Note-taking should be its own subject in schools. As your piece implies, taking notes is just another way of saying "critical thinking" and it is a skill that so many of us lack.
Every day I write down a few quotes from something I read that stood out for me. I also write down 7 things I saw or noticed during the day. I also write down, in narrative form as you mention, the things memorable from that day. These are my ways of actively engaging with the material of my life. Thank you for your newsletter. I'm glad I'm not the only person who writes notes and marginalia...😊
This is part of what I love about blogging/substack culture. My various blogs have acted as a commonplace book (complete with tagging system) and a prompt to always consider at the end of reading something interesting: do I want to actively noodle on this for a bit?
The practice reminds me of this advice from the title figure of From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler:
"I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside of you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. It's hollow."
Very difficult, but different strokes for different folks. Personally I found taking notes to distract from really listening. I'd see other students frantic about trying to jot down stuff the lecturer was saying, but then I'd get the highest grade in the class. But I also came prepared, I'd already read the material so hearing what the professor thought was important wasn't my first exposure to the material. I also never gave a bleep about learning for the test. I figured if I just did my best to master the material, the results would follow. They almost did, except for a few subjective lecturers who didn't want original thinking so much as their own takes regurgitated. I was a bioengineering major at Columbia and learned to loathe some of the renowned "liberal arts" professors like one Dennis Dalton whose audiotapes were available through those airline magazine ads 30 years ago. Go figure, I read all the books by and about Karl Marx and Hitler (y's) and those who just repeated what he wanted to hear without bothering to read classic works got better grades. Maybe that's why more bridges don't fall down while our society and zeitgeist are hot messes. Anyway point being that while note taking has its advantages, I find the multitasking a bit counterproductive. In med school we had a volunteer transcription service. Cost like 250 a term, someone would record and then transcribe the lecture word for word. If you transcribed four of them or so you didn't have to pay the 250. Read the material, go to the lectures (only for the good professors, I learned which were a waste of time), then read the transcript notes when they came out a few days later. Now that was the best of both worlds, and I don't recall anyone who didn't pay for the service and went to class taking their own notes. And damn I'm good at multitasking, but sometimes I think (maybe always?) there are times when one shouldn't and should focus 100% on the task at hand.
Also though, there's something essential about writing shit down. Something in the brain where the writing just engraves it in the memory. Hard to memorize a poem? Try writing it out slowly, then writing it again. Even better than typing. It's been studied, something about the writing literally helps your brain lock it in better. We used to write down phone numbers and redial them and after a few calls you knew the number by heart. Now you just enter it right into your dumbphone and can't remember any phone numbers by heart.
I'm having problems remembering music pieces, doesn't matter how many times I play them. Was never my strength but I did play piano concertos and such without needing to look at the music. In other ways my memory is better than ever. There are different kinds, and our brain is a mystery.
Great thoughts! I've always considered it important to write thoughts down if you want to remember what you got out of a book years later, but never thought about doing it for anything else.
I started today by writing a 3 paragraph summary and reflection on the first James Bond film, Dr. No, which I watched over the weekend. I thought I'd feel silly at first, but as I found myself unable to recall all the details until I wrote out my summary point-by-point (even cheating a little with a wikipedia summary on specific details like character names), I can conclude that I now have a far better grip on the film's plot and characters. I'm confident I could have a basic discussion about the film and will retain the details more effectively than I would have. It's not a movie I would have considered worth summarizing and reflecting on beforehand, but I'm glad Ted prompted me to give it a try. I'm pleasantly surprised concerning the value I now see in doing it.
I think I'll give this a try with music too and see what I can come up with.
My gawd Ted: you're such a wonderful madman! Thank you for this, and it - and your delightful commenters - make me feel less alone.
Many years ago I went to a stationery store and bought a bunch of black 3x5 index card boxes, later 4x6s. I had a large array of topics that fascinated me, so when I was reading anything and there was an idea that I saw as linking or valuable or was "dissentual data" or just enriched said topic, I entered it on 4x6 cards, with topics like "Model Agnosticism" or "Acceleration of Information in History" or "The Sociology of Knowledge" or "James Joyce" or "Rhetoric of Humor" or "Dark Matter of Intellectual's Culture." I'll enter title/author/page number and then a few sentences. If I have a book from the library, I'll write much more, because I'll have to return the book.
I end up drawing arrows on a card to link one idea in a book to someone else's book that contains ideas that modulate, disagree with, or seem isomorphic.
Gradually, I saw how all these topics can and will "link" in my mind, which I privately think of as "psycho-logic." Now I know I can pull out a batch of cards and read my notes and sparks go off in my mind: I get ideas. I treat poetry, novels, and non-fiction as one thing. Really interesting ideas can be found anywhere.
One of the things I've learned from this is there are certain authors who I find endlessly interesting, even if hardly anyone seems to have heard of them. It's my own honed-over-years weirdness PLUS the author.
What a wonderful post. I’ve found I retain very little from what I read if I don’t keep notes. It’s an essential part of my own writing after the fact. I love seeing your process here. Thanks for sharing!
It’s time to talk about technology and note taking because it’s made your book markings obsolete and slow. Now, the ability to highlight sections of books in Kindle and have them sync to Obsidian or Roam Research (my preferred platform) is a nitro boost to this vital process you’ve laid out, Ted. I have a weekly session now where I go through the synchronized notes from the books I read digitally and perform the second and third tier of note taking you describe. This is one of those times where technology really has improved the process of work.
I took notes recently while reading S T Joshi's Collected Fiction of H P Lovecraft. It made the reading much more enjoyable. There is a real interesting Substack called "Noted" which I highly recommend.
Ted is a better man than I. Obviously, if anyone here has read my rambling commentary. But he has now given me an excuse: My personal development was sabotaged by my inability to take notes coherently. I'm unable to take notes quickly enough to do me any good. Even as I come close to completing my sixth decade, I still rely on listening carefully. My colleagues are surprised at my ability to remember specific facts and statements from meetings and seminars, and I managed to complete seventeen years of education successfully (with straight A's occasionally, no less) and become a registered architect. So it worked OK for me, and I'm simply too old to care now. Of course, that in no way diminishes my admiration for this, and all of Ted's wide-ranging exemplary capabilities, and I think we're all lucky to know about them.
The key thing to me in what you're saying here is that you're *engaged with the material*. It's not just Read->Regurgitate->Forget. Doesn't matter how you do it, the benefit is in the doing!
I just returned from a long weekend in Chicago with my family.
Took the train to Union Station. Went to a News Stand to buy a local paper. There was no display for any newspapers. The cashier of the News Stand told me they don’t sell papers. Really a Need Stand with no news!
I believe that the internet has led to the downfall of our interaction with the written word, and this is not good.
Reading a news paper or a book on a Kindle or iPad is not the same as reading a hard copy. I also find this true with scientific papers I read and review.
My note taking is very similar! When I read a book, I mark it up, but I mostly underline passages and sometimes use exclamation marks or even a "lol" if it's funny. Then I let the book sit for a few weeks after I've finished reading it, then I grab it again and begin to copy down each passage into my notebook. After each passage, I write my thoughts on it, and over time, these notes become part of the conversation I'm having with myself within that particular notebook. It's mingled with my journal entries and language studies and todo list and sketches and all I use my notebooks for. I've been doing this for a few years, and I love it immensely.
Note-taking should be its own subject in schools. As your piece implies, taking notes is just another way of saying "critical thinking" and it is a skill that so many of us lack.
Every day I write down a few quotes from something I read that stood out for me. I also write down 7 things I saw or noticed during the day. I also write down, in narrative form as you mention, the things memorable from that day. These are my ways of actively engaging with the material of my life. Thank you for your newsletter. I'm glad I'm not the only person who writes notes and marginalia...😊
This is part of what I love about blogging/substack culture. My various blogs have acted as a commonplace book (complete with tagging system) and a prompt to always consider at the end of reading something interesting: do I want to actively noodle on this for a bit?
The practice reminds me of this advice from the title figure of From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler:
"I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal. But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything. And you can feel it inside of you. If you never take time out to let that happen, then you accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you. You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them. It's hollow."
Very difficult, but different strokes for different folks. Personally I found taking notes to distract from really listening. I'd see other students frantic about trying to jot down stuff the lecturer was saying, but then I'd get the highest grade in the class. But I also came prepared, I'd already read the material so hearing what the professor thought was important wasn't my first exposure to the material. I also never gave a bleep about learning for the test. I figured if I just did my best to master the material, the results would follow. They almost did, except for a few subjective lecturers who didn't want original thinking so much as their own takes regurgitated. I was a bioengineering major at Columbia and learned to loathe some of the renowned "liberal arts" professors like one Dennis Dalton whose audiotapes were available through those airline magazine ads 30 years ago. Go figure, I read all the books by and about Karl Marx and Hitler (y's) and those who just repeated what he wanted to hear without bothering to read classic works got better grades. Maybe that's why more bridges don't fall down while our society and zeitgeist are hot messes. Anyway point being that while note taking has its advantages, I find the multitasking a bit counterproductive. In med school we had a volunteer transcription service. Cost like 250 a term, someone would record and then transcribe the lecture word for word. If you transcribed four of them or so you didn't have to pay the 250. Read the material, go to the lectures (only for the good professors, I learned which were a waste of time), then read the transcript notes when they came out a few days later. Now that was the best of both worlds, and I don't recall anyone who didn't pay for the service and went to class taking their own notes. And damn I'm good at multitasking, but sometimes I think (maybe always?) there are times when one shouldn't and should focus 100% on the task at hand.
Also though, there's something essential about writing shit down. Something in the brain where the writing just engraves it in the memory. Hard to memorize a poem? Try writing it out slowly, then writing it again. Even better than typing. It's been studied, something about the writing literally helps your brain lock it in better. We used to write down phone numbers and redial them and after a few calls you knew the number by heart. Now you just enter it right into your dumbphone and can't remember any phone numbers by heart.
I'm having problems remembering music pieces, doesn't matter how many times I play them. Was never my strength but I did play piano concertos and such without needing to look at the music. In other ways my memory is better than ever. There are different kinds, and our brain is a mystery.
Oh my god I've wasted my entire life...
Great thoughts! I've always considered it important to write thoughts down if you want to remember what you got out of a book years later, but never thought about doing it for anything else.
I started today by writing a 3 paragraph summary and reflection on the first James Bond film, Dr. No, which I watched over the weekend. I thought I'd feel silly at first, but as I found myself unable to recall all the details until I wrote out my summary point-by-point (even cheating a little with a wikipedia summary on specific details like character names), I can conclude that I now have a far better grip on the film's plot and characters. I'm confident I could have a basic discussion about the film and will retain the details more effectively than I would have. It's not a movie I would have considered worth summarizing and reflecting on beforehand, but I'm glad Ted prompted me to give it a try. I'm pleasantly surprised concerning the value I now see in doing it.
I think I'll give this a try with music too and see what I can come up with.
My gawd Ted: you're such a wonderful madman! Thank you for this, and it - and your delightful commenters - make me feel less alone.
Many years ago I went to a stationery store and bought a bunch of black 3x5 index card boxes, later 4x6s. I had a large array of topics that fascinated me, so when I was reading anything and there was an idea that I saw as linking or valuable or was "dissentual data" or just enriched said topic, I entered it on 4x6 cards, with topics like "Model Agnosticism" or "Acceleration of Information in History" or "The Sociology of Knowledge" or "James Joyce" or "Rhetoric of Humor" or "Dark Matter of Intellectual's Culture." I'll enter title/author/page number and then a few sentences. If I have a book from the library, I'll write much more, because I'll have to return the book.
I end up drawing arrows on a card to link one idea in a book to someone else's book that contains ideas that modulate, disagree with, or seem isomorphic.
Gradually, I saw how all these topics can and will "link" in my mind, which I privately think of as "psycho-logic." Now I know I can pull out a batch of cards and read my notes and sparks go off in my mind: I get ideas. I treat poetry, novels, and non-fiction as one thing. Really interesting ideas can be found anywhere.
One of the things I've learned from this is there are certain authors who I find endlessly interesting, even if hardly anyone seems to have heard of them. It's my own honed-over-years weirdness PLUS the author.
What a wonderful post. I’ve found I retain very little from what I read if I don’t keep notes. It’s an essential part of my own writing after the fact. I love seeing your process here. Thanks for sharing!
It’s time to talk about technology and note taking because it’s made your book markings obsolete and slow. Now, the ability to highlight sections of books in Kindle and have them sync to Obsidian or Roam Research (my preferred platform) is a nitro boost to this vital process you’ve laid out, Ted. I have a weekly session now where I go through the synchronized notes from the books I read digitally and perform the second and third tier of note taking you describe. This is one of those times where technology really has improved the process of work.
I took notes recently while reading S T Joshi's Collected Fiction of H P Lovecraft. It made the reading much more enjoyable. There is a real interesting Substack called "Noted" which I highly recommend.
https://open.substack.com/pub/jillianhess/p/john-lennons-love-notes?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=3h7ub
Do you have any opinions on handwritten vs typed notes?
Ted is a better man than I. Obviously, if anyone here has read my rambling commentary. But he has now given me an excuse: My personal development was sabotaged by my inability to take notes coherently. I'm unable to take notes quickly enough to do me any good. Even as I come close to completing my sixth decade, I still rely on listening carefully. My colleagues are surprised at my ability to remember specific facts and statements from meetings and seminars, and I managed to complete seventeen years of education successfully (with straight A's occasionally, no less) and become a registered architect. So it worked OK for me, and I'm simply too old to care now. Of course, that in no way diminishes my admiration for this, and all of Ted's wide-ranging exemplary capabilities, and I think we're all lucky to know about them.
The key thing to me in what you're saying here is that you're *engaged with the material*. It's not just Read->Regurgitate->Forget. Doesn't matter how you do it, the benefit is in the doing!
I just returned from a long weekend in Chicago with my family.
Took the train to Union Station. Went to a News Stand to buy a local paper. There was no display for any newspapers. The cashier of the News Stand told me they don’t sell papers. Really a Need Stand with no news!
I believe that the internet has led to the downfall of our interaction with the written word, and this is not good.
Reading a news paper or a book on a Kindle or iPad is not the same as reading a hard copy. I also find this true with scientific papers I read and review.
Is it a definite choice not to use cursive script in your note taking?
My note taking is very similar! When I read a book, I mark it up, but I mostly underline passages and sometimes use exclamation marks or even a "lol" if it's funny. Then I let the book sit for a few weeks after I've finished reading it, then I grab it again and begin to copy down each passage into my notebook. After each passage, I write my thoughts on it, and over time, these notes become part of the conversation I'm having with myself within that particular notebook. It's mingled with my journal entries and language studies and todo list and sketches and all I use my notebooks for. I've been doing this for a few years, and I love it immensely.