How to Take Smart Notes Buchzusammenfassung - das Wichtigste aus How to Take Smart Notes

Einleitung anhören

00:00

Zusammenfassung von How to Take Smart Notes

Name: How to Take Smart Notes
Rating: 4.4 (694 reviews)
Author: Sönke Ahrens

Sönke Ahrens

One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers

4.4 (694 Bewertungen)

18 Min.

Themen

Schreiben Allgemeinwissen Lernen

Inhaltsübersicht

How to Take Smart Notes
in 6 Kernaussagen verstehen

Audio & Text in der Blinkist App

Kernaussage 1 von 6

What’s in it for me? Discover a note-taking technique that could revolutionize the way you think, write, and learn.

A blank page. It’s a familiar and terrifying sight for anyone who has to write. Maybe you’re working on an essay, or embarking on your thesis, or writing your first nonfiction book. It’s a thrilling task – but also daunting. Where to begin? What to say? And even if you do make a solid start, how do you develop your argument into a compelling whole?

These are tough questions. And though there’s no simple answer to any of them, there is a method that can help you arrive at an answer. You guessed it: smart notes.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

what a Zettelkasten is, and how to use one;
the three types of notes you should be making; and
why you shouldn’t trust your brain.

Smart notes can lead to great achievements.

Let’s get things started with a remarkable tale: the unlikely story of Niklas Luhmann.

Luhmann was a German man who, in the 1960s, worked in an administration office. His leisure-time passion was reading. As he read, he made notes on things that interested him – philosophy, organizational theory, sociology. He made these notes on small pieces of paper, which he then systematically numbered before filing them in a Zettelkasten, or slip-box.

Eventually, he put some of his thoughts into a paper and presented it to an influential German sociologist. Impressed, the sociologist invited Luhmann to become a professor of sociology at the University of Bielefeld.

The key message here is: Smart notes can lead to great achievements.

Now, Luhmann had neither a doctorate nor a sociology degree. But instead of declining the invitation, he got to work. He took sociology classes and put his thesis together in less than a year. In 1968, he became a sociology professor at Bielefeld – a position he held until his death.

So how on earth did he pull this off? We’ll get to that in a minute – but, before we do, we should mention Luhmann’s other accomplishments, which are even more impressive.

On taking up his position, he was asked to present what his research project would be. His reply: “My project: theory of society. Duration: 30 years. Costs: zero.” In 1997, 29 and a half years later, he completed the final two-volume chapter of his seminal work, The Society of Society. It changed the field of sociology.

By the time he’d completed his magnum opus, he’d published nearly 60 books and hundreds of articles. Still more material was published after his death.

Many people regarded Luhmann as a genius. But studies of his methods show that his success wasn’t the result of an inordinately vast intelligence. It was the result of smart working. Luhmann knew exactly how to use his notes, which allowed him to remain focused and in control.

So why isn’t everyone doing the same? Well, first, there’s been some confusion about his process; people have tried to employ it without fully understanding its workflow. Second, most of the information about this process was in German. And, finally, the idea underpinning the process is simple – and people often don’t expect impressive results from simple ideas.

What exactly was Luhmann’s process? Well, as he himself said: “I, of course, do not think everything by myself. It happens mainly within the slip-box.”

What’s a slip-box, and how does it work? We’ll explore that in the next blink.

Systematically make three types of notes to develop your ideas and arguments.

Now that you know about Luhmann and his prolific writing, it’s time to find out about his Zettelkasten – the slip-box – and how he took notes.

Luhmann had two slip-boxes. One was for collecting references and his notes on the contents of books. The other, his main slip-box, was for storing notes and ideas. His slip-boxes were made of wood, and he wrote his notes on index cards. You can emulate this analog system, or you can use programs that provide the same functionality with the benefit of portability.

With a slip-box, you’ll never have to face a truly blank page.

It’s all so simple, right? Well, not quite.

Luhmann didn’t file his notes by subject. Rather, he used an abstract numbering system. Each note had a unique identifier made up of numbers and letters. When he was adding a new note behind another, let’s say a note numbered 223, he’d number the new one 224. If 224 already existed, then the new one would instead be numbered 223a, and so on. If necessary, he alternated between numbers and letters, branching out as his thoughts required. If you use a digital program for your slip-box, of course, this time-consuming numbering process is more or less done automatically.

An elephant can only be eaten in bite-sized chunks.

Anthony Trollope, the nineteenth-century author, was both popular and productive. According to his autobiography, he wrote at least 250 words every 15 minutes from 5:30 a.m. until 8:30 a.m. This enabled him to complete 49 novels over 35 years. An enviable feat.

The thought of completing a dissertation or similarly long academic text can be quite daunting. Yet a regime of writing a page a day, with one day off each week seems manageable – and it’s a much less ambitious pace than Trollope’s. At that rate, a doctoral thesis would actually be completed within a year. Now, in reality, that rarely happens. Sadly enough, over half of doctoral theses remain unfinished.

Read with a pen in your hand.

Here’s a pearl of wisdom from Benjamin Franklin: read with a pen in hand. And, while reading, “enter in a little book short hints of what you feel that is common or that may be useful.” Luhmann certainly adopted this approach.

As he read, Luhmann always had pen and paper close at hand. In addition to noting key ideas from the book on his index cards, he’d jot down bibliographical details on the reverse of the cards. After finishing a book, he’d go back through these ideas and see what was relevant to his existing notes.

Your slip-box enhances your learning through elaboration.

Think back to your school days. Did you ever cram before a test? Hastily rereading texts in the hope that some of it would stick might have enabled you to retain enough information to pass the test, but it didn’t help you learn anything in the long term.

Actually, if long-term retention was your goal, you might have been better off playing Ping-Pong. Exercise is an effective knowledge-retention aid, for two reasons. First, it helps you transfer information to your long-term memory. And, by reducing stress, it also reduces the hormones that suppress learning.

Du möchtest die gesamte Zusammenfassung von How to Take Smart Notes sehen?

Kernaussagen in How to Take Smart Notes

Mehr Wissen in weniger Zeit

Sachbücher auf den Punkt gebracht

Kernaussagen aus Sachbüchern in ca. 15 Minuten pro Titel lesen & anhören mit den „Blinks”

Zeitsparende Empfehlungen

Titel, die dein Leben bereichern, passend zu deinen Interessen und Zielen

Podcasts in Kurzform ^Neu

Kernaussagen wichtiger Podcasts im Kurzformat mit den neuen „Shortcasts”

Worum geht es in How to Take Smart Notes?

How to Take Smart Notes (2017) is exactly that – an explanation of how and why to take smart notes. It explains how this simple, little-known, and often misunderstood technique can aid your thinking, writing, and learning. With the help of smart notes, you may never face the horror of a blank page again.

Wer How to Take Smart Notes lesen sollte

Students and professors with papers to write
Budding nonfiction writers
Notetakers hoping to up their game

Über den Autor

Sönke Ahrens is a writer and researcher in education and social science. He’s also the author of the award-winning book Experiment and Exploration: Forms of World-Disclosure.

Kategorien mit How to Take Smart Notes

Bildung & Wissen Kreativität

Ähnlich wie How to Take Smart Notes

Building a Second Brain

Tiago Forte

A Proven Method to Organize Your Digital Life and Unlock Your Creative Potential

19 min

4.5

The Bullet Journal Method

Ryder Carroll

Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future

Mastering the Skills for Success in Life, Business, and School, or, How to Become an Expert in Just About Anything

17 min

4.3

The Bullseye Principle

David Lewis and G. Riley Mills

Mastering Intention-Based Communication to Collaborate, Execute, and Succeed

19 min

4.2

How to Become a Straight-A Student

Cal Newport

The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less

Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content

Accelerate Your Career, Master Hard Tasks and Outsmart the Competition

What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know

Myths about genius and what it really means to be great

16 min

4.3

Don’t Go Back to School

Kio Stark

A Handbook for Learning Anything

An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

25 min

4.7

The Sleep Prescription

Aric Prather

Seven Days to Unlocking Your Best Rest

17 min

4.3

Building Your Business the Right-Brain Way

Jennifer Lee

Sustainable Success for the Creative Entrepreneur

Timeless Stoic and Buddhist philosophy

33 min

4.6

A World Without Email

Cal Newport

Reimagining Work in an Age of Communication Overload

How to Learn Anything… Fast

Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload

The True Teachings of Bruce Lee

18 min

4.6

Ikigai

Hector Garcia Puigcerver and Francesc Miralles

The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life

A Common Sense Guide to the Economy

Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World

9 min

4.3

Successful Time Management

Patrick Forsyth

How to be Organized, Productive and Get Things Done

The Art of Debating, Persuading, and Public Speaking

The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction

25 min

4.4

Thinking, Fast and Slow

Daniel Kahneman

Intuition or deliberation? Where you can (and can't) trust your brain

Little Things That Can Change Your Life… And Maybe The World

A Hands-On, Project-Based Introduction to Programming

16 min

3.4

The Checklist Manifesto

Atul Gawande

How to Get Things Right

Get More Done One Thing at a Time

15 min

4.4

Seven and a Half Lessons about the Brain

Lisa Feldman Barrett

Have Your Understanding of Consciousness, Emotions, and Memory Revolutionized

20 min

4.1

Make Time

Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky

How to Focus on What Matters Every Day

The Biohacker's Guide to Getting the Body and Mind You Want

How to Use Advanced Learning Strategies to Learn Faster, Remember More and be More Productive

The Surprising Truth About When, Where and Why It Happens

A Guide for Occupants

29 min

4.5

How to Measure Anything

Douglas W. Hubbard

Finding the Value of "Intangibles" in Business

16 min

4.1

The 48 Laws of Power (New Version)

Robert Greene

The secret methods to getting what you want

33 min

4.1

Write Your Book in a Flash

Dan Janal

The Paint-by-Numbers System to Write the Book of Your Dreams—FAST!

22 min

4.8

Mindful Self-Discipline

Giovanni Dienstmann

Living with Purpose and Achieving Your Goals in a World of Distractions

18 min

4.5

Every Job Is a Sales Job

Cindy McGovern

How to Use the Art of Selling to Win at Work

Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It

26 min

4.5

Evidence-Informed Learning Design

Mirjam Neelen & Paul A. Kirschner

Creating Training to Improve Performance

19 min

4.3

Moonwalking with Einstein

Joshua Foer

The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

20 min

4.2

The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication

John C. Maxwell

Apply Them and Make the Most of Your Message

16 min

4.5

From Strength to Strength

Arthur C. Brooks

Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life

19 min

4.5

You Can Fix Your Brain

Dr. Tom O'Bryan

Just 1 Hour a Week to the Best Memory, Productivity, and Sleep You've Ever Had

19 min

4.1

Impromptu

Reid Hoffman with GPT-4

Amplifying Our Humanity Through AI

How to Think and Act Like the Most Successful and Highest-Paid People in Every Field

Secrets for Powerful Speaking and Listening

15 min

3.7

Super Brain

Deepak Chopra and Rudolph E. Tanzi

Unleash the Explosive Power of Your Mind

19 min

4.4

❤️ für Blinkist️️️

Ines S.

Ich bin begeistert. Ich liebe Bücher aber durch zwei kleine Kinder komme ich einfach nicht zum Lesen. Und ja, viele Bücher haben viel bla bla und die Quintessenz ist eigentlich ein Bruchteil.

Genau dafür ist Blinkist total genial! Es wird auf das Wesentliche reduziert, die Blinks sind gut verständlich, gut zusammengefasst und auch hörbar! Das ist super. 80 Euro für ein ganzes Jahr klingt viel, aber dafür unbegrenzt Zugriff auf 3000 Bücher. Und dieses Wissen und die Zeitersparnis ist unbezahlbar.

Ekaterina S.

Extrem empfehlenswert. Statt sinnlos im Facebook zu scrollen höre ich jetzt täglich zwischen 3-4 "Bücher". Bei manchen wird schnelle klar, dass der Kauf unnötig ist, da schon das wichtigste zusammen gefasst wurde..bei anderen macht es Lust doch das Buch selbständig zu lesen. Wirklich toll

Nils S.

Einer der besten, bequemsten und sinnvollsten Apps die auf ein Handy gehören. Jeden morgen 15-20 Minuten für die eigene Weiterbildung/Entwicklung oder Wissen.

Julia P.

Viele tolle Bücher, auf deren Kernaussagen reduziert- präzise und ansprechend zusammengefasst. Endlich habe ich das Gefühl, Zeit für Bücher zu finden, für die ich sonst keine Zeit habe.