Luhmann had two slip-boxes: a bibliographical one which contained the references and brief notes…and the main one in which he collected and generated his ideas, mainly in response to what he read.
Sonke Ahrens
In order for our brains to process all of the information we receive, we need to take better notes.
After reading Sonke Ahrens‘s book, How to Take Smart Notes, I made my daughters read it. I wished I had read it in graduate school. And, since the slip-boxes are not difficult to implement, I figured they could start building good habits in high school.
The book details the secret to Niklas Luhmann’s method of recording and developing ideas. This prolific German scholar wrote 58 books and hundreds of articles in 30 years! The point isn’t simply to capture data but to be able to retrieve information upon which you can build and from which you can share ideas. It also describes how the way most of us have learned how to write research papers is flawed.
Even if you’re not writing papers or non-fiction books, it’s helpful to take better notes not simply to capture ideas but to be able to retrieve them later when you need them.
Knitting Notes
I finished the June Hat I started last spring!
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