Book Highlights: How To Take Smart Notes (Sonke Ahrens)

This book helped me develop my own “slip-box” and use it for the intelligent organization of ideas and notes in my daily life.

📙 About The Book

Title: How To Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique To Boost Writing, Learning And Thinking
Author: Sonke Ahrens

🙋 Who Should Read It?

Any aspiring writer or student or anyone who reads, writes, and thinks should read the book.

👀 Impressions

The book is a good read and offered me some practical insights into how I can develop my reference system that builds on creating meaningful connections between different ideas and arguments. It also helped me realize how I can truly utilize what I read while I read, think, and write.

It is particularly useful because it offers insights into a tried and tested technique of note-taking. If you are somebody who cares about learning a lot, then the book is a must-read for you.

💡 Key Points and Ideas

Once you learn and start leveraging the technique of smart note-taking you will boost your productivity and accelerate your learning because you will understand more.

A few key ideas of the book:

1. The slip-box does not use the learner-first approach
   The slip-box does not put the learner in the center rather it helps decentralize the learner’s thinking within a network of other ideas.
2. It’s not about accumulating knowledge
   Learning, thinking, and writing should not be about accumulating knowledge but becoming a different person with a different way of thinking.
3. Develop an in-depth understanding of the slip-box to reap its maximum benefits
   The slip-box won’t be useful if you simply take out information that you stored in it earlier. To take its maximum advantage you need to change your working routines and understand in depth how and why it works.
4. Start early
   You will observe that you often realize the need for a good reference and idea box when you struggle with writing when you most need it e.g. towards the end of your university program etc. So, start early to take the maximum benefit of the slip-box.
5. You need not start from scratch
   You need not start from scratch while working on a project if you read (and read with a pen in your hand), think, write, and keep taking smart notes along the way.
6. Expand on what you already have
   Instead of collecting isolated notes or snippets, try to expand on the existing note sequences in the slip-box. This is what Zettelkasten is at its core.

Do check out the Book Notes — Part I, Part II, and Part III.

Do check out All Things Books and follow Arundhati Gupta for more such book highlights, summaries, notes, reviews, recommendations, etc.

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