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.
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 separ
... See moreDan Allosso • How to Make Notes and Write
Like fleeting notes, not everything you capture in a reference note need be transformed into a main note. Feel free to make as many or as few main notes from your reference note, remembering that you can always come back to it later.
Bob Doto • A System for Writing: How an Unconventional Approach to Note-Making Can Help You Capture Ideas, Think Wildly, and Write Constantly - A Zettelkasten Primer
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
Your future self will benefit from having quality information to go on. If you take just a few moments to add useful information to your main notes when you create them, you’ll save yourself hours reinventing the wheel. Remember, you don’t need to engage with every aspect of every note every time you use it. Scan the note for what’s most relevant,
... See moreBob Doto • A System for Writing
People who write extensively about note-writing rarely have a serious context of use
Many bloggers and “life-hackers” have made a full-time job of suggesting how to organize your journal or how to most effectively Write about what you read to internalize texts deeply. We should take this advice seriously insofar as those practices have helped the au... See more
Many bloggers and “life-hackers” have made a full-time job of suggesting how to organize your journal or how to most effectively Write about what you read to internalize texts deeply. We should take this advice seriously insofar as those practices have helped the au... See more
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Think of yourself not just as a taker of notes, but as a giver of notes—you are giving your future self the gift of knowledge that is easy to find and understand.
Tiago Forte • Building a Second Brain: A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential
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 self*—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. This ensures that the notes you interact with most often will natu
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