Book
Ahrens, Sönke. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking. 2nd ed., 2017.
Chapter 5
“You will read in a more engaged way, because you cannot rephrase anything in your own words if you don’t understand what it is about. By doing this, you will elaborate on the meaning which will make it much more likely that you will remember it.” 35
I like this point. When you read something, and take a quote from it, you should understand it enough that you can write a succinct point in your own words.
“1. Fleeting notes, which are only reminders of information, can be written in any kind of way and will end up in the trash within a day or two.” (39)
I am wondering what the point of a fleeting note would be? It sounds maybe useful if you are in the same slip box every day. However, the constant need to flush out these notes on the daily sounds tedious.
“Fleeting notes are there for capturing ideas quickly while you are busy doing something else” (41)
Okay, this makes a little more sense. The TODO here is to carry a small notepad with you, and if you have an idea, write it down quickly. Nightly or at least weekly, go through you jots and properly digest/categorize them in your notes. New Action:
Action
- task Bring a small notebook with me in the garden to be able to jot ideas down.
“Zeigarnik successfully reproduced what is now known as the 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. But thanks to Zeigarnik’s follow-up research, we also know that we don’t actually have to finish tasks to convince our brains to stop thinking about them. All we have to do is to write them down in a way that convinces us that it will be taken care of. That’s right: The brain doesn’t distinguish between an actual finished task and one that is postponed by taking a note. By writing something down, we literally get it out of our heads.” (67)
I find this idea interesting and would like to learn more about studies done for Zeingarnik effect:
Action
- task Read up on Zeingarnik Effect