§Note-writing systems

• Principles:
  • Evergreen note-writing as fundamental unit of knowledge work
  • “Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking”
  • Knowledge work should accrete
  • Note-writing practices are generally ineffective
  • Note-writing practices provide weak feedback
• Reading and note-writing
  • Write about what you read to internalize texts deeply
  • Evergreen note-writing helps reading efforts accumulate
    • Collecting material feels more useful than it usually is
  • Do your own thinking
    • Understanding requires effortful engagement
    • Writing forces sharper understanding
  • How to collect observations while reading
  • Literature notes are secondary and separate
  • How to process reading annotations into evergreen notes
  • Pocket memo pad to capture into writing inbox while out
  • A writing inbox for transient and incomplete notes
  • A reading inbox to capture possibly-useful references
  • Inboxes shouldn’t be split into multiple places
  • Beware automatic import into the reading inbox
  • Use phones to collect and triage, not (usually) to read
• Thinking and note-writing
  • Evergreen note-writing helps insight accumulate
  • Spaced repetition may be a helpful tool to incrementally develop inklings
  • Leaps of insight emerge from prior thought
  • Brainstorming may often substitute for missing insight accretion systems
  • Evergreen notes are a safe place to develop wild ideas
  • Evergreen notes can increase conversational bandwidth
  • Conversations incorporating multiple discussants’ evergreen notes may promote collaborative sense-making
• Writing and note-writing
  • Executable strategy for writing
  • Create speculative outlines while you write
  • Evergreen notes lower the emotional stakes in editing manuscripts
  • Evergreen notes permit smooth incremental progress in writing (“incremental writing”)
• Structure of the notes
  • Evergreen notes
  • Most people take only transient notes
  • Evergreen note maintenance approximates spaced repetition
  • Evergreen notes should be concept-oriented
  • Evergreen notes should be atomic
  • Evergreen note titles are like APIs
    • Prefer positive note titles to promote systematic theory
    • Prefer note titles with complete phrases to sharpen claims
  • Evergreen notes should be densely linked
  • Notes should surprise you
• associative structure in PKMs
  • Prefer associative ontologies to hierarchical taxonomies
  • Tags are an ineffective association structure
  • Indexed references vs. tags
• implications
• Relation to reference system
  • Creating hyperlinks to my reference archive
  • Advantages and disadvantages of using notes to form associations in content
• tools
  • Digital note-writing systems fixate on the presentation and manipulation of individual notes, mostly ignoring inter-note sense-making
  • the value of plaintext
  • plaintext IDs to link stuff
  • being the human connector in a system which has no app
• history / community
  • Zettelkasten
  • Luhmann
  • Christian and Sascha
  • How to Take Smart Notes - Ahrens

Note-writing practices are generally ineffective

Knowledge work should accrete, but Most people take only transient notes.

In part because Note-writing practices provide weak feedback, people don’t even notice how ineffective their note-writing practices are. They develop some baseline level of note-writing skill and mostly stay there (People generally develop skills to a plateau and then stop). Expert performance is not well-defined, so it’s not obvious that people aren’t performing well (Salience of improvement drives skill development). All this is true of other core knowledge work skills, too: Core practices in knowledge work are often ad-hoc.

Much of what’s written about trying to improve these practices is misguided: “Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking”

By contrast: Evergreen note-writing as fundamental unit of knowledge work

“Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking”

Lots of people write about solutions to the problem that Note-writing practices are generally ineffective. The vast majority of that writing fixates on a myopic, “lifehacking”-type frame, focused on answering questions like: “how should I organize my notes?”, “what kind of journal should I use?”, “how can I make it easy to capture snippets of things I read?”, etc.

Answers to these questions are unsatisfying because the questions are focused on the wrong thing. The goal is not to take notes—the goal is to think effectively. Better questions are “what practices can help me reliably develop insights over time?”, “how can I shepherd my attention effectively?” etc. This is the frame in which Evergreen note-writing as fundamental unit of knowledge work makes sense: Evergreen note-writing helps insight accumulate.

In terms of technology, what matters is not “computer-support note-taking” but “computer supported thinking.”

It’s easy to focus on “note-taking” because it’s a visible component of an invisible practice: if you see someone insightful writing in their notebook, you might imagine that if you get the right notebook and organize it well, you’ll be insightful too. And of course, taking notes is tangible. It’s relatively easy, and it feels like doing something, even if it’s useless (Note-writing practices provide weak feedback). So it’s an attractive nuisance.

People who write extensively about note-writing rarely have a serious context of use

References

Matuschak, A. (2019, December). Taking knowledge work seriously. Presented at the Stripe Convergence, San Francisco.

Conversation with Michael Nielsen, 2019-12-16

computer supported thinking

A nice screed on this subject: Notes Against Note-Taking Systems - by Sasha Chapin