%% Last Updated: - [[2021-02-10]] Related: - [[Learning]] [[Writing]] [[Creativity]] [[Taking Notes]] %% # How to take Smart Notes - Recommended by:: [[Nat Eliason]] - Kindle sample downloaded on [[2020-08-29]] - Date Bought:: [[2020-08-29]] - Date Finished:: [[2020-08-30]] - Literature Notes:: [[How to Take Smart Notes (lit)]] ## Thesis ### [[Writing does not help us learn - it IS how we learn.]] Writing involves not just the act of writing but the researching, the reading, and the thinking done beforehand. In fact, the physical act of creating the first draft (which is what most people think of as "writing") is the easiest part of that process. ### [[Make the question of willpower moot by changing your environment to remove inertia.]] ### [[Having a mind like water is a flow state where the mind is free from the anxiety in needing to remember.]] ### [[Clarifying a project as a series of Next Actions makes it less daunting.]] ### [[Bottom-up approach]] ### [[The Zettelkasten method is a bottom-up approach to turning content you consume to content you create.]] If you have to brainstorm, you haven't sufficiently documented enough ideas. ### [[Consume the thing you want to create more of.]] ### Publishing is not the end goal of learning; it is part of learning. ### We become an expert in what we deliberately practice. ### Situating a note within the context of your interests is essential to its usefulness. [[Situate good ideas within the context of a project to focus on producing output.]] ### [[Slow Burn vs Heavy Lift: Gradually collecting ideas over time and then tying them together is easier than starting from nothing.]] ### [[Standardizing a process makes it repeatable and efficient.]] ### [[Deciding what to remove is as important as deciding what to add.]] ### [[Slow Burn vs Heavy Lift: Gradually collecting ideas over time and then tying them together is easier than starting from nothing.]] ### The ability to do deep work is the strongest predictor of success. Multitasking is anti-productive. ### Confirmation bias encourages us to seek information that support our hypotheses at the exclusion of those that do not. ### We all have cognitive biases that hinder us from making purely rational decisions. Book Recommendation: [[Book/Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much]] ### [[The availability bias causes us to disproportionately value information that is recent, whether or not it is relevant.]] ### [[Our information recall adversely affects information synthesis.]] ### Asking what is missing can be more valuable than checking to see what's there. ### [[Decision fatigue]]