About This Book

This book provides guidance for note-taking and writing, emphasizing the importance of taking smart notes. It suggests using a slip-box system, which consists of two interrelated note systems, one to record citations and notes and the other to build ideas and the relationships among these ideas. It also recommends using a reference management system, a slip-box, and an editor. Writing is the main work, and the slip-box provides an external scaffold to think in and helps with tasks our brains are not good at. It is important to distinguish between three types of notes: permanent, project, and fleeting.

Top Highlights

• Every task that is interesting, meaningful and well-defined will be done, because there is no conflict between long- and short-term interests. Having a meaningful and well-defined task beats willpower every time. Not having willpower, but not having to use willpower indicates that you set yourself up for success. This is where the organisation of w...
• 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 (cf. Neal et al. 2012; Painter et al. 2002; Hearn et al. 1998).
• Writing is, without dispute, the best facilitator for thinking, reading, learning, understanding and generating ideas we have. Notes build up while you think, read, understand and generate ideas, because you have to have a pen in your hand if you want to think, read, understand and generate ideas properly anyway. If you want to learn something for ...
• It is not so important who you are, but what you do. Doing the work required and doing it in a smart way leads, somehow unsurprisingly, to success.
• Make literature notes. Whenever you read something, make notes about the content. Write down what you don’t want to forget or think you might use in your own thinking or writing. Keep it very short, be extremely selective, and use your own words. Be extra selective with quotes – don’t copy them to skip the step of really understanding what they mea...