How to read a book and make card box notes? ft. How to take notes

Summary notes

From our student days, we were taught to "take notes in class", but no one ever taught us how to take notes? Why take notes? Even in the college days, the "co-writing" culture flourished, as if someone could just put together a single set of refined notes, and it was enough to replace textbooks.

That's a common way to share:

• First of all, focus on the essence of the book content, often through the way of book excerpts and storytelling, people can easily "read" the content of a book.
• Secondly, in order to analyze and present the context of the book content, it may also be used to present a "non-linear" content organization structure through "mind map" or "card box note-taking software".

For individual readers, taking e-books as an example, in addition to the common functions of "underlining" and "taking notes", there is even a trend of "automatic integration" of notes. For example, "Readwise.io" can combine Kindle, Lines or notes from Apple Books, Instapaper, and Pocket are automatically imported into your favorite note-taking software, so you can find or review them later.

For online communities, they often co-edited wiki documents in the early years, but in recent years they prefer to use online common note-taking software (Google Docs, Notion, etc.), and some communities even attempt to use the emerging card box note-taking software to jointly create common knowledge for human beings Graphs -- I said, isn't this Wikipedia?

However, can browsing or memorizing these summary notes really replace the process of reading a book on your own?

Whether it is reading book reviews, book excerpts, storytelling, or guided reading, at most, it can only help you "select books", and cannot really replace your "active reading of a good book". "How to Read a Book" points out that active reading needs to be able to answer the following four questions:

1. Overall, what is this book about?
2. What did the author say in detail and what did he say?
3. Does this book make sense? Does it all make sense, or part of it?
4. What does this book have to do with you?

Even if you can listen to book reviewers to answer the first 3 questions, it is impossible for others to answer the 4th question for you; and you must read and answer the first 3 questions yourself, and then you can answer the 4th question well for yourself. Because everyone's perspective is different.

Even though they may aid in the second level of reading, "inspective reading" (i.e. skimming), the authors of the book argue that these "external readings" should be used with greater care or even sparingly, stating:

The outer reading rule is don't read someone's guide unless you've finished a book. This rule applies in particular to the introduction of some scholars or critics. To use these guides correctly, you must first try to read a book, and then use them to answer questions when there are still problems that are disturbing you.

As you read this article, there is no substitute for actively reading How to Read a Book on your own.

Insight Notes

If you really want to "integrate" a good book well, you shouldn't even focus on writing "summary notes", but should focus on sorting out and interconnecting your own understanding and insights, and finally publish it:

Instead of focusing on the in-between steps and trying to make a science out of underlining systems, reading techniques or excerpt writing, everything is streamlined towards one thing only: insight that can be published. ——《How to Take Smart Notes》chap .6

Tony Buzan (1942-2019), the founder of the term mind map, co-developed the mind map software iMindMap (now renamed Ayoa), thinking that mind maps are used to effectively connect concepts, so he taught in "How to Mind Map" In the app, it is particularly emphasized that only one keyword or picture is placed in each branch, and the branches are distinguished from the inside to the outside from thick to thin (like a tree). Encourage the connection of different concepts.

These all echo an interview Steve Jobs gave Wired in 1996 :

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.

Insights, ideas, inspirations come from connecting different concepts. "How to Take Smart Notes" advocates the establishment of a "permanent note" card box system. All card notes must be linked to each other, and inspiration and insights can be inspired in the process of linking. When accumulated in groups, they can be combined and published. A bottom-up approach to development.

Writer Liu Yong once wrote an article "Hot Pen and Cold Pen". He believes that "hot pen" requires "inspiration from the most affectionate", while "cold pen" is to collect materials and carve into writing through planned management. "How to Take Smart Notes" combines the methodology of "hot pen (inspiration)" and a more effective (even interesting) development of "cold pen" note-taking structure for articles that are good at reasoning:

Having a clear structure to work in is completely different from making plans about something.

Having a meaningful and well-defined task beats willpower every time.

Studies on highly successful people have proven again and again that success is not the result of strong willpower and the ability to overcome resistance, but rather the result of smart working environments that avoid resistance in the first place.

Searching through a file system with strings of discussions, plenty of material and ideas is, believe it or not, fun.

Finally, "How to Read a Book" mentions that in the fourth reading level "thematic reading", "you and the topics you care about are the basic focus, not the book you read"; as for "How to Take Smart Notes" Point out the "permanent notes" in the card case note system, and only put ideas or arguments that interest you. In this way, it is really "active book selection and reading" with yourself as the main body, rather than reading everything blindly and aimlessly.

Notebook software "Control (Lovers)"

First of all, let's analyze the technical basis of the interface development of the computer (Mac) version / mobile version (iOS) app of several note-taking software:

• 【Notion】Electron / Web View
• 【Obsidian】Electron / Web View
• 【Roam Research】Electron / Web View
• 【Heptabase】Electron / None
• 【Evernote】Electron / React Native
• [Before Evernote v10] AppKit (native) / UIKit (native)
• 【Craft】Mac Catalyst / UIKit (Native)

It can be seen here that the emerging note-taking software team has almost exclusively chosen Electron and Web View, which means that these apps are actually web pages and can be developed across platforms. This usually reduces development costs, but has a mixed effect on software quality.

Electron is a desktop web app with Chromium embedded. You can think that every Electron app has a Chrome browser embedded, so desktop apps are usually quite fat. In addition, the performance of the web interface is relatively easy to write poorly, but because traditional computers generally have excess hardware performance, and computer users have not so high expectations for the response speed of the software interface, it is still the technology of choice for many new software.

However, when it comes to smart phones, although it has also entered the era of excess hardware performance, mobile phone users (at least I) have high expectations for the quality of touch software, and many emerging notebook software developed using Web View interface performance or use The experience was not good.

Let’s talk about the topic of the essay titled “How Notes Control Love”:

✅ Recommend the most useful (or most commonly used) note-taking software (or other note-taking methods)
✅ What type of things do you use most to remember? (Or what kind of thing does the project deal with?)
✅ Notes control wish list, what features do you most want to add or improve in note-taking software? (or what kind of note-taking ability you want to improve)

1. iA Writer: used to transcribe abstracts and record ideas, and finally produce articles.
2. Evernote: Used to archive documents for easy retrieval.

I most hope that the major note-taking software will abandon the subscription system, focus on making "offline version" application software, and return to the traditional buyout system. Although the "subscription system" is very helpful for stable cash flow, and it is also a reasonable business model for synchronizing notes in the cloud, it is not necessarily beneficial to the spirit of crafted software craftsmen, and it is expensive. This is the main reason I gave up Roam Research, Heptabase.

It may be worth mentioning that I ended up not using any of the new card box note-taking software, but focusing more on using iA Writer to write articles and organize ideas.

I think iA Writer is "a epee without a sharp edge, a big skill that doesn't work". First of all, I almost only use my mobile phone or tablet to write or organize, and the computer is only used for typesetting and publishing. I have always opened a note on a specific topic, throwing in all the relevant sentences that I thought of and read; until these conceptual connections have been fully formed in my mind, I will organize them into a text. Almost all of my long articles on Matt City (including this one) are written this way, probably a mini-prime version of the card box note writing method?

Personal statement: I purchased iA Writer by myself a few years ago. I participated in the internal testing of the major revision of iA Writer v6 (the wiki link function was added, and the price was greatly increased), and I helped improve the translation of the original Chinese interface for free.

Slow Pace. Bear Market. Study. Call for Papers

I hope that through the reading and note-taking method introduced in this article, I can help everyone to study the topics they are interested in. I also successfully launched the " Slow Pace. Bear Market. Study. Call for Papers " activity on Matters Labs Discord. The writing period lasted for three months (July-September), and provided generous rewards of stable coins. I hope you are more willing to study. Interested topics, come to participate in the call for papers to publish the results.

Another reason for launching this call for papers is because I feel that Web3 is really similar to the early days of Web1 - there seems to be a lack of knowledge or talent in many areas, often resulting in many unintelligible or very short-lived products or assets.

In the early years, Web1 websites were ugly, and the interface was poor. That was because Web1 had only a group of software engineers at that time, and there was no professional domain knowledge of visual interface design or interaction. Web1 e-commerce is also very exciting, except that people are still worried about whether it is safe to give credit card numbers (it is really dangerous if there is no HTTPS secure connection, don't forget the credit card fees at that time, usually until the monthly settlement of paper accounts You can only see the order when it arrives, and there is no real-time notification by swiping your mobile phone. It may not be difficult to sell things online, but it is very difficult to build an online store from scratch. Traditional warehouse management, marketing customer service, logistics services, etc. Indispensable, and even more difficult, is getting the essence of what to shop online -- and that's one of the main reasons Amazon's dominance.

A similar question was addressed in the aforementioned Wired interview with Steve Jobs:

A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of the human experience , the better design we will have.

On the other hand, I remember hearing that some people who do traditional financial quantitative transactions came into the currency circle to operate and found that the same method actually worked, which highlights that the crypto asset world still lacks the “baptism” of traditional financial methods. Many people come to Web3 to invest profitably, but after this bear market shock, should we go back and learn about traditional investment knowledge? Just by looking at the news of the currency circle, you may be able to obtain first-hand information, but you can only acquire second-hand knowledge. As for wisdom? Only by self-settling, studying and thinking can we grow.

" Slow pace. Bear market. Study. Call for papers " especially encourages integration with other fields. You are welcome to come to the Matters Labs Discord "🌌︱web3 World" channel to discuss and stimulate ideas.

Recommended bibliography and references

• "How to Take Smart Notes", Sönke Ahrens, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. Chinese translation "Card Notes Writing Method", Taiwan translation "Card Box Notes".
• How to Read a Book, Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren, Taiwan Business.
• Free the second brain! Doing this with digital notes and creating your own knowledge base for efficient thinking (digital age), the original title is "The Evolution of the Second Brain: A New Wave of Digital Note-taking, Strengthening Learning", is my in-depth analysis of the second wave of digital note-taking. .
• How to Mind Map , iPad app (discontinued)