How to Take Notes

3 min read
  1. Prepare (Optional)
    1. Collect source material on the topic you want to study
    2. Skim parts and Bold Entries of each source
    3. Find summary sheets or flow charts somewhere or create your own for each source.
  2. Capture
    1. Take notes only when there is an alignment with your values, or if it sparks joy, or if you will need to retrieve something later. Only take deep notes on high-quality, timeless material. Accept that this lowers your consumption volume. Reject the digital hoarder mentality. Trust your biological brain’s natural feature to forget the noise and surface the signal. Never waste energy taking exhaustive notes on topics that have no immediate or predictable relevance to your life or active writing.
    2. Focus your note-taking heavily on topics relevant to your current active projects (like your upcoming blogs) to ensure a 0% waste metric.
    3. Use the page as a cognitive scratchpad to slow down your consumption speed to match your thinking speed and force synchronous focus.
    4. Attend to and actively participate in the lecture/book/podcast etc., like it will be the last time you encounter this information. Try to keep things in your mind. (Encourages remembering which books/blogs etc. contain valuable information, reinforcing learning.) Treat your notebook as a workspace, not a permanent safety net. Tell your brain you are writing to clarify thoughts now, which forces your biological memory to stay sharp instead of becoming lazy.
    5. If it's a session involving a live talk, after or during the session, optionally make idea notes, writing the concepts in your own words.
    6. If it's a Book/Blog/Podcast etc.
      1. If the material is highlight-able, highlight important passages using Our Highlighting Method
      2. File the material in a known location for referencing later.
      3. Some time later, decide if the material is important; if it is, make idea notes, writing the concepts in your own words. This is optional, only for notes you think are extremely important.
    7. After your note taking session, you may acquire and read summaries of the material (online or from someone) and keep them in your notes.
  3. Organize
    1. Avoid multi-step processing routines, complex tagging systems, and rigid folder structures that turn your leisure time into an unpaid data-entry job. Never trick your dopamine receptors into believing you understand a concept deeply just because you formatted it cleanly or filed it away.
    2. Remember to organize by where your future self will want to find it.
    3. If it's an idea, move it to Ideas
      1. Optionally add a source link or mention the source to it.
      2. Optionally organize the idea into a folder signifying its category if its an important note.
      3. Optionally do the Distil step for notes in folders.
      4. Optionally do the Express step.
    4. If it's something you will need to search for later, move it to keep.
    5. If it's related to life management, move it to a folder of that category. Treat these notes as a custom index or mental shortcut. Return to core life lessons or rules to instantly reactivate and fixate that mental state.
    6. If it's a Journal entry move it Journal.
    7. If it's for collaboration move it to Google Docs/Sheets.
    8. If it's a project note, move them to Obsidian Projects folder for long project notes or store them in the location where the work will be done. (like the work project management app)
    9. If it's analog and important, scan it/index it.
    10. End here
  4. Distill/Review
    1. Simplest way to remember is to immediately discuss with someone after consuming.
    2. Do not let the comfortable routine of writing and distilling notes become a sophisticated form of procrastination that delays your linear, "brute force attack" of actually publishing your work, or applying the knowledge elsewhere .
    3. You could be working on a project or topic and this is where this step comes in handy. Open the folder you want to be working on.
    4. Progressively Summarize important ideas. Encourages reflection and curation of meaningful ideas. Use the Feymann technique to rephrase as if you are explaining it to someone.
    5. If analog, you will need to create new neat notes to complete this step.
    6. Add pictures, drawings and figures.
    7. Use your notes to intentionally fortify, challenge, and update your core worldview, values, and systems rather than chasing every random digital trend.
    8. Use Active Recall (Flashcards), Quiz Yourself, solve practice questions. You can convert some of your notes to physical flashcards. Space these repetition sessions out.
  5. Express
    1. Teach.
    2. Apply knowledge.
    3. Create outputs.
    4. Friction is good when creating things, so that you create high quality outputs

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