25/11/2023
First review.
Today I'll be touching on "How to Take Smart Notes" by Sonke Ahren. He has recently written an updated version, so hopefully he has already addressed the topics I'll be touching on.
The basic premise of the book is to introduce the reader to a simple method of note-taking that grows more useful the more it is used; specifically the Zettelkasten. The simplified process is this: You get a small piece of paper, about the size of a revision flash card, and use one side to take notes. These notes can be as detailed or sparse as you like, as long as they're useful. The other side of the card is for the identifying number (1 for the first in a series, 2 for a note from elsewhere, and so on), and noting where you got it from (book title and author for a complete synopsis, including page number for a quote). This is essential if you want to look at the information again at a later date.
Before the end of the day, you reflect on what you've learned, write your initial thoughts on another note, number it so it's clearly related to a note (1a, for example) and slip it into the box. Then you write the title of the topics you just entered into the slipbox into an index and note down the numbers of the related cards. Then you can forget about it.
Eventually, it turns into something similar to a personalised Wiki, full of information, comments, thoughts and reflections on the various topics.
The book itself sparked a kind of revolution among note-takers, many of whom produced apps and programs designed to mimic the function of the Zettelkasten. It was groundbreaking, in its way, except for the failure of Sonke's imagination. Being a non-fiction writer, he thought that the Zettelkasten is only useful to non-fiction writers. I suggest that the Zettelkasten is also useful to fiction writers; a good fiction writer is a student of history, civilisations, financial institutions, warfare, science, languages and heaven only knows what else. The scope of a serious fiction writer is often broader in the non-fiction area than anywhere else in academia; clearly the ability to pick out specific bits of information and personal thoughts while they think about a piece of fiction would be a powerful tool for such a writer.
Other than this, the book is clearly styled for readers in acedemia. This is fair enough, but accessibility for a broader audience would have made the book more useful as a whole. The slightly confusing layout didn't help matters much.
I'm going to give the first version a 6 out of 10. When I get my eager little hands on the newest version, I'll review it here.
