The most important thing about any form of reference note-making is to, at some point, return to the note. It’s the “going back” that makes all the difference, understanding that your initial scribble isn’t the end of the capture. It’s the beginning. A reference note is to be used as a reference. Its contents to be transformed into main notes.
The most important thing about any form of reference note-making is to, at some point, return to the note. It’s the “going back” that makes all the difference, understanding that your initial scribble isn’t the end of the capture. It’s the beginning. A reference note is to be used as a reference. Its contents to be transformed into main notes.
The most important factor in whether your notes can survive that journey into the future is their discoverability—how easy it is to discover what they contain and access the specific points that are most immediately useful.
Tiago Forte • Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organise Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential
Every time you take a note, ask yourself, “How can I make this as useful as possible for my future self?” That question will lead you to annotate the words and phrases that explain why you saved a note, what you were thinking, and what exactly caught your attention.
Tiago Forte • Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential
Every time you take a note, ask yourself, “How can I make this as useful as possible for my future self?” That question will lead you to annotate the words and phrases that explain why you saved a note, what you were thinking, and what exactly caught your attention. Your notes will be useless if you can’t decipher them in the future, or if they’re
... See moreTiago Forte • Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential
Writing notes is really pretty easy, once you get the hang of it. And it’s a way of proving to yourself (and eventually, to others) that you’ve understood the text. Our notes can also provide us some clues into what in a text actually interested us. Where a source’s ideas really excite us, notes will cluster. Even so, we should try to write a
... See moreDan Allosso • How to Make Notes and Write
The rule of thumb to follow is that every time you “touch” a note, you should make it a little more discoverable for your future selfVII—by adding a highlight, a heading, some bullets, or commentary. This is the “campsite rule” applied to information—leave it better than you found it.