Kyle Harrison
article
How to Take Smart Notes — Tiago Forte's Summary
How to Take Smart Notes — Tiago Forte’s Summary
Author: Tiago Forte (Forte Labs) URL: https://fortelabs.com/blog/how-to-take-smart-notes/ One-line: Forte’s ten-principle distillation of Sönke Ahrens’s How to Take Smart Notes: writing is the medium of thinking, work as if writing is all that matters, nobody starts from scratch, standardize to free up creativity, file by context, follow the most interesting path, and save contradictory ideas.
Key claims
- Writing is not the outcome of thinking; it is the medium in which thinking takes place — Flannery O’Connor: “I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”
- Work as if writing is the only thing that matters: a clear purpose changes how you consume — more focused, curious, rigorous, demanding — and you stop trying to record everything.
- Nobody starts from scratch: an ever-growing pool of externalized thoughts means the problem flips from not enough to write about to far too much; the decision of what to write is made again and again along the way.
- Standardization enables creativity — the shipping container only paid off once ships, cranes, trucks and harbors all changed around it.
- File by context, not topic: the librarian asks where to store a note; the writer asks in which circumstances will I want to stumble on it — Kyle’s gloss: like Abraham Lincoln keeping scraps in his hat.
- Follow the most interesting path (autonomy over the choice of work doesn’t drain willpower) and save contradictory ideas — the enemy of independent thinking is our own inertia.
- Don’t just feel smarter, become smarter: we co-evolve with the slip-box; writing as a tool for personal growth, not a hoard of gold coins.
- Luhmann’s own rule: “I only do what is easy. I only write when I immediately know how to do it.”
Notable quotes
- Read Tiago Forte summary of book “How to Take Good Notes” by Sonke Ahrens
- “Read Tiago Forte summary of book - https://fortelabs.co/blog/how-to-take-smart-notes” (block reference from March 19th, 2020)
- Usual approach to taking notes:
- “My approach is based on the assumption that most books are a few morsels of real insight wrapped in layers and layers of fluff. As I read, I systematically unravel those layers of fluff and extract only those insights, like a chemist distilling only the purest compound.” - Tiago Forte
- Promise of the book:
- It promises to help readers adopt “a reliable and simple external structure to think in that compensates for the limitations of our brains.” By adopting such a system, Ahrens promises that we will be able to ^^“efficiently turn our thoughts and discoveries into convincing written pieces and build up a treasure of smart and interconnected notes along the way.”^^
- Instead of notes becoming a “graveyard for thoughts,” they can become a life-long pool of rich and interconnected ideas we can draw on no matter where our interests lead us.
- Niklas Luhmann ‘slip box’ system:
- System of index cards with a number and then related ideas are 1A, 1B, etc.
- But Luhmann often remarked that he never forced himself to do anything he didn’t feel like doing: “I only do what is easy. I only write when I immediately know how to do it. If I falter for a moment, I put the matter aside and do something else”
- Principle 1: Writing is not the outcome of thinking; it is the medium in which thinking takes place
- Writing is not only for proclaiming fully formed opinions, but for developing opinions worth sharing in the first place.
- ‘I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.’ - Flannery O’Connor
- Principle 2: Do your work as if writing is the only thing that matters
- Ahrens notes that “there is no such thing as private knowledge in academia. An idea kept private is as good as one you never had.”
- Do we really need even more people broadcasting half-baked opinions and theories online?
- But the important part is the principle: Work __as if __writing is the only thing that matters. Having a clear, tangible purpose when you consume information completely changes the way you engage with it. You’ll be more focused, more curious, more rigorous, and more demanding. **You won’t waste time writing down every detail, trying to make a perfect record of everything that was said. Instead, you’ll try to learn the basics as efficiently as possible **so you can get to the point where open questions arise, as these are the only questions worth writing about.
- Principle 3: Nobody ever starts from scratch
- And all this pre-research also involves writing. We build up an ever-growing pool of externalized thoughts as we read. When the time comes to produce, we aren’t following a blindly invented plan plucked from our unreliable brains. We look in our notes and follow our interests, curiosity, and intuition, which are informed by the actual work of reading, thinking, discussing, and taking notes. We never again have to face that blank screen with the impossible demand of “thinking of something to write about.”
- You’ll know you’ve succeeded in making this shift when the problem of not having enough to write about is replaced by the problem of having far too much to write about. When you finally arrive at the decision of what to write about, you’ll already have made that decision again and again at every single step along the way.
- Principle 4: Our tools and techniques are only as valuable as the workflow
- It is only when all the work becomes part of an integrated process that it becomes more than the sum of its parts.
- Principle 5: Standardization enables creativity
- **The potential of the shipping container was only unleashed when __every other part __of the shipping supply chain was changed to accommodate it. **From manufacturing to packaging to final delivery, the design of ships, cranes, trucks, and harbors all had to align around moving containers as quickly and efficiently as possible. Once they did, international shipping exploded, setting the stage for Asia to become an economic power among many other historic changes.
- By standardizing and streamlining both the format of our notes and the steps by which we process them, the real work can come to the forefront: thinking, reflecting, writing, discussing, testing, and sharing. This is the work that adds value, and now we have the time to do it more effectively.
- Principle 6: Our work only gets better when exposed to high-quality feedback
- There are many forms of feedback, both internal and external – from peers, from teachers, from social media, and from rereading our own writing. But notes are the only kind of feedback that is available anytime you need it. It is the only way to deliberately practice your thinking and communication skills multiple times per day.
- Principle 7: Work on multiple, simultaneous projects
- Think of the last time you read a book. Perhaps you read it for a certain purpose – to gain some familiarity with a topic you’re interested in or find insights for a project you’re working on. What are the chances that the book contains only the precise insights you were looking for, and no others? Extremely low it would seem. We encounter a constant stream of new ideas, but only a tiny fraction of them will be useful and relevant to us at any given moment.
- Principle 8: Organize your notes by context, not by topic
- Bad: “A librarian asks “Where should I store this note?” Their goal is to maintain a taxonomy of knowledge that is accessible to everyone, which means they have to use only the most obvious categories. They might file notes on a psychology paper under “misjudgments,” “experimental psychology,” or “experiments.”
- Good: “A writer asks “In which circumstances will I want to stumble upon this note?” They will file it under a paper they are writing, a conference they are speaking at, or an ongoing collaboration with a colleague. These are concrete, near-term deliverables and not abstract categories.”
- Writers don’t think about a single, “correct” location for a piece of information. They deal in “scraps” which can often be repurposed and reused elsewhere. The discarded byproducts from one piece of writing may become the essential pillars of the next one. — like Abraham Lincoln with scraps in his hat
- Principle 9: Always follow the most interesting path
- “When even highly intelligent students fail in their studies, it’s most often because they cease to see the meaning in what they were supposed to learn (cf. Balduf 2009), are **unable to make a connection to their personal goals **(Glynn et al. 2009) or lack the ability to control their own studies autonomously and on their own terms (Reeve and Jan 2006; Reeve 2009).”
- According to a 2006 study by psychology professor Arlen Moller, “When people experienced a sense of autonomy with regard to the choice [of what to work on], their energy for subsequent tasks was not diminished” (Moller 2006, 1034). In other words, when we have a choice about what to work on and when, it doesn’t take as much willpower to do it.
- Principle 10: Save contradictory ideas
- The real enemy of independent thinking is not any external authority, but our own inertia. We need to find ways to counteract confirmation bias – our tendency to take into account only information that confirms what we already believe. We need to regularly confront our errors, mistakes, and misunderstandings.
- Don’t just feel smarter. Become smarter.
- Ultimately, **learning should not be about hoarding stockpiles of knowledge like gold coins. It is about becoming a different kind of person with a different way of thinking. **The beauty of this approach is that we co-evolve with our slip-boxes: We build the same connections in our heads as we deliberately develop them in our slip-box. Writing then is best seen not only as a tool for thinking but as a tool for personal growth.