Protip from a behavioral-cognitive perspective: don't use desks and floors to look at all of your cards; use walls instead - that's actually magical how different our brains start work. At work, during brainstorming, we started sticking notes to the wall instead desk - that was a game changer!
@@random-se1ep Brain makes more connections between information and process them in a slightly different way. The fact that you're standing, moving, and seeing more helps with creativity, memorization and getting better conclusions. Just try ;)
Very true, used to do this for high school exams (GCSEs in the UK, 1999) and was absolutely obsessed with mind mapping way before it became mainstream.
I really appreciate the emphasis on understanding. My own tendency is toward being an “information hoarder” not wanting to lose anything in case it might be useful later. That, naturally, means favouring efficiency but as you said multiple times, efficiency isn’t the same as understanding/wisdom. Time to order some notecards.
Mortimer J. Adler is another proponent of understanding over simply taking on information. When it comes to books he says; the point of reading is not to read from cover to cover but to go from understanding less to understanding more of what the author is saying. And about coming to terms with an author. Just some thoughts, if they help good if not be kind in your thoughts of me
You can't hoard information and reserve it for future use. It would just get buried and buried until it reaches the deepest part of your mind and then would mix up with newer information you absorbed, and it would be difficult for you to dig up. You can only dig it up if you have reviewed it or if some context clues suddenly came up, but actively recalling it without clues its would be hard. To simplify it, it is like an object that you bought but isn't aure where to use it, you put it in a box, it gets butied by other objects that you bought but seldom use. Until the time comes that you would use that object, you would have to look for that specific box where you out it, once you find that box, you'd have to dig it up to find that object. Now you're done using it, you'll now put it back on the box, then the cycle continues not until you use it more often so it stays on the top of the box.
*That's why sometimes is better to hover instead of notetaking.* A great friend of mine would just write in the first black page of the book. More interestingly, I know a great researcher that always print a single sheet of paper, fold it, and stick it to the book with all her notes. I like this method. In the end, it always depends on how deep you are going with that particular study. I realised over the years that I just don't take notes on my favorite subjects until I need to present them. Even if it means that I might need to go over all the texts again for the quotations, since I just know where to find them. Taking notes often means I am having trouble learning that subject or that I just don't care enough about it. Also, there are many different kinds of knowledge, with different kinds of needs. A medical student needs a lot of names with continuous updates from new studies. That's why good doctors are brainiacs, with lots of information in their memories. It is completely different from a medieval philosophy scholar -- that even know which page or paragraph something is written by memory -- or a mathematics student -- and their tons of proofs and exercise repetitions.
Your system is really similar to Niklas Luhmann's note-taking system. The main difference is that he numbered his notes consecutively and if one idea was similar to another, he put it behind that note numerically (1a behind 1 if there was already a 2). He also used an index to create entry points into the notes using the numbers as references, linked notes together by referencing the numbers and organized groupings together (say, under what is philosophy) using the numbers. I use it myself with note cards and absolutely love it (I'm getting my PhD in theological studies with an emphasis on philosophy).
Your suggestion that we get our notes sorted out first on a physical medium and THEN transfer it to a digital one is such an underrated tip. Yes, its quite a bit of work and probably very difficult to get used to but using the "efficiency vs wisdom" as our guidance system, we can find our sweet spot. This is gold. Thanks man!
I've practiced that since grad school. I'd take written lecture notes, then type them up afterwards, adding more details and making sure everything was unambiguous.
This is almost like the Zettelkasten method; where every note is connected with another note, either through a similar idea or maybe a shared reference. It effectively links all your ideas through a logical chain so when you go to make your own work, you already have the beats for an essay or book etc. It lets you generate connections between things that may have never been connected before. The goal is to break each note down to its most irreducible form which sort of creates a simulation of your own counciousness and how the connections are unique to you. Through this process you may see patterns that emerge that let you know yourself better. Zettelkasten originally used notecards but there's digital tools for this now that make organization way easier. Highly recommend.
yes but I don't get why you wouldn't use this system in Obsidian. It just makes much more sense to have these digital links, way more legible and future-proof than using paper cards
For anyone who would like to do this digitally, I highly recommend Obsidian. I have my entire Personal Knowledge Management set up with this technique(zett), and the power that comes with using a piece of software like Obsidian and Markdown for note taking has immeasurable value and it's future proof.
This method is the most effective I've ever used. My teacher of contemporary philosophy asked me to use this method and it changed my approach to study. Thank you for sharing.
9:02-9:15 this is it, this is the key take away for me when it comes to deciding which format i should be using to take notes, i have struggled a lot in finding the perfect solution on note taking itself and wasted time to actually read books that im gonna take notes from... thank you so much Jared.
As someone just embarking on their PhD journey, I feel that this video could not have graced my TH-cam recommendations at a better time. I struggled with annotation/thematic organization throughout high school and undergrad, and as a consequence rarely finished an assigned text that was any longer than 50-60 pages. I felt that teachers would often extol the virtue of annotation and diligent note-taking, without actually telling students how or when to do so. Needless to say, this content is a breath of fresh air. Thank you, Jared!
I'm a cybersecurity major taking a philosophy class required for my college. I got a lot of interest in philosophy but some of the material can be overwhelming. I truly appreciate the work you put on this video. An IT career involves so much memorizing and note taking usually is more about efficiency to memorize most of the terms and acronyms. But I like the contrast philosophy offers. I've been burn out of having to memorize stuff that is so refreshing to have to slow down and actually think of the material. I'm sure this will also translate later in my career.
Thanks for this. The reminder to slow down and deliberate was really helpful. When we have so much to read/sort through, that part can often get lost because you feel as though the next article/book needs to be looked at.
Awesome video Jared. My favorite of your videos are the ones that teach us to think (or read, or reflect, or whatever) like you do. Most of us haven't been trained in philosophy but are here because we want some exposure to it, and so anything that pulls me closer to the style of how you approach stuff is very appreciated. This is a perfect example.
i use a digital version of this system i think through obsidian! i create a new note for each book and compile all the quotes in there so i have a reference page, but then I internally link quotes to different themes, or other books and authors (all notes in my database) :)) i found it useful to not just have quotes listed per book, but also linked with everything else ive read when relevant. cool to see your system, it reminds me of the zettelkasten system
Even though I'm all digital w books and note taking. I just love this content and seeing how others make storing and understanding information easier for them.
Thank you for this! I was getting overwhelmed with how I would go about combing through collections of letters for my doctoral lecture recital next semester!
Amazing video, and the first time I've stumbled across your channel. Speaking as a recent international politics masters graduate, I used a completely digital workflow throughout my whole four years, which seemed to make a lot of sense at the time because the density of my notes is pretty extreme (I think I had >50,000 words of research, all written myself, for my BA dissertation, probably more for the masters). I settled on one extremely long word document for each author, complete with page references and my own marginal comments, and this worked extremely well for quickly researching shorter essays. I found I could bring in large amounts of material by a large diversity of authors very easily, and refer back to it no problem. As my projects got longer, however, the documents became more and more unwieldy, and there were more and more of them to keep on top of while I was writing. This made it very difficult to draw connections between the different notes I was writing because, although I could easily move between them and get from one side of my research to the other in seconds, the only way for me to know what should connect to what was just by thinking about it and remembering it, and then writing marginal comments like 'See X et al.' This did challenge me to stay on top of my material, and forced me to go back, review and study my notes in depth, so I don't want to say it was all bad or that I consistently failed to see obvious links, but I had to hunt for them, and eventually a critical mass was reached where my research became so unwieldy I was limited to writing just a few hundred words per day of the actual final text, because navigating the intellectual maze I'd created was so difficult. It was only after I submitted that I came across the zettelkasten and index card note-taking systems, of which I believe this is a derivation. I sort of wish I'd done that from the start, but then, who knows? Research is a very personal thing. I have moved back to pen and paper since finishing up, however, now that the stuff I'm researching is a little less expansive and I have more time to devote to it. I think I'm remembering and making links much better because of it
Wow, are you a mind reader?! Just yesterday I was looking for how to take great notes for my philosophy reads without writing in my books (I'm one of those book folks). As a complete novice, this will definitely be helpful. Looking forward to seeing the rest of this video.
First, I can’t believe I just ‘liked’ a video on note taking! 🤣🤣 Second, of course! I totally forgot I used to do this in college! Great reminder! I’m going to get some note cards!
This is great! Your system is so simple and refreshing, I cannot wait to start using it! I've been trying to use Zettelkasten but it requires too much effort with numbering and connecting everything just for the sake of doing it. The organisation in your system depends on your goals and needs and what you want to use the notes for, which is great!
I've found that putting source pages in your notes is really helpful. But I've also found that putting in my own index in the back is a real time saver
thank you for this helpful video. I have struggling to retain all I read. It is there but I cannot express what I learned. Now I know that I need to write it down and memorized it.
@JaredHenderson 1. I'm familiar about this system from Robert Greene/Ryan Holiday. Ryan calls your "idea box", a "Commonplace". 2. 2:50 - slightly larger note cards... Are yours not 4x6? 3. Have you tried writing on an iPAD? Actually writing with a pencil on it. 4. How often do you stop to take notes? You read two pages, then take notes, then repeat? You set a target on how many pages you will read during a reading session and then do it? 5. 5:30 - how are you helping yourself to find the cards that share a common theme faster? I didn't see you writing down any tags, book names or page numbers on your notes.
Hi Jared , I watched your 'philosophy for beginners' video , in that video u said that "a beginner who is gonna read slowly through philosophy books for say a year would be different person by the end of that process" , this inspired me to read great books and read them slowly and , I have started to slowly read "Bhagwat Geeta" spirituo/philosophical text , I'm gonna read it slowly and deeply for first 4 months of 2023 and hopefully I will be a better person by the end of the process. Thanks for the inspiration. Peace. (And I don't use pen in my books at all it's murder for me , I note down the important page numbers , and I do reread books , I think a book is like onion and as you read and reread you discover multiple layers to a text.)
I wrote my PhD in Philosophy before there were any of these gadgets and gizmos which have become popular today. I like to joke that I had a tablet, sure, but it was actually a tablet. But yeah, notecard and pen was the method I used… But I also took some time to index my cards so they referred to other cards I thought were important. It was almost like an analogue version of the hyperlink. Any given card would have a bunch of references and these would of course grow as I read more and more. The virtue of this system is that you can keep the original order of the cards, just keep them indexed. PS - worth a sub just because I recognise a fellow traveller.
Thank you for making a video about your note taking system! I was waiting for it! It sounds similar to the one by Ryan Holiday but it’s nice to know that someone like you also use a similar system! I’ll definitely watch this a couple of times so I can internalize it and use the system myself. Thank you again!
Great workflow. From Paraguay, i did a lot of research in a Research Center, and this i think is the way to go for me.I used digital tools only for calendar and to-do lists. But when I made my task, it was better to handwrite then. Now, I'll try to use the sticking notes and export methods!. Great video!!!
@scottscheper has a channel dedicated analog note-taking, and like you says that writing the notes slows things down, but increases understanding and deep thinking. His system is based on Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten system.
Really helpful! Would you be willing to do another notetaking video but for lecture notes? I started recording my professors' lectures because everything seems important and I can't write it down fast enough... But when I redo the notes when I relisten, I'll end up having like 5 pages word doc of notes for a 1.5 hour lecture...I think I have real trouble discerning what to extract, and what to leave out from a professor'a lecture...
Thanks for this video! I would say that digital and other tools focus on speed, and confuse speed with efficiency. To me, the most efficient way to do something is determined by its end. So for understanding, connecting and developing ideas, speed is certainly not the most important attribute of an efficient practice, care and slowing would be.
great old school note taking and reasoning WHY handwriting your notes. it‘s so great to see something real again, not all this crazy technical bullshit on „how to set up my new awesome ipad for… going to take a shit…“ NO! the time one needs so set up the f**** technic, another one already took three notes IN OLD SCHOOL GREAT NOT EVEN A POWER CABLE NEEDED HANDWRITING 😍😍🥳🥳
This is very similar to the system my British Lit teacher showed us in high school 30 years ago. It's a good system whose simplicity is its strength. We also didn't have good digital tools to organize things back then, of course.
I use this method. I love it. I thought I invented it. The only issue is that my note cards have faded, and I want to digitize them, before I lose everything. So I have 3 questions for you: 1. What apps do you recommend for transferring these hand-written cards into a digital format? 2. How do you recommend taking notes from pdfs -- what app do you use to effectively extract and organize the chunks of texts that you want to save? 3. Is there an app that also takes the reference data for each chunk of digital text once it's been extracted, or do you have to re-add that each time you extract the text?
Even though I have a modern note-taking method, which is through online resources. I still find the traditional note-taking method being so helpful and inspiring. Also challenging for me to try it personally.
just found your channel! your voice is super soothing, i appreciate your filming style, and youre producing fantastic content. would love to see a video on all your books))
My most memorable English professor in the late 80s taught us how to use notecards for organizing and writing our papers. That was my Sophomore year and I unfortunately was too lazy to use the method again after leaving her class. I only had to write maybe two papers after that and still under 10 pages, but I’m sure they were worse for not using the method.
I don't think there is a separation between efficiency and knowledge. If your goal is to gain as much knowledge as possible then the method that fulfills it best, no matter how slow, is the efficient one
I use note cards for the first level of note taking and then move them to a Tiddlywiki with added backlinks Technically not a Zettelkasten method even though Niklas Luhmann lived and worked in my town and even has a tram named after him. I have built a huge set of links between items and with my personal reading which as a retired teacher is to quote Zhuangzi 逍遥游 "wandering without a destination" (though Zhuangzi is notorious for being very hard to translate) The Tiddlywiki is a great tool as it enables me so far to build an interesting collection of cards even going beyond my project x reminds me of y reminds me of z etc. I also do sketchnote responses to poetry too I haven't integrated that yet but it is possible with Tiddlywiki. BTW Tiddlywiki is open source and runs on my smartphone on an open source emulator - and is backed up to my cloud.
BTW seven years ago the local art gallery Kunsthalle Bielefeld had an exhibition called "Serendipity - Vom Glück des Findens" "Serendipity - the luck of finding" and the ground floor exhibition was part of Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten This was my first introduction to this form of note taking.
Hello Jared, Thank you for this. I love hearing everyone’s take on taking notes. It just shows how there isn’t a right or wrong way, just do what works for you. However, I did want to ask, do you do this with fiction as well? Say, if you’re reading Dickens, Austen, or Tolstoy, do you personally use the same system? Thanks,
I would definitely say this is useful for philosophical novels like Dostoyevsky, but for other kinds of fiction I would rather simply treat the book as a story to be enjoyed. I think a good rule of thumb is that the harder it is to follow a book the more necessary it is to take notes, and it works the other way around, too. Cheers.
what advice do you have for taking notes on particularly difficult and dense thinkers like kant, heidegger, deleuze, etc.? im always tempted to underline most of what they say, and its difficult to consolidate a lot of it into my own thoughts and terms as well.
Going to give this a try, just started a very text heavy course that pulls from multiple sources which I need to understand and write in my own words and I have no clue what I am doing as I never had to do any of this type of stuff for college/uni. Hoping that it can help me better understand the dusty tombs
For those who don't only want words, check this out. Leonardo da Vinci said " The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions " Plato shared with us wisdom he learnt from Egypt, wisdom that was a death sentence in Greece, Rome (Christianity) ..Pythagoras, Socrates and later Hypatia of Alexandria. Plato in his dialogue " The Republic " tells the parable of " The Cave " Plato starts by telling us of prisoners being held in a underground den, let us examine this den via the geometry of Bernhard Riemann and Felix Klein..Klein bottle..3rd and 4th dimensions. Plato tells us that the prisoners are bound up unable to move their heads, let us examine this bondage via the psychology of Erich Fromm..socialisation of consciousness..aware-unaware. Plato tells us that the prisoners mistake shadows for substance, let us examine this mistake via the philosophy of Thales, Hume and Kant..synthetic a priori judgement..not thing in itself. Plato tells us that one of the prisoners is released, let us examine this release via the wisdom of T Lobsang Rampa..stilling the mind and conscious astral travel..leaving the cave/body. Plato tells us that the prisoners will reject this release, let us examine this rejection via the psychology of Stockholm Syndrome..Plato quotes Homer..forgive them for they know not what they say. Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds. Mathew 23 13 31.
I'd much rather read something well and absorb and digest it than run my eyes over the pages as fast as possible. Thanks for sharing your ideas on how to achieve that former and not the latter
Hi Jared, I was wondering if you developed your system based on the 'Zettelkasten' system by Niklas Luhmann. I also wonder if you use some of the thematic or indexing techniques he used to collect worthwhile pieces of information by theme or topic. If so could you maybe elaborate on how you use this yourself? I also believe Ryan Holiday's / Robert Greene's method boils down to some version of this if you deep dive into it enough. Any practical examples would be much appreciated!
I've been looking into commonplace books lately and this sounds a lot like what Ryan Holiday does. I've been trying to focus on bound books rather than notecards for the sake of simplicity but this method might be a lot more efficient for making connections. I wonder if I could figure out a way to do that in a bound book. Any thoughts?
So, instead of notecards, I could use my Apple Pencil and whatever app I like to use for writing my equivalent note, card annotations in. I also do the sticky things with my books, I like to stick the arrow, pointy part on the sentence that I want to be starting my reading from when flicking to the page. I did not think about taking actual notes like how you are. Thanks man.
Wow, I can create a folder on my iPad mini and use the Apple Pencil to write annotations, then save these annotations in a folder for access at a later stage which will have the books name as the folder name. That’ll be a safe place to keep my notes in the form of annotations. Also, I can always print them out. Or put the files in a database.
The problem with digital tools is that they are focused on extracting. I have yet to find any that allows making connections, and has mechanisms for reviewing notes and consolidating knowledge. Everything like that needs to be done by a separate process and extra effort - BTW, taking the extra effort helps with memorization a lot!
This is going on my watchlist. I have a fk-ton of notes I want to take, but (1) I think I'm bad at it & (2) I'm @nal enough to want a comprehensive system before I start.
I strongly recommend you check out Scott Scheper and his take on the Zettelkasten. He has coined the term Anti-net and his note taking model is amazig. It's not much different from what you already do.
Thanks for the video! You may have addressed this elsewhere, but I'm curious about your perspective on the appropriate volume of notes that one might take from a book (or one reading of a book). I always feel I take too many notes and lose myself in the sheer volume of information. Do you have any thoughts on how selective to be? I'm coming from a history background, and it can be tempting to try to capture every detail for future recall. I can't seem to shed that habit.
May want to get A-B-C cards or add A-B-C Avery pages for a notebook. Then transfer it all to the computer for storage. Not a total organizer, but ABC will make an “index” at the same time.
My way of making in mind is " imagery via flow chart " on reading Hegel's paragraph on consciousness is that the write way i.e. via imagery of encircling like pie chart of his writing ? Thanks for your method but I'm not that into sticky notes we'll do make short notes in med school notes, for philosophy reads; I directly quote and group in READ ERA APP. ❤️
Do you feel there’s a way you could make these types of connections with your notes within a bound book? I’ve started a notebook for book notes but see the popularity of note cards. To be honest the notecard system just doesn’t appeal to me.
You could try writing the notes into blocks in your notebook and then come up with a color-coding system. I don’t think this is as effective, though. I’d suggest experimenting. See what you can come up with that works for you.
Thanks for sharing the notetaking process you’ve landed on. My first thought is how would this process be applied to a book on kindle or other digital reader? Would you recommend sticking to the exact same process, meaning transcribing all the juicy bits onto notecards in proceeding from there? Or do you have a different idea? Curious minds want to know! Cool new logo for your channel! Kind of reminds me of a grumpy grown up Harry Potter 😂.
I would recommend doing the same thing for an e-reader. I took this part out, but in general I think there is massive benefit to writing by hand. You process information differently when you write it yourself.
Do you have any tips for people that have really bad handwriting? I'm on a medication that makes my hands shake, and it makes it really hard to write neatly. If I want my handwriting to be legible, I have to write very, very slowly. It makes it hard to take notes by hand because I type a lot more quickly than I can write.
Got 3 books full of marks and notes but I can´t get to transcribe and organize them. I feel that I´m better off using that time to read more books. I know it´s a problem what I don´t know how to solve it!
Las notas adhesivas con su pegamento y el subrayado dañan los libros , por eso prefiero tomar las notas en un cuaderno. De todas formas es una buena idea agruparlas por asociación de ideas como señalas.
In high school and for my MS thesis, I took notes on 3x5 cards, as well as citations. Out of curiosity, did you attend UGA between 1999-2003? I knew a Jared Henderson, he was in the Food Science department studying food chemistry.
Do you keep all of your cards forever? Do you get rid of them eventually? I would end up hoarding all my cards I think. But maybe that's when you transfer them to a digital space?
I usually don’t, to be honest - I just wanted to flag it as a possibility for others. I’d look for anything with a simple organization or tagging method.
Protip from a behavioral-cognitive perspective: don't use desks and floors to look at all of your cards; use walls instead - that's actually magical how different our brains start work. At work, during brainstorming, we started sticking notes to the wall instead desk - that was a game changer!
I agree
Curious, why is that so?
@@random-se1ep Brain makes more connections between information and process them in a slightly different way. The fact that you're standing, moving, and seeing more helps with creativity, memorization and getting better conclusions. Just try ;)
great ideas, never thought about these diferences though it''s obvious my brain makes better conectivity with sticking notes on wall
Very true, used to do this for high school exams (GCSEs in the UK, 1999) and was absolutely obsessed with mind mapping way before it became mainstream.
I really appreciate the emphasis on understanding. My own tendency is toward being an “information hoarder” not wanting to lose anything in case it might be useful later. That, naturally, means favouring efficiency but as you said multiple times, efficiency isn’t the same as understanding/wisdom. Time to order some notecards.
Mortimer J. Adler is another proponent of understanding over simply taking on information. When it comes to books he says; the point of reading is not to read from cover to cover but to go from understanding less to understanding more of what the author is saying. And about coming to terms with an author. Just some thoughts, if they help good if not be kind in your thoughts of me
@@kristogirma8319 well said Kristo 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
You can't hoard information and reserve it for future use. It would just get buried and buried until it reaches the deepest part of your mind and then would mix up with newer information you absorbed, and it would be difficult for you to dig up. You can only dig it up if you have reviewed it or if some context clues suddenly came up, but actively recalling it without clues its would be hard.
To simplify it, it is like an object that you bought but isn't aure where to use it, you put it in a box, it gets butied by other objects that you bought but seldom use. Until the time comes that you would use that object, you would have to look for that specific box where you out it, once you find that box, you'd have to dig it up to find that object. Now you're done using it, you'll now put it back on the box, then the cycle continues not until you use it more often so it stays on the top of the box.
*That's why sometimes is better to hover instead of notetaking.* A great friend of mine would just write in the first black page of the book. More interestingly, I know a great researcher that always print a single sheet of paper, fold it, and stick it to the book with all her notes. I like this method. In the end, it always depends on how deep you are going with that particular study.
I realised over the years that I just don't take notes on my favorite subjects until I need to present them. Even if it means that I might need to go over all the texts again for the quotations, since I just know where to find them. Taking notes often means I am having trouble learning that subject or that I just don't care enough about it.
Also, there are many different kinds of knowledge, with different kinds of needs. A medical student needs a lot of names with continuous updates from new studies. That's why good doctors are brainiacs, with lots of information in their memories. It is completely different from a medieval philosophy scholar -- that even know which page or paragraph something is written by memory -- or a mathematics student -- and their tons of proofs and exercise repetitions.
Your system is really similar to Niklas Luhmann's note-taking system. The main difference is that he numbered his notes consecutively and if one idea was similar to another, he put it behind that note numerically (1a behind 1 if there was already a 2). He also used an index to create entry points into the notes using the numbers as references, linked notes together by referencing the numbers and organized groupings together (say, under what is philosophy) using the numbers. I use it myself with note cards and absolutely love it (I'm getting my PhD in theological studies with an emphasis on philosophy).
That is really helpful, I'll consider using it too sooner!
Anyway, good luck on your journey, sir.
You saved me time from reading again a not-so-good on the system. Thank you!
Your suggestion that we get our notes sorted out first on a physical medium and THEN transfer it to a digital one is such an underrated tip. Yes, its quite a bit of work and probably very difficult to get used to but using the "efficiency vs wisdom" as our guidance system, we can find our sweet spot. This is gold. Thanks man!
For me repetition is gold. So multiple mediums is always better.
I've practiced that since grad school. I'd take written lecture notes, then type them up afterwards, adding more details and making sure everything was unambiguous.
This is almost like the Zettelkasten method; where every note is connected with another note, either through a similar idea or maybe a shared reference. It effectively links all your ideas through a logical chain so when you go to make your own work, you already have the beats for an essay or book etc. It lets you generate connections between things that may have never been connected before. The goal is to break each note down to its most irreducible form which sort of creates a simulation of your own counciousness and how the connections are unique to you. Through this process you may see patterns that emerge that let you know yourself better. Zettelkasten originally used notecards but there's digital tools for this now that make organization way easier. Highly recommend.
yes but I don't get why you wouldn't use this system in Obsidian. It just makes much more sense to have these digital links, way more legible and future-proof than using paper cards
@@piet10000v yeah I like obsidian. That's why I mentioned "digital tools" toward the end there
@@piet10000v writing by hand helps with memory retention
For anyone who would like to do this digitally, I highly recommend Obsidian. I have my entire Personal Knowledge Management set up with this technique(zett), and the power that comes with using a piece of software like Obsidian and Markdown for note taking has immeasurable value and it's future proof.
This method is the most effective I've ever used. My teacher of contemporary philosophy asked me to use this method and it changed my approach to study. Thank you for sharing.
9:02-9:15 this is it, this is the key take away for me when it comes to deciding which format i should be using to take notes, i have struggled a lot in finding the perfect solution on note taking itself and wasted time to actually read books that im gonna take notes from... thank you so much Jared.
As someone just embarking on their PhD journey, I feel that this video could not have graced my TH-cam recommendations at a better time. I struggled with annotation/thematic organization throughout high school and undergrad, and as a consequence rarely finished an assigned text that was any longer than 50-60 pages. I felt that teachers would often extol the virtue of annotation and diligent note-taking, without actually telling students how or when to do so. Needless to say, this content is a breath of fresh air. Thank you, Jared!
I'm a cybersecurity major taking a philosophy class required for my college. I got a lot of interest in philosophy but some of the material can be overwhelming. I truly appreciate the work you put on this video. An IT career involves so much memorizing and note taking usually is more about efficiency to memorize most of the terms and acronyms. But I like the contrast philosophy offers. I've been burn out of having to memorize stuff that is so refreshing to have to slow down and actually think of the material. I'm sure this will also translate later in my career.
You're such a smart and great man. The world needs more people like you.
Thanks for this. The reminder to slow down and deliberate was really helpful. When we have so much to read/sort through, that part can often get lost because you feel as though the next article/book needs to be looked at.
Awesome video Jared. My favorite of your videos are the ones that teach us to think (or read, or reflect, or whatever) like you do. Most of us haven't been trained in philosophy but are here because we want some exposure to it, and so anything that pulls me closer to the style of how you approach stuff is very appreciated. This is a perfect example.
i use a digital version of this system i think through obsidian! i create a new note for each book and compile all the quotes in there so i have a reference page, but then I internally link quotes to different themes, or other books and authors (all notes in my database) :)) i found it useful to not just have quotes listed per book, but also linked with everything else ive read when relevant. cool to see your system, it reminds me of the zettelkasten system
Even though I'm all digital w books and note taking. I just love this content and seeing how others make storing and understanding information easier for them.
I love this method. Really similar to what I've seen Ryan Holiday do when prepping for his next book. I need to gett better at this!
Thank you for this! I was getting overwhelmed with how I would go about combing through collections of letters for my doctoral lecture recital next semester!
I resonate with your method Jared.
Thank you for sharing. 🙏
Amazing video, and the first time I've stumbled across your channel. Speaking as a recent international politics masters graduate, I used a completely digital workflow throughout my whole four years, which seemed to make a lot of sense at the time because the density of my notes is pretty extreme (I think I had >50,000 words of research, all written myself, for my BA dissertation, probably more for the masters). I settled on one extremely long word document for each author, complete with page references and my own marginal comments, and this worked extremely well for quickly researching shorter essays. I found I could bring in large amounts of material by a large diversity of authors very easily, and refer back to it no problem.
As my projects got longer, however, the documents became more and more unwieldy, and there were more and more of them to keep on top of while I was writing. This made it very difficult to draw connections between the different notes I was writing because, although I could easily move between them and get from one side of my research to the other in seconds, the only way for me to know what should connect to what was just by thinking about it and remembering it, and then writing marginal comments like 'See X et al.' This did challenge me to stay on top of my material, and forced me to go back, review and study my notes in depth, so I don't want to say it was all bad or that I consistently failed to see obvious links, but I had to hunt for them, and eventually a critical mass was reached where my research became so unwieldy I was limited to writing just a few hundred words per day of the actual final text, because navigating the intellectual maze I'd created was so difficult.
It was only after I submitted that I came across the zettelkasten and index card note-taking systems, of which I believe this is a derivation. I sort of wish I'd done that from the start, but then, who knows? Research is a very personal thing. I have moved back to pen and paper since finishing up, however, now that the stuff I'm researching is a little less expansive and I have more time to devote to it. I think I'm remembering and making links much better because of it
Wow, are you a mind reader?! Just yesterday I was looking for how to take great notes for my philosophy reads without writing in my books (I'm one of those book folks). As a complete novice, this will definitely be helpful. Looking forward to seeing the rest of this video.
First, I can’t believe I just ‘liked’ a video on note taking! 🤣🤣
Second, of course! I totally forgot I used to do this in college! Great reminder! I’m going to get some note cards!
This is great! Your system is so simple and refreshing, I cannot wait to start using it! I've been trying to use Zettelkasten but it requires too much effort with numbering and connecting everything just for the sake of doing it. The organisation in your system depends on your goals and needs and what you want to use the notes for, which is great!
I've found that putting source pages in your notes is really helpful. But I've also found that putting in my own index in the back is a real time saver
We appreciate your advice. We all hope you continue to do well. Happy Holidays.
Thank you for your kind comments and continuing support.
thank you for this helpful video. I have struggling to retain all I read. It is there but I cannot express what I learned. Now I know that I need to write it down and memorized it.
@JaredHenderson
1. I'm familiar about this system from Robert Greene/Ryan Holiday. Ryan calls your "idea box", a "Commonplace".
2. 2:50 - slightly larger note cards... Are yours not 4x6?
3. Have you tried writing on an iPAD? Actually writing with a pencil on it.
4. How often do you stop to take notes? You read two pages, then take notes, then repeat? You set a target on how many pages you will read during a reading session and then do it?
5. 5:30 - how are you helping yourself to find the cards that share a common theme faster? I didn't see you writing down any tags, book names or page numbers on your notes.
Hi Jared , I watched your 'philosophy for beginners' video , in that video u said that "a beginner who is gonna read slowly through philosophy books for say a year would be different person by the end of that process" , this inspired me to read great books and read them slowly and , I have started to slowly read "Bhagwat Geeta" spirituo/philosophical text , I'm gonna read it slowly and deeply for first 4 months of 2023 and hopefully I will be a better person by the end of the process. Thanks for the inspiration. Peace. (And I don't use pen in my books at all it's murder for me , I note down the important page numbers , and I do reread books , I think a book is like onion and as you read and reread you discover multiple layers to a text.)
thanks so much for this! I was going down the "vim vs emacs for academics" rabbithole, but this is much better for my comp lit phd.
I’ve been there!
You're amazing Bro. It's so great learning from you
I wrote my PhD in Philosophy before there were any of these gadgets and gizmos which have become popular today. I like to joke that I had a tablet, sure, but it was actually a tablet. But yeah, notecard and pen was the method I used… But I also took some time to index my cards so they referred to other cards I thought were important. It was almost like an analogue version of the hyperlink. Any given card would have a bunch of references and these would of course grow as I read more and more. The virtue of this system is that you can keep the original order of the cards, just keep them indexed. PS - worth a sub just because I recognise a fellow traveller.
Thank you for making a video about your note taking system! I was waiting for it! It sounds similar to the one by Ryan Holiday but it’s nice to know that someone like you also use a similar system! I’ll definitely watch this a couple of times so I can internalize it and use the system myself. Thank you again!
This is good. Really good. I have been struggling with how to take notes and track them
NICE. I made my first note card ever while watching your video!!
Great workflow. From Paraguay, i did a lot of research in a Research Center, and this i think is the way to go for me.I used digital tools only for calendar and to-do lists. But when I made my task, it was better to handwrite then. Now, I'll try to use the sticking notes and export methods!. Great video!!!
I think obsidian notes app is what you need !!
Excellent ending phrase! Efficency and productivity are not the mais focus when you are studying/researching seriously.
Nice! I used a similar method during my Philosophy undergraduate degree ❤
@scottscheper has a channel dedicated analog note-taking, and like you says that writing the notes slows things down, but increases understanding and deep thinking. His system is based on Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten system.
Reading the Consolation as well. It's a great read and I'm glad I'm following the reading list.
It’s wonderful. Sometimes I just read a page or two before bed. Sometimes I get swept away and read much more. It’s medicine for the soul.
@@_jared absolutely!
Really helpful!
Would you be willing to do another notetaking video but for lecture notes? I started recording my professors' lectures because everything seems important and I can't write it down fast enough... But when I redo the notes when I relisten, I'll end up having like 5 pages word doc of notes for a 1.5 hour lecture...I think I have real trouble discerning what to extract, and what to leave out from a professor'a lecture...
I'll work on it - maybe it can come out in January.
@@_jared that would be so timely for so many students starting the new semester :D
For me HARDEST PART is _ I am not able to Recognise What's Important !!!
If u are not sure write it down. As u go and do quizzes etc you can weed out what is not important and get rid of them
To sum up, you could transfer the highlights of the book within the Zettelkasten, it is crucial to put your words and paraphrase the main ideas.
Ryan holiday book author, also uses this method. He uses it during the researching part, then the cards to help write his book.
Thanks for this video! I would say that digital and other tools focus on speed, and confuse speed with efficiency. To me, the most efficient way to do something is determined by its end. So for understanding, connecting and developing ideas, speed is certainly not the most important attribute of an efficient practice, care and slowing would be.
Very good distinction - I should have said 'speed' rather than 'efficiency' in the video.
Thank you for shearing this, it’s always good to see different ways to take notes, thanks. Super
Always enlightening. Thank you!
Thank you for all your videos. They are very interesting and pertinent. Continue !
great old school note taking and reasoning WHY handwriting your notes. it‘s so great to see something real again, not all this crazy technical bullshit on „how to set up my new awesome ipad for… going to take a shit…“ NO! the time one needs
so set up the f**** technic, another one already took three notes IN OLD SCHOOL GREAT NOT EVEN A POWER CABLE NEEDED HANDWRITING 😍😍🥳🥳
This is very similar to the system my British Lit teacher showed us in high school 30 years ago. It's a good system whose simplicity is its strength. We also didn't have good digital tools to organize things back then, of course.
You’re awesome Jared!
I use this method. I love it. I thought I invented it. The only issue is that my note cards have faded, and I want to digitize them, before I lose everything. So I have 3 questions for you:
1. What apps do you recommend for transferring these hand-written cards into a digital format?
2. How do you recommend taking notes from pdfs -- what app do you use to effectively extract and organize the chunks of texts that you want to save?
3. Is there an app that also takes the reference data for each chunk of digital text once it's been extracted, or do you have to re-add that each time you extract the text?
Ah man I actually like the idea of analog notecards for the initial export and reflection on a source.
You are describing the Zettelkasten system of note taking and linking to other notes.
Really liked this!!
Great video - very helpful
Great tips! Love your channel!
I used to use a chess system for annotation. ? is a mistake; ?? is a blunder; !? is interesting; ?! is dubious; ! is good; and !! is brilliant.
Even though I have a modern note-taking method, which is through online resources. I still find the traditional note-taking method being so helpful and inspiring. Also challenging for me to try it personally.
just found your channel! your voice is super soothing, i appreciate your filming style, and youre producing fantastic content. would love to see a video on all your books))
awesome way to think!
My most memorable English professor in the late 80s taught us how to use notecards for organizing and writing our papers. That was my Sophomore year and I unfortunately was too lazy to use the method again after leaving her class. I only had to write maybe two papers after that and still under 10 pages, but I’m sure they were worse for not using the method.
I don't think there is a separation between efficiency and knowledge. If your goal is to gain as much knowledge as possible then the method that fulfills it best, no matter how slow, is the efficient one
Thank you. This is helpful.
Great video. I agreee about not using digital tools right away (or at all) and I make software ..
I use note cards for the first level of note taking
and then move them to a Tiddlywiki with added backlinks
Technically not a Zettelkasten method
even though Niklas Luhmann lived and worked in my town
and even has a tram named after him.
I have built a huge set of links between items
and with my personal reading
which as a retired teacher
is to quote Zhuangzi
逍遥游
"wandering without a destination"
(though Zhuangzi is notorious for being very hard to translate)
The Tiddlywiki is a great tool as it enables me
so far to build an interesting collection of cards
even going beyond my project
x reminds me of y reminds me of z etc.
I also do sketchnote responses to poetry too
I haven't integrated that yet but it is possible with Tiddlywiki.
BTW Tiddlywiki is open source and runs on my smartphone
on an open source emulator - and is backed up to my cloud.
BTW seven years ago the local art gallery
Kunsthalle Bielefeld
had an exhibition called
"Serendipity - Vom Glück des Findens"
"Serendipity - the luck of finding"
and the ground floor exhibition was part of
Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten
This was my first introduction to
this form of note taking.
Hello Jared,
Thank you for this. I love hearing everyone’s take on taking notes. It just shows how there isn’t a right or wrong way, just do what works for you.
However, I did want to ask, do you do this with fiction as well? Say, if you’re reading Dickens, Austen, or Tolstoy, do you personally use the same system?
Thanks,
I would definitely say this is useful for philosophical novels like Dostoyevsky, but for other kinds of fiction I would rather simply treat the book as a story to be enjoyed. I think a good rule of thumb is that the harder it is to follow a book the more necessary it is to take notes, and it works the other way around, too.
Cheers.
what advice do you have for taking notes on particularly difficult and dense thinkers like kant, heidegger, deleuze, etc.? im always tempted to underline most of what they say, and its difficult to consolidate a lot of it into my own thoughts and terms as well.
Going to give this a try, just started a very text heavy course that pulls from multiple sources which I need to understand and write in my own words and I have no clue what I am doing as I never had to do any of this type of stuff for college/uni. Hoping that it can help me better understand the dusty tombs
As much as I love physical books, e-readers do help a lot with this process.
I used this when in college in the Devonian
For those who don't only want words, check this out. Leonardo da Vinci said " The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions " Plato shared with us wisdom he learnt from Egypt, wisdom that was a death sentence in Greece, Rome (Christianity) ..Pythagoras, Socrates and later Hypatia of Alexandria. Plato in his dialogue " The Republic " tells the parable of " The Cave " Plato starts by telling us of prisoners being held in a underground den, let us examine this den via the geometry of Bernhard Riemann and Felix Klein..Klein bottle..3rd and 4th dimensions. Plato tells us that the prisoners are bound up unable to move their heads, let us examine this bondage via the psychology of Erich Fromm..socialisation of consciousness..aware-unaware. Plato tells us that the prisoners mistake shadows for substance, let us examine this mistake via the philosophy of Thales, Hume and Kant..synthetic a priori judgement..not thing in itself. Plato tells us that one of the prisoners is released, let us examine this release via the wisdom of T Lobsang Rampa..stilling the mind and conscious astral travel..leaving the cave/body. Plato tells us that the prisoners will reject this release, let us examine this rejection via the psychology of Stockholm Syndrome..Plato quotes Homer..forgive them for they know not what they say. Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds. Mathew 23 13 31.
I'd much rather read something well and absorb and digest it than run my eyes over the pages as fast as possible. Thanks for sharing your ideas on how to achieve that former and not the latter
Did you watch the video?
Love the video & channel! Being a chess player myself, I rose at chess grandmaster! Would love to know who that GM was 🤓
I actually read the same book in a couple of weeks for college.
Hi Jared, I was wondering if you developed your system based on the 'Zettelkasten' system by Niklas Luhmann. I also wonder if you use some of the thematic or indexing techniques he used to collect worthwhile pieces of information by theme or topic. If so could you maybe elaborate on how you use this yourself? I also believe Ryan Holiday's / Robert Greene's method boils down to some version of this if you deep dive into it enough. Any practical examples would be much appreciated!
It’s kind of based on that. This is less structured and is more based on a particular project - I’m not striving for evergreen notes here.
@@_jared thanks for clarifying. Keep up the good work and happy holidays for you and yours!
I've been looking into commonplace books lately and this sounds a lot like what Ryan Holiday does. I've been trying to focus on bound books rather than notecards for the sake of simplicity but this method might be a lot more efficient for making connections. I wonder if I could figure out a way to do that in a bound book. Any thoughts?
Temporarily bind notes with comb binders, can be bound, separated, and rebound.
So, instead of notecards, I could use my Apple Pencil and whatever app I like to use for writing my equivalent note, card annotations in. I also do the sticky things with my books, I like to stick the arrow, pointy part on the sentence that I want to be starting my reading from when flicking to the page. I did not think about taking actual notes like how you are. Thanks man.
Wow, I can create a folder on my iPad mini and use the Apple Pencil to write annotations, then save these annotations in a folder for access at a later stage which will have the books name as the folder name. That’ll be a safe place to keep my notes in the form of annotations. Also, I can always print them out. Or put the files in a database.
The problem with digital tools is that they are focused on extracting. I have yet to find any that allows making connections, and has mechanisms for reviewing notes and consolidating knowledge. Everything like that needs to be done by a separate process and extra effort - BTW, taking the extra effort helps with memorization a lot!
This is going on my watchlist. I have a fk-ton of notes I want to take, but (1) I think I'm bad at it & (2) I'm @nal enough to want a comprehensive system before I start.
I strongly recommend you check out Scott Scheper and his take on the Zettelkasten. He has coined the term Anti-net and his note taking model is amazig. It's not much different from what you already do.
I second this. He just came out with his book on the Antinet too. Really exciting stuff.
Thanks for the video! You may have addressed this elsewhere, but I'm curious about your perspective on the appropriate volume of notes that one might take from a book (or one reading of a book). I always feel I take too many notes and lose myself in the sheer volume of information. Do you have any thoughts on how selective to be? I'm coming from a history background, and it can be tempting to try to capture every detail for future recall. I can't seem to shed that habit.
May want to get A-B-C cards or add A-B-C Avery pages for a notebook. Then transfer it all to the computer for storage. Not a total organizer, but ABC will make an “index” at the same time.
My way of making in mind is " imagery via flow chart " on reading Hegel's paragraph on consciousness is that the write way i.e. via imagery of encircling like pie chart of his writing ? Thanks for your method but I'm not that into sticky notes we'll do make short notes in med school notes, for philosophy reads; I directly quote and group in READ ERA APP. ❤️
Do you feel there’s a way you could make these types of connections with your notes within a bound book? I’ve started a notebook for book notes but see the popularity of note cards. To be honest the notecard system just doesn’t appeal to me.
You could try writing the notes into blocks in your notebook and then come up with a color-coding system. I don’t think this is as effective, though.
I’d suggest experimenting. See what you can come up with that works for you.
Well said
Thanks for sharing the notetaking process you’ve landed on. My first thought is how would this process be applied to a book on kindle or other digital reader?
Would you recommend sticking to the exact same process, meaning transcribing all the juicy bits onto notecards in proceeding from there? Or do you have a different idea? Curious minds want to know!
Cool new logo for your channel! Kind of reminds me of a grumpy grown up Harry Potter 😂.
I would recommend doing the same thing for an e-reader. I took this part out, but in general I think there is massive benefit to writing by hand. You process information differently when you write it yourself.
Nice system
Do you have any tips for people that have really bad handwriting? I'm on a medication that makes my hands shake, and it makes it really hard to write neatly. If I want my handwriting to be legible, I have to write very, very slowly. It makes it hard to take notes by hand because I type a lot more quickly than I can write.
@_jared Where did you get your wooden box?!
Asking for a friend--LOL!🙃
Got 3 books full of marks and notes but I can´t get to transcribe and organize them. I feel that I´m better off using that time to read more books. I know it´s a problem what I don´t know how to solve it!
same
Las notas adhesivas con su pegamento y el subrayado dañan los libros , por eso prefiero tomar las notas en un cuaderno. De todas formas es una buena idea agruparlas por asociación de ideas como señalas.
In high school and for my MS thesis, I took notes on 3x5 cards, as well as citations. Out of curiosity, did you attend UGA between 1999-2003? I knew a Jared Henderson, he was in the Food Science department studying food chemistry.
Do you have a goodreads account? Would love to follow you on there.
I do not. Aside from TH-cam I try to stay off of social media.
this is off-topic, but which pens/pencils do you use (brands)? what is that mechanical pencil that is lying around? thank you for the video!
That’s a Tombow mechanical pencil. I mostly use fountain pens, but for notecards I use whatever won’t bleed.
1:09
2:37
Tip: Instead of using pen to underline (annotate) use an erasable highlighter.
Zettelkästen ftw
This is just like Ryan holidays system. Like minds think a like
You’re a great note
Do you keep all of your cards forever? Do you get rid of them eventually? I would end up hoarding all my cards I think. But maybe that's when you transfer them to a digital space?
I get rid of them. I don’t hang onto those notecards after I’m done writing whatever I’m trying to write!
I have adopted your system. You mentioned potentially putting notecards, at some point, into a digital tool. If you do that, which tool do you use?
I usually don’t, to be honest - I just wanted to flag it as a possibility for others. I’d look for anything with a simple organization or tagging method.
Thank you, Jared. I appreciate it. I imagine that there’s a simple app that may convert the notecards to text at some point for cataloguing.