Amplifying productivity by taking smart notes
While learning something new there is so much content to grasp that most of the information is lost or we donโt remember it on a later date. This might slow down our productivity and creativity. I came across a book named โHow to take smart notesโ by Sรถnke Ahrens which talks about a particular note taking system which allows you to not only collect information in an organized way but also connect new information with previously learned concepts. These connections between them allow us to expand our knowledge and productivity.
This note taking system is called The Zettelkรคsten method founded by Niklas Luhmann, a german sociologist who wrote more than 70 books and nearly 400 scholarly articles published on a variety of subjects, including law, economy, politics, art, religion, ecology, mass media, and love.
For Zettelkรคsten you need 4 components :
- A space to capture all your quick thoughts , notes and ideas.
- A knowledge management system to collect your highlights and collect notes when reading books and articles.
- A slip note (Zettel) which has a unique identifier which will allow you to refer this slip note in future, the body i.e the content you want to capture and references to note the source of the content. By connecting these slip note using their unique identifier, you may weave a web of ideas that will aid you in your knowledge-based activities.
- A space to put all the information together.
As a general guideline
- You should always create something out of the information you absorb. You should always add context and significance to information to make it into knowledge. Even if you do not immediately use the produced knowledge, as long as you fill the material with relevance, you are on the correct track.
- To avoid Collectorโs Fallacy, remember to make an effort to work with new stuff in order to truly understand it. Bookmarking websites or just reading and annotating books isnโt enough.
- While using Zettelkรคsten we need to adhere to the Principle of Atomicity. That means that each Zettel only contains one unit of knowledge and one only.
All of this sounds great, but I wanted to figure out a method to put it into practice in a way that I would like and that would allow me to adhere to this note-taking technique and use it regularly enough to reap the benefits. I am usually coding/working on my computer so I figured a software that allowed me to take notes using Zettelkรคsten would be great. Here are the oneโs I tried.
Obsidian
If you google Zettelkรคsten note taking software, Obsidian is amongst the top few results. It has powerful set of features, its easy to use and it supports plugins and themes to enhance your note taking experience. Not only that, when you take notes and link them to other notes you get this graph representation of how these concepts are connected to each other.
Obsidian has mobile app for IOS and Android and they are very smooth. But to sync your notes on all of your devices you need to buy their Obsidian Sync plan or you can sync it using methods like Google Drive or Git. If you are someone who thinks about security, Obsidian has client-side encryption and policy that employees will not read note contents. Not only that but it encrypts attachments at rest.
RemNote
RemNote is built for thinking and long-term knowledge management with Unlimited Free Plan which includes linked writing and Zettelkรคsten , convert your notes to flashcards , syncing your notes across devices, graph view, spaced repetition, and much more. RemNote also allows you to choose a Offline mode on the desktop version and supports WYSIWYG view and focus mode. When it comes to security, RemNote supports server-side encryption and policy that employees will not read note content.
Notion
I have been using Notion for a while. You can implement Zettelkรคsten in Notion using this template. It also describes how you can use the reference box and the slip box to organize your ideas. Its of course isnโt as powerful as Obsidian or RemNote but if you are someone who is used to Notion and would like to use Notion for this purpose as well you can utilize this template.
Readwise
Aside from using note-taking software, combining it with something like Readwise helped me aid retention. Readwise employs a scientific method known as Spaced Repetition. They send you reminders of your favorite ebook and article highlights at the appropriate times, and you may revisit them every day with the daily email and app.
The ultimate idea with all these note taking software , tools and techniques is to help you create a Second brain so that we can power up our productivity and collect and form ideas in an efficient manner ๐ธ
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