Note-Taking: The Effortful Process That Pays Back Over Time

  • Initially, it was just an idea for a future chapter, but the more I think about it and discuss it, the deeper I burrow into a hole that doesn’t have a bottom.
    • Who is the person who can reap the benefits of a note-taking system?
      • Is it the writer of a book, an academic, or a student?
      • These are the categories Sonke suggested who can gain the most from systematic note-taking.
    • However, I disagree with him.
      • In my opinion, anyone can and will benefit if they take notes and process information in a specific manner.
      • In short, the note-taking system is one of the elements of the productivity system that everybody dreams of.
      • Allan, Dorofeev, Vasya Sour, and Archangelskiy all speculate that an efficient person takes notes.
        • But they don’t delve deeper into the thought.
        • I totally agree that we have to learn how to manage time and space, but I don’t disregard the idea of note-taking as simple and self-evident.
        • It’s a hard process, and building a comprehensive system that satisfies the need is not an easy feat.
    • Not so long ago, a member of my community asked a simple and obvious question1:
      • How can a non-writer use a note-taking system?
      • I’ve answered elaborately, though it could be stated in one simple sentence:
        • We are not Socrates; we are incapable of thinking entirely inside our heads.
        • To think, we need a place to think, and a note-taking system is an excellent place to achieve exactly this goal.
      • In other words, I’ll restate the questions:
        • Do only writers think when they work, or does everyone else as well?
        • If the answer is no, then there is an answer to the question of why non-writers might require a note-taking system.
      • To prove the point above, I’ll look into the curious case of a breadmaker, a machine that Sony Corporation designed long ago.
        • Sony wished to create a machine that bakes bread at the level of the best baker in Japan.
        • So, they approached the baker and asked him for his recipes and technology, which he provided.
        • But the catch happened when engineers tried using the machine they designed.
          • It didn’t create bread of the same quality.
          • The taste and density were the same, but the bread lacked the texture and crunchiness.
        • Instead of giving up, they sent a team of engineers to the bakery to record everything the baker did.
        • And they found that the baker folded the dough in a special manner that kept pockets of air inside the dough, which popped in the oven, thus creating the texture and crunchiness.
    • The key takeaway is this: reflect on everything you do, especially if it’s cognitively demanding.
      • And if a solution is reached by a group or a person, then it would be wise to record not only the solution but also the steps and speculation that took place.
        • We often forget about this important aspect and later regret it.

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Footnotes

  1. спасибо, вопрос закрыл благодаря вашему ответу, и понял, что это как теоретическая проработка проектов, но как все таки может выглядеть работа с папкой ideas для, например, программистов? На этапе когда массив заметок уже переввалит за 350-500 вижу как еженедельный и рутинный процесс - копаться в самых старых заметках, чтобы постепенно обновлять и актуализировать их. Что еще можно придумать в этом кейсе для работы с базой? (заметок >500, тема материалов - база знаний по программированию в формате методичек вопрос-ответ) кроме или в довесок к рутине по воскресеньям актуализировать старые заметки?