https://quartz.jzhao.xyz/philosophy
Note taking principles
- Take conceptual notes.
- Don’t be a cookie-cutter and copy as the material is presented to you.
- Wait before taking notes. Wait at least 20 seconds after reading something.
Do not take “USE” notes:
U nimportant
S elf-explanatory
E asy to memorize on the spot
Try to answer problems before you write them down. Don’t let subconscious overconfidence deceive you that you have a good understanding.
” Cornell Notetaking”
- Write questions first (callouts are also useful for this).
- Write questions for individual arguments.
- Then answer them.
Side-effect: Flash-card like notes.
Example: 1
How to refactor notes
I split up into a separate note where I wrote things down, which have their own relationships, or where I know I might write something on that topic in the future, and I already have reoccurring relationship to that topic multiple notes, even though I have nothing to write for this note at this point in time. That last point is the strongest. If there is something you find yourself wanting to link to all the time and it doesn’t quite fit into the note it is currently in, that is a sign to create a separate one.
before / after refactor
Here, in the refactoring of the note-taking note (very meta), I…
compartmentalized, added headings
added link to “productivity” … not an orphan file anymore
simply pasted examples I keep searching for as a reference
made the note itself a good example of good note-taking (so in the future, I don’t have to search for a good example anymore, but can directly turn to this one)
screenshots Before:
After:
Don’t shy back of duplicating information (as long as you write it in your own words and don’t copy-paste).
Handling references
- My note on e.g.
artem kirsanov(after being properly refactored…) will basically be blank (ofc. except if I write some details about him himself inside that note).- I have notes for his specific videos (e.g.
How the brain organizes information), which will also be basically blank, except for a single link with the url and an obsidian link towards[[artem kirsanov]]- In the atomic notes I create from a specific video, I have a section
### References, where I just link to this reference, if I pasted an image or generally obtained larger parts of information from that source.This way:
- the
artem kirsanovnote is not polluted, merging concepts all over the place, but I retain the information of where information originates- I remove duplication of pasting a youtube / … link in some / all of these atomic notes (because oftentimes I do want to e.g. look something up again, have a pitcture source, …
