# [[Brilliant November - Making notes actually useful]] <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v7BbraqevMg" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> ## Thumbnail ![[Making notes actually useful.png]] ## Title 1. Making Sense of Notes (95) 2. Making Sense of Your Notes (84) 3. Beyond Taking Notes (71) 4. making notes useful (82) 5. ==Making notes actually useful== (100) ## Hook The notes we take are only valuable if we use them. This is why you might have noticed I shy away from talking about methodologies on this channel: I think most of them were created by people whose full-time job it is to come up with methodologies-- and sell them in one way or another. I have a different reason for taking notes. I take notes because I need to learn new things quickly and produce technical content in my day job as a Developer Advocate. If you're also more interested in practical tips than abstract theories, stay tuned: In this video, I'm going to run you through things I do to make my notes actually useful. ## Structure - Taking notes in the first place vs. incorporating them into your vault - Taking notes - Stream of consciousness - incomplete sentences - imported highlights (usually through Readwise) > [!tip] Brilliant sponsored spot > One of my sources for highlights these days is Brilliant. Brilliant kindly sponsored this part of the video, but I wouldn't talk about them unless I really liked their product. Brilliant is an online learning platform that distills some pretty broad topics into more digestible lessons, and I love its focus on practical uses for maths and sciences. Here I am trying to programmatically paint a flower in their Python course. > > I probably wouldn't like Brilliant as much if it weren't so easy to take notes on their stuff. I usually click on the Readwise Reader browser extension at the start of the lesson, and then I can highlight interesting parts and even take notes. In this one on Artificial Neuron Networks, I was thinking about my existing obsidian note on artificial intelligence, so I made a note of that. (*Show footage from brilliant-ann-02-in-reader.mov where I'm taking notes about [[Artificial Intelligence]]*.) You may notice I'm using the Obsidian link syntax because that's where they'll end up. > > Sometimes I take notes in Reader instead (*brilliant-ann02-in-reader.mov*), and I can use links to Obsidian notes there too. Just to show you what that looks like in Obsidian, here's the imported highlights from Computationally Modeling the Brain (*brilliant-ann02-in-obsidian.mov*), and here's that note I took that now links to [[Learning]] and [[Batching]]. And here's the other imported page on Computational Models of the Neuron-- you'll see it also copied over the image from the Brilliant lesson and the note linking to [[Artificial Intelligence]] too. > > I try to take notes on everything interesting I come across, and that's a lot of things. Brilliant does have heaps of lessons, so if you're also interested in a variety of subjects, go to https://brilliant.org/nicolevdh to start your free trial AND get 20% off Brilliant's annual premium subscription if you decide to continue. - Once I have the "raw" notes in my vault, the next step is to incorporate them into my vault. - "Processing": I don't follow any strict methodology, but the fact that different methodologies have converged is noteworthy: notes need to be processed to be useful. - What does processing mean? - Paraphrasing and abstracting what I've learned. - Creating new notes or updating existing ones. - Adding links to situate new ideas within the rest of my notes. - Plugins for processing (Screen recording: *B-roll/OBS/2022-11-17 23-58-41.mp4*) - Paraphrasing and abstracting what you've learned - Callouts, summaries - Excalidraw - Advanced Slides - Creating and updating notes - Outline - Merging notes - Note Refactor - Adding links to situate new ideas - Backlinks - Linked and unlinked mentions - Strange New Worlds - ExcaliBrain - Making stuff with your notes - Talking to people and watching/listening to their reactions - Microblogging: Mastodon/Twitter - Publish your notes - Atomic essays (Ship 30 for 30 way) - Blog post - Video - Presentation ## Outro I think it's futile to try to come up with strict rules and steps for processing notes that even require you to learn new terminology to understand. Instead, I encourage you to experiment with some of the ways I showed here to figure out what makes sense for you *at the time*-- and don't worry about making your notes or your process absolutely consistent. Instead, worry about how to make your notes useful, even if it's only useful to you. To put things bluntly, fixating on methodologies without actually putting them into practice is not much more than intellectual masturbation: useful for a time, but in the long term, insufficient. Thanks for watching! *Bedankt voor het kijken, en fijn weekend!* ## Related videos and resources [[Processing notes]] and [[Tips for processing notes in Obsidian]] ## Timestamps 0:00 Intro 0:42 Step 1 - Reading and highlighting notes 04:08 Step 2 - Processing notes 04:47 Paraphrasing and abstracting 08:00 Creating and updating notes 11:20 Linking notes and establishing hierarchy 14:44 Making something from notes ## Pinned comment ``` Keep exploring at https://brilliant.org/Nicolevdh. Get started for free, and hurry—the first 200 people get 20% off an annual premium subscription. THEME: Minimal (light mode) PLUGINS: Excalidraw, Advanced Slides, Outline (core), Note Composer (core), Note Refactor, Backlinks (core), Strange New Worlds, ExcaliBrain ``` ## Pre-production - [x] Create captions using Rev, then edit them. - [x] Take a thumbnail photo and create one for YouTube (1280 x 720). - [x] Add description. - [x] Include the title and any keywords in the first few sentences, but in a natural way. - [x] Add related videos and resources as links. - [x] Add end screen. - [x] Add cards if necessary. - [x] Add chapters for YouTube if longer than 5 minutes. - [ ] Add mid-roll ads/check monetization settings. - [ ] Post video preview on Patreon. - [ ] Post video preview for YouTube channel members. - [ ] Schedule on YouTube. - [ ] Add video to relevant playlist(s), or create a playlist if necessary. - [ ] Promote on personal social media. - [ ] Twitter - [ ] Create a blog post on [site](https://nicolevanderhoeven.com). - [ ] Add to weekly newsletter. ## Post-production - [ ] Add to video-database. - [ ] Add to other notes in my vault as appropriate.