (or "zettelkasten") full of interesting ideas and bibliographic references can help students, academics, and non-fiction writers be more productive.
I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in developing or improving their note taking. It delves deep into how and when does Luhmann's Zettelkasten work, what are its core principles and backs up these claims with science. For the impatient: it's not about technique, but more about hardest part of research and writing: thinking, understanding, and writing in your own words. But Ahrens also provides numerous insights about our work, creativity and productivity (for example why is multitasking a bad idea).
I have mixed feelings about this book. It's well-written on a small scale (pages, chapters) but the overall structure is a mystery to me.
Did I find a way how to organize a mess in my notes? Not exactly, but I've found some good hints.
Good bits:
GTD doesn't work for non-linear writing. Academic writing is non-linear. I was taught otherwise.
Organize your notes around the context in which they're going to be useful. Not by topic. Organizing by topic is almost the same as organizing them by year. Looks neat, but it's hard to find a note you need right now.
Quotes are useless. If you need to apply the information you've found somewhere, rewrite it in your own words.
Brainstorming is useless. Sure, it produces ideas, but they're going to be of a very low quality.
Bad bits:
There's a lot of barely related information. The book tries …
I have mixed feelings about this book. It's well-written on a small scale (pages, chapters) but the overall structure is a mystery to me.
Did I find a way how to organize a mess in my notes? Not exactly, but I've found some good hints.
Good bits:
GTD doesn't work for non-linear writing. Academic writing is non-linear. I was taught otherwise.
Organize your notes around the context in which they're going to be useful. Not by topic. Organizing by topic is almost the same as organizing them by year. Looks neat, but it's hard to find a note you need right now.
Quotes are useless. If you need to apply the information you've found somewhere, rewrite it in your own words.
Brainstorming is useless. Sure, it produces ideas, but they're going to be of a very low quality.
Bad bits:
There's a lot of barely related information. The book tries to be everything: advice on writing in general, rant on the education system, a collection of cognitive biases. I don't think it really needs all this. As I understood, the original inventor of the method had the same problems with his writing. The proposed method of writing forces you to jump from thought to thought using associations. The text looks very natural for a writer but not for a reader.
I've read this (twice for several chapters) and still don't understand why the Zettelkasten method works. It explains how it works and what happens if you use it, though.
The system was invented by a social "scientist". It's a pity it wasn't invented by someone who produces useful writing. From my point of view, it was invented by a guy who lectures birds on how to fly.
Sometimes the author says "the original inventor did this and this so you should too". It's followed by a questionable explanation. Should I say it looks weird? Times changed.
I really recommend it if you:
Don't know why the education system is broken
Haven't heard about cognitive biases and mental models
Review of 'How to Take Smart Notes' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
La metodología que cuenta es muy interesante y los ejemplos que pone de cómo funcionan o no funcionan otras está muy bien pero es tremendamente repetitivo.
Review of 'How to Take Smart Notes' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
Una bella introduzione a un metodo di lettura e scrittura che descriverei come l'applicazione dell'interesse composto alla conoscenza. In questo momento sto usando Zettlr per mettere in pratica il zettelkasten, ma un progetto promettente è anche Roam Research, sebbene non sia software libero.
