There’s a sad part and a funny part. The sad part is that I have a mental illness.
I’m reading books on psychology and persuasion. I need them for both sales and seduction (that`s the funny part)
So I’m reading books on how to get more brain power, self-help books, and so on. But how do I take notes in my notebooks? I have those cool notebooks with the leather spine, and I also use collared markers on my books to highlight what I like and feel like it`s important.
The sad part is that the way I’m taking notes now I finish 1 notebook with 3 books. That’s kinda like a lot.
I need to know how to drill down more and not almost copy-paste the entire book.
I need to learn persuasion both for my personal and professional life.
So, without further ado, how should I take notes from my self-help and psychology books?
I handwrite notes on almost everything I read and learn. Notebooks can fill up fast.
I also keep a couple “higher level” notebooks around for rewriting, quizzing, and reviewing the information I decide I want to retain for longer term.
From those notebooks I usually have a number of the concepts “memorized” using mnemonic techniques (often “memory palaces”).
My process:
Step 1:
Take copious notes. Lots. Many. Scribble, draw, map, play.
Step 2:
Stop every so often (every 15 minutes, or every 30 minutes, or every hour, but at minimum every 2 hours) to decide which information I want to be able to remember when I wake up tomorrow.
Step 3.
Rewrite that information, or find ways to quiz myself, or spend time creating mnemonics for the information, etc.
Step 4:
Continue the loop from Step 1.
Step 5:
Review the stuff I did for Number 3 the same day and if possible the next morning (and the next night).
Step 6:
Keep a list of what you’re learning.
One way I do this is by picking one notebook, flipping it over, and writing out an “index” of the topics/information I’ve been memorizing on the back—so I can just flip the notebook over and get a high-level perspective on what I might need to review or keep studying more of. And I just try and keep the back of the notebook sort of up to date.
It’s common to write way too much detail and almost copy-paste the book like you mentioned.
I’d suggest exploring these 3 techniques to get out of this habit:
Mind maps. These help you to focus more on the relationships between concepts, rather than capturing every detail. Buzan advises to just use one or two words for each branch, which can be difficult because you might feel like you’re “losing” something. But you’re really gaining something – by making it less verbose, your brain has to decode it again when you review, which helps refresh and reorganise your memory of the topic. Also you’re more likely to review it.
Free recall. This means taking NO notes at all while reading, then at the end of the session (say, 15-30 mins of study), put the book away and try to brain dump everything you just read from memory. This is apparently an excellent tool for improving your understanding and recollection, although I haven’t tried it often. It’s difficult, but I like the idea of just listening without the distraction of trying to simultaneously take notes. Also, it helps to reduce the amount of written notes to a more minimal and valuable subset.
Extremely compressed note-taking: Rozan method. If you can find a copy of Jean-Francois Rozan’s “Note-taking in Consecutive Interpreting”, it might be worth reading. In consecutive interpretation, the interpreter listens and takes real-time notes for some period of time (maybe a few sentences, maybe 20 minutes!), then the speaker pauses and the interpreter gives a translation of what they said, before continuing. Rozan provides a system of conventions and symbols for heavily compressing the gist of the stream of information. It would take a long time to get comfortable enough to do this at speaking speed, but you might find it useful for more frugal note-taking.
Buzan mind maps is a poor method for note taking. Learning proper effective mindmaps likely isn’t in something most people want to do so instead my recommendation is: read for a chapter. After completion write down all key words of the text you can think of. For example in a book about algebra a keyword would be factorisation. While doing this only write the individual key words but try and remember everything you can. Then wait 10-15 minutes and come back try again then if you feel your memory is solid keep reading if not fill in gaps by skimming through too the parts your unconfident in read them again and try again.
Note when reading you want to mentally process the information so make sure your asking yourself why and what questions and just toying with what’s being said in general! Happy reading!
I’d be interested in any papers you’ve found that support this. Personally I’ve been using the basics of that method for almost 30 years and have found it useful. Justin Sung advocates something more like free recall with mind-mapping but his explanations of the method on Youtube always seem a bit vague and plagued by “everything else is terrible” hyperbole that doesn’t help.
His methods are science based but unfortunately he’s primarily working on his course meaning it’s behind a paywall. Also it’s not a very deep search to find the cracks in Buzan maps
He asserts that his methods are science-based, but almost never provides any links to papers backing up his claims, which is really disappointing as it makes it hard to validate any of it, even though a lot of the advice seems logical. I spent a long time looking for research backing up his frequent references to higher-level activities in Bloom’s taxonomy, and there seemed to be very little relevant work.
Let me know if you find a reference to any research discrediting Buzan-style mindmaps. Genuinely interested if that’s legit or another of Sung’s throwaway claims (not that Buzan followed rigorous methods either).
Cognitive load theory sweller. Read peak. Read make it stick. Read 20 habits of the successful student. Everything in there supports his teachings and that’s just the surface level.
Buzan consistently promotes his mind maps as being science based now but is hardly. His method is more about making the information pretty than memorable. Mind maps primary benefit is that they are simple interconnected and facilitate higher order learning which is literally supported in anything to do with blooms taxonomy. Buzan maps radiate from one topic out and don’t offer even a 1/10 of the value due to the lack of relationships. Read about concept maps by Novak as that’s the best alternative to sungs maps. Prioritisation of relationships, interconnected etc makes his maps a literal graphical representation of your unique understanding
I dont really like mind maps. I tried them when I was studying PhotoReading, but like the PhotoReading method, its rubbish.
I need to be able to better discern what is important, whats not, what goes in the leather notebook, and what doesnt.
Like, Im learning sales now, stuff that Ive never had to tackle my entire life Im a total noob, and everything from what questions to ask and what to do in case you get 1 objection, then finding out if its a real objection and not a fake one.
And stuff like that. I need to be able to write a more summarized method.
My current method for remembering what I read is certainly not very elaborate, but it’s good enough for me:
During a reading session, highlight the key ideas that you want to remember for life. At the end, go back and put all the important information on Anki.
I review my flashcards on Anki (which is a free spaced repetition software) every single day, and I have a deck called “Personal Studies” to store knowledge from books I’m reading in my free time, instead of formal learning and memory training.
If I’m struggling to remember something by just reviewing the flashcards, then I use something like acronyms or a mental image to encode the information.
I’ve heard of many people who like to build memory palaces and write long summaries of the books they’ve read. Although they’re effective, I personally find these methods tedious. Elaborating on the material is a good method, like explaining it to yourself, but I usually do that automatically if the book is interesting enough. If the book didn’t catch my attention after the end of the reading session, then that’s probably because it shouldn’t.
Also, I don’t try to remember everything that I read, only what is useful to remember. Most of any book (including well written ones) will be either already known or useless, so I don’t mind forgetting 90% of everything insofar as I can still remember the awesome useful insights contained by the remaining 10%.
These days I mostly just make notes inside of Zim wiki.
What I used to do, and might do again is get a bunch of duotangs and paper when it goes on cheap. Saving money is nice, but not hesitating because the books aren’t precious is the real value.
When taking notes from a book I’d write down the page number then the notes. I usually wrote the notes as terse as possible, more like a bullet list than sentence or paragraph.
If this Wikipedia paragraph on Ohm’s law-
“Ohm’s law states that the electric current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the voltage across the two points. Introducing the constant of proportionality, the resistance one arrives at the three mathematical equations used to describe this relationship:” -was a book, my notes might look like
pg37 Ohm’s Law - current through conductor between two points is proportional to voltage across them. (draw formulas here).
I always kept a piece of scrap paper off to the side to write down thoughts, questions, and words I wanted to look up after. Sometimes the tangents would come back to “pollute” the notebook right between normal notes, sometimes I’d throw them at the back of the book.
I started every new session by reading the last set of notes.
Mind maps are essentially a representation of your thoughts. They are there to get you to learn the information NOW not just offset it onto paper to review later (that’s just a benefit if needed) mind maps need pretty specific skills and cognitive processes to be effective however and that requires practice. But it’s what makes the difference between learning a semester in 2 weeks and learning the bare minimum
Consider reading, Make it Stick by Peter Brown to help with both comprehension and memorizing. Bottom line (As I recall. I don’t have my notes in front of me) - 1) take notes using your own words 2) reflect on what you’ve read 3) quiz yourself (active recall). Interestingly, active recall is more helpful with learning than re-reading/looking it up again.
Brown repeatedly points out that what works best does not feel as effective as other strategies, such as lots of highlighting, verbatim note taking, and rereading.
That’s funny tho. reality is taking notes unless proper effective notes that satisfy the requirements of higher order learning you’re not going to remember the information. Make it sticks good tho haha
I write down everything I want to remember or didn’t already know that I believe wouldn’t automatically connect quickly. That includes most facts, definitions, etc. After a session I go through my notes and rationally decide which pieces of information I want to genuinely memorize and encode into my memory palace, and I leave the rest out when I believe I can naturally connect the dots overtime.
I turn note-taking into a creative process. I use different colored pens and sticky notes to categorize themes and important points. Sometimes, I draw little sketches or mind maps to visualize concepts. I also keep a digital log where I type out detailed thoughts and reflections.
It might look like a mess from a side view, but I just can’t help writing down every interesting thought.
I would recommend checking out Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain and How to Take Smart Notes by Sonke Ahrens. This is more for like an external memory system, or a database of your own thoughts, ideas, musings. The idea is that you create a sort of externalized mind so that you aren’t always reliant on your fallible memory system to remember everything and do the work. Instead you can drop it in the box, forget it, and use the system to remember it later. I personally use Google Keep and google docs as my second brain, but you can also use Obsidian, Evernote, Microsoft Office, Notion, etc.
Tiago is really active on YouTube, too, and you can also learn more about Nkilas Luhmann’s Zettlekasten system on YouTube as well.
