This link has been bookmarked by 159 people . It was first bookmarked on 05 Dec 2007, by someone privately.
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Information is useful only to the extent that you can find it when you need it
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Nabor GarridoRT @Jorge_Madrigal Aprender a tomar notas eficientemente... http://bit.ly/atTOxF
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Matthias DauesThis sounds like a basic skill school somehow neglected to convey to me. I will try this one out.
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f shelves in my house containing nothing but full notebooks.
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note taking
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compulsive note taker
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Morc ."How to Take Notes Like an Alpha-Geek (Plus: My $2,600 Date + Challenge) 170 Comments
Written by Tim Ferriss Topics: Low-Information Diet
I take notes like some people take drugs.
There is an eight-foot stretch of shelves in my house containing nothing but full notebooks.
Some would call this hypergraphia (Dostoevsky was a member of this club), but I trust the weakest pen more than the strongest memory, and note taking is—in my experience—one of the most important skills for converting excessive information into precise action and follow-up.
Simple but effective note taking enables me to:
-Review book highlights in less than 10 minutes
-Connect scattered notes on a single theme in 10 minutes that would otherwise require dozens of hours
-Contact and connect mentors with relevant questions and help I can offer
-Impose structure on information for increased retention and recall
I fashion myself a note-taking geek of the first class. How dare I self-appoint myself into this priesthood? Relax, script kiddies. I’m using a much broader definition of “geek,” this one borrowed from “Understanding Geeks” in the current issue of Inc. Magazine (that said, I was recently on Geekbrief.tv, birthplace of the ubercool iYule.tv):
“Someone with an intense curiosity about a specific subject. Not limited to tech–there are also gaming geeks, music geeks, etc.”
Here are a few recommendations from inside the world of a compulsive note taker, including both the macro (books and notepad principles) and micro (page features and formatting):
1. Create an indexing system:
aj.jpg
Indexing AJ Jacobs’ latest book (click to enlarge all thumbnails)
Information is useful only to the extent that you can find it when you need it. Most of us have the experience of note proliferation—notes on the backs of envelopes, billing statements, hotel paper, etc.–that somehow never gets consolidated. Consolidate and create an index.
My favorite notepads (covered below) generally don’t have page numbers off the shelf. Here’s how you progress with -
25 Oct 09
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Tim, great post on notetaking. Especially useful idea about pagination and indexing.
I’ve been keeping journals/sketchbooks since my freshman year of art school, over 30 years ago, and at this point have an encyclopedia set of them on my shelf. The pages aren’t numbered, but every entry has a date. They contain drawings, diary writing, ideas for paintings and song lyrics. I got in the habit of using the last page of the journal to keep a running list of books I read; title, author, date completed and stars next to the good ones (4HWW is in there w/ a big star). So I now have a list of every book I’ve read for the past thirty years, which is a great resource for retrieving information I’ve come across, as well as recommending books to friends.
The journals I use are 8 1/2 x 11 hardcover sketchbooks, available in any art store. The size works for me because it’s big enough for drawing and writing in, and small enough to easily fit in a backpack. I pretty much always have one with me. If by some chance I’m out in a restaurant without it and get an idea for something, it’s easy to make a note on a napkin or something and paste or copy it into the journal when I get home.
Here’s a post I wrote on Art & Perception about keeping journals.
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I share your love of effective note-taking, but not your format; have you tried mind-mapping? Linear notes work for some people, but by using techniques to show the organic connections between ideas make notes far more intuitive to refer back to.
In Tony Buzan’s Mind Mapping book, he makes the distinction between note taking (the linear copying of a sequence of statements) and note making (mentally processing information and laying it out in a considered format highlighting the interconnectedness of concepts).
From when I started the practice a few years ago, I have found that my linear note-taking habits have been completely replaced, as I find standard notes too text-dense to scan quickly. By clustering ideas around highlighted topics, I can review the content of an entire meeting’s notes in seconds, without having important points getting lost down the page.
As for notebook choices, the practice has pushed me towards Moleskines with unlined pages, which I usually use in “landscape” orientation as I find it easier to work on pages that are wider, rather than taller.
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I use freemind [http://freemind.sourceforge.net/] for my note taking. Frees me from the book-keeping. Also, I can add to my notes from different sources without changing anything. Its pretty neat.
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[...] Remember, new ideas are all around you. Make sure you’re organized enough to capture them when they start falling in your lap. Bonus: Having all of your ideas captured in one notebook will make it easy to go back and see patterns. (Still don’t believe me? Tim Ferriss has an eight-foot stretch of shelves in my house containing nothing but full notebooks.) [...]
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dtweneyTim Ferriss' paper note taking method: number pages, index on the inside cover
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take notes like some people take drugs.
There is an eight-foot stretch of shelves in my house containing nothing but full notebook
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Dostoevsky was a member of this club),
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trust the weakest pen more than the strongest memory
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Simple but effective note taking enables me
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are a few recommendations from inside the world of a compulsive note taker, including both the macro (books and notepad principles) and micro (page features and formatti
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Information is useful only to the extent that you can find it when you need
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. Put page numbers on the upper-right of each right-hand page but not on the left (e.g., 1, 2, 3, etc.). I do about 30 pages at a time, as needed.
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Whenever you complete a page, put the page number in an index on the inside cover (front or back) and a few words to describe the content
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The page numbers in the index do NOT need to be in order
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you write on the same topic again, simply put that page number next to the previous index entry
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I don’t want to turn 10 pages to get an overview of all the pieces of a single topic/event.
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use the hard-backed red rectangular notebook, bought in Milan, as a default notepad. It is the perfect fits-in-ass-pocket checkbook siz
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John LeMasneyHow to take notes like a pro and structure information for maximum use and memorization.
writing tutorial tips reading productivity organization lifehacks howto
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Information is useful only to the extent that you can find it when you need it. Most of us have the experience of note proliferation—notes on the backs of envelopes, billing statements, hotel paper, etc.—that somehow never gets consolidated. Consolidate and create an index.
My favorite notepads (covered below) generally don’t have page numbers off the shelf. Here’s how you progress with a non-paginated pad:
A. Put page numbers on the upper-right of each right-hand page but not on the left (e.g., 1, 2, 3, etc.). I do about 30 pages at a time, as needed.
B. Whenever you complete a page, put the page number in an index on the inside cover (front or back) and a few words to describe the content.
If it’s on the left-hand page, just take the prior page and add “.5” to it. Thus, if you flip over page 10, for example, and write on the back, that second page is “10.5” in
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teruteru tarouHow to take notes like a pro and structure information for maximum use and memorization.
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A. Put page numbers on the upper-right of each right-hand page but not on the left (e.g., 1, 2, 3, etc.). I do about 30 pages at a time, as needed.
B. Whenever you complete a page, put the page number in an index on the inside cover (front or back) and a few words to describe the content.
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Bryan BishopNote taking goodness
notes notetaking notebook learning lifehacks lifehacker memory organization paper productivity reference school education gtd class tips
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Michael Joyceeffective note taking enables me to:
-Review book highlights in less than 10 minutes
-Connect scattered notes on a single theme in 10 minutes that would otherwise require dozens of hours
-Contact and connect mentors with relevant questions and help I c -
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Frank LehnerzHow to take notes like a pro and structure information for maximum use and memorization.
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