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Throughout the text, Ahren argues for the importance of developing a special habit of note-taking and creating “smart notes.” Smart notes are a form of “learning through elaboration”, meaning we learn by putting complex ideas in our own words and by connecting them to other ideas. I’d even argue that this provides one of the missing pieces to David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” method of productivity (Allen, 2001). With over half of doctoral dissertations going unfinished (Lonka, 2003), Ahren’s main focus is on the organizational and creative problems of academic and nonfiction writers, and while the target audience is thesis writers, the lessons go well-beyond academia.
Taking smart notes how to#
Inspired by Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998), a well-known German social scientist and his method for managing his research and writing, Ahren explores how to be more productive, creative and organized using a system of deliberate note taking. Those ideas (take smart notes and build a connected, personal system of smart notes) are the central arguments of “How To Take Smart Notes” by Sönke Ahren, a book I recently read and have become somewhat obsessing over.
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Writing notes is critical for how we learn, develop ideas and ultimately, create, and if you want to become a better writer or creative of any type, you need a better system and process for your notes. The first step in nearly “every intellectual endeavour” is to take a note.