Author	Sönke Ahrens
Genres	Productivity
Rating	💖💖💖💖🖤
Date Finished	~07/024

🎨 Impressions

This review is shorter than usual because I think that I’m not the right target for this book. People who write a lot (and thus read a lot for research and reference) will benefit much more from implementing it’s contents. I was able to benefit from some of the techniques nonetheless.

How I Discovered It

Can’t remember.

Who Should Read It?

Mostly people who write (academic papers or books). But I thinks everyone who reads non-fiction books should check out a few chapters.

🍀 How the Book Changed Me

I now take notes while reading and review them at the end of the day or the week. While reviewing I make notes in Obsidian.

This helped me appreciate books more because I remember more of what I read instead of treating books like a checklist to complete. I’m also much more careful about what I choose to read because reading is now more involved and it takes more time and energy.

📒 Summary + Notes

The book explains the zettelkasten note-taking method used by German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. Besides explaining how the method works it also explains why it works and why the conventional way of writing (starting from a blank page and choosing an argument to research) is outdated.

The basic principles are that you should read and explore what you are interested in and take notes (don’t underline, but take notes, possibly on a physical notebook). When you are done reading put the notes in your slip-box and link them up. This way you can build a second-brain of interlinked notes of concepts you are actually interested in. When you need to write a paper or book you can use the slip-box as a starting point instead of starting from a blank page. Just pick a note and follow the links.