How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking

A truly remarkable book that ntroduces Niklas Luhmann's Zettelkasten concept of how to let good notetaking drive your productivity and writing output (independent of it being academic or for personal insight).Not only does the author explain HOW it works, as the title suggests, but also WHY is works (based on human behaviour and the nature of our brains -- e.g., attention, motivation, perception and biases etc.). Actually, I think the book does a much better job in addressing the WHY than the HOW (not to withdraw from its overall use and value!) as the HOW can be learnt from a couple of YouTube videos, but the WHY is important to convince skeptics and those who have practiced notetaking for far too long through less effective means.Buy it, and buy it once more for somebody else.

This is a great book, for people who love to learn but feel like they forget too much useful info, it is a game changer. For some reason the font hurts my eyes, it’s not small just smaller than novels. If this book was presented better it could be the most revolutionary book you’ll ever read.

The book is in depth discussion of Luhmann’s slip box. This book has touched every aspect of reading, writing to taking notes. This is amazing. how the author argued, having clear goal in mind is as crucial as reading, writing and note taking. And finally, in my opinion, Slip box works because author produce this whole book by using slip-box.Happy reading😀

The title is a little misleading. The "One Simple Technique" suggestion may set up false expectations that this is a lightweight non-fiction book loaded with cheap tricks and some magic sauce that will transform your working life. If that's what you are hoping for then you're half right. It can transform how you work and learn and develop your understanding but, as in all things, you're going to have to graft a little.For me it has helped me take the necessary steps to build a genuinely productive workflow and it has also led me to make significant changes to how I teach as well.I think this book will be particularly accessibly to anyone who reads qualitative research and the text is relatively dense compared to your average self help book. It is a serious chunk of work, and Ahrens' pedigree as an academic is apparent. It's not as impenetrable as many papers in the social sciences (!) but it's still a long way from the fluff that generally adorns the Amazon self help list. (And I read and like plenty of that too.) Some reviewers may take exception to references but I'm in favour of them - actually, I can't think of anything worse that pages of opinion with the lightest of efforts to refer to a single study before the author makes some sweeping statement. I like to be able to check for myself and it also offers the opportunity for you to branch into areas for your own exploration.If you are toying with the idea of building your own Zettelkasten this is the book - and check out zettelkasten.de as well as the author's website for resources.Potentially life-changing, certainly life-enhancing, but you'll have to work for it too. You can't blast through it in an hour. And, for something that could have so much impact you didn't really expect that did you? Looking at reviews, it seems some people do. I bought it on Kindle but I'm buying the paperback too so I can re-visit and devote time to it as I add the elements I want to my own Zettelkasten.

What a long title for such a short book! A short book – but not an easy one. Ahrens is clearly an academic and this heavily footnoted book, full of citations and references, actually tells a simple story.It’s the story of Niklas Luhmann, a German academic who was known for being incredibly prolific. He published 58 books and hundreds of articles during his 30-year academic career — and his work is considered to be serious intellectual work at the highest level. How did he do it? Luhmann used a system known as the “slip-box” — basically a lot of short notes that referenced one another.That system has become the flavour of the month among personal productivity geeks who are ready to move on beyond “getting things done (GTD)”, the “seven habits”, “eat the frog” and the others. To give it its proper, German name — making the system sound more exotic and geeky — Luhmann’s system is called “zettelkasten” and there are web pages galore that give a more concise explanation than this book.

The idea at the centre of this book it brilliantly simple, and simply brilliant. Which might be its shortfall.My reason for not giving it 5 stars is a tendency for repetition. Reading between the lines, I sense Ahrens' possible frustration that fellow academics just don't "get it" (because Zettelkasten is too simple) so it must be said multiple times. Perhaps he's trying to make it more complicated?Overall, the central thesis - and practice - is something I wish I'd discovered a long time ago. And will recommend it to anyone seeking to improve their thinking.

Highly recommended. Wish i read this years ago. Now it is time for me to change the way i do things. Book is surprisingly comprehensive on how and why.

As someone who didn’t really go to school much as a kid, I’m making up for it in my late 20’s and early 30’s.I wish I’d read this before university, it would have increased the value of that learning experience 10x fold.It’s not just a book on how to take notes, but on how learning takes place.Goodbye note books, hello slip-boxes.