How to Take Smart Notes

One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking

by Sönke Ahrens

Paperback, 188 pages

English language

Published March 9, 2022 by Sönke Ahrens.

ISBN:: 978-3-9824388-0-1

(3 reviews)

This is the second, revised and expanded edition. The first edition was published under the slightly longer title "How to Take Smart Notes. One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking - for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers".

The key to good and efficient writing lies in the intelligent organisation of ideas and notes. This book helps students, academics and other knowledge workers to get more done, write intelligent texts and learn for the long run. It teaches you how to take smart notes and ensure they bring you and your projects forward.

The Take Smart Notes principle is based on established psychological insight and draws from a tried and tested note-taking technique: the Zettelkasten. This is the first comprehensive guide and description of this system in English, and not only does it explain how it works, but also why. It suits students and academics in the social sciences and humanities, nonfiction writers and others who are in the business of reading, thinking and writing. Instead of wasting your time searching for your notes, quotes or references, you can focus on what really counts: thinking, understanding and developing new ideas in writing.

Dr. Sönke Ahrens is a writer and researcher in the field of education and social science. He is the author of the award-winning book “Experiment and Exploration: Forms of World Disclosure” (Springer).

Since its first publication, How to Take Smart Notes has sold more than 100,000 copies and has been translated into seven languages.

6 editions

Sergey Machulskis reviewed How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers by Sönke Ahrens

Really liked it

4 stars

I have mixed feelings about this book. It's well-written on a small scale (pages, chapters) but the overall structure is a mystery to me.

Did I find a way how to organize a mess in my notes? Not exactly, but I've found some good hints.

Good bits:

GTD doesn't work for non-linear writing. Academic writing is non-linear. I was taught otherwise.
Organize your notes around the context in which they're going to be useful. Not by topic. Organizing by topic is almost the same as organizing them by year. Looks neat, but it's hard to find a note you need right now.
Quotes are useless. If you need to apply the information you've found somewhere, rewrite it in your own words.
Brainstorming is useless. Sure, it produces ideas, but they're going to be of a very low quality.

Bad bits:

There's a lot of barely related information. The book tries …

I have mixed feelings about this book. It's well-written on a small scale (pages, chapters) but the overall structure is a mystery to me.

Did I find a way how to organize a mess in my notes? Not exactly, but I've found some good hints.

Good bits:

GTD doesn't work for non-linear writing. Academic writing is non-linear. I was taught otherwise.
Organize your notes around the context in which they're going to be useful. Not by topic. Organizing by topic is almost the same as organizing them by year. Looks neat, but it's hard to find a note you need right now.
Quotes are useless. If you need to apply the information you've found somewhere, rewrite it in your own words.
Brainstorming is useless. Sure, it produces ideas, but they're going to be of a very low quality.

Bad bits:

There's a lot of barely related information. The book tries to be everything: advice on writing in general, rant on the education system, a collection of cognitive biases. I don't think it really needs all this. As I understood, the original inventor of the method had the same problems with his writing. The proposed method of writing forces you to jump from thought to thought using associations. The text looks very natural for a writer but not for a reader.
I've read this (twice for several chapters) and still don't understand why the Zettelkasten method works. It explains how it works and what happens if you use it, though.
The system was invented by a social "scientist". It's a pity it wasn't invented by someone who produces useful writing. From my point of view, it was invented by a guy who lectures birds on how to fly.
Sometimes the author says "the original inventor did this and this so you should too". It's followed by a questionable explanation. Should I say it looks weird? Times changed.

I really recommend it if you:

Don't know why the education system is broken
Haven't heard about cognitive biases and mental models
Have no idea how to make good notes

Sasu reviewed How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens

Inspiring, but the process description lacks clarity

4 stars

I found this book very inspiring, but when I actually tried to start using the Zettelkasten method, I found that I needed to find other resources to get enough clarity to get started. If you need to be sold on the merits of the method or want inspiration , this book may be helpful for you. If you just want to learn to use the Zettelkasten method, the abundance of freely available resources online is probably a better place to start.

Caliwegian reviewed How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens

Helpful but somewhat repetitive

3 stars

Zettlekasten is an interesting system for organizing ideas. It sounds quite promising and I intend to try it out.

The presentation of the method is somewhat abstract making it difficult to know where to begin.

The text is also repetitive with the same ideas resurfacing again and again