How To Take Smart Notes (3 methods no one's talking about)

Vicky, thank you for another insightful video - I wish your channel existed 15 years ago when I was doing my MBA. Thansk to your hard work, anyone who watches your channel is able to significantly improve their thinking, decision making and performance. Brilliant work!

Well explained. Most people only ever explain a system from an overview perspective, but fail to provide simple examples to walk the listener's mind through the actual process. Thanks for do the little bit extra!

Also when taking notes what I find helps is to reword the content. So if Atomic Habits says "You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems," I would put that in my notes as "The real limitation to reaching your goals is the systems you employ and not the ambition of the goals themselves"

Everything about this video is exemplary: The audio The photography The transitions The structure The content The description, with links and timestamps.

- Q/E/C method (Question, Evidence, Conclusion) > Identify question > "Dash" evidence excerpts > "Dot" conclusions/ideas - Compass of Zettelkasten Thinking > North = Origin > West = "Synonym" > East = "Antonym" > South = Purpose/Future

I have recently noticed in my notes in college I wasn’t actually absorbing the material. During lectures I would try to write down every little thing. Now I just wrote down the most important pieces, go home and piece everything together adding in more details and connecting the whole picture. One limitation was the medium I was using. I cannot use paper to connect these vast ideas because I only have so much space, but with Microsoft one-note I have a large amount of sosvd and freedom to put things wherever. I add in visuals, explain concepts then give myself and example then a visual of the example. For complex ideas in physics where particles and many forces and charges are at play this comes in handy.

Smart notes about smart notes Always opt to write actively, not passively, try to summarize the author's idea in your own way. QEC Method Q - question ( use ? to mark the questions ) E - evidence ( use - to mark the evidences ) C - conclusion ( use . to mark the conclusion ) Atomic smart notes Only working with isolated facts is very tricky and can lead you to forgetfulness in your learning journey. However, if you consider the facts and subjects interconnected with one another in an holistic way, it gets easier to connect the dots. Try to resume and interconnect everything together, rearrange them with the compass of Zettelkasten. You get the primary idea and you put it in the middle, north is where the idea comes from, the origins, on west you'll put all that's similiar to the primary idea, east is what competes and opposes and south can be to where the idea leads you.

I have never heard of the compass thinking but the way you broke it down and used examples from the book was mind opening!! Very, very great video :)

I'm a visual thinker and can therefore really struggle with learning quickly because of my ADHD short-term memory preventing me from being able to organise new information in my head before I forget it, so these tips are a godsend. Also, the way this video is visually formatted actually really helps to get my head around ideas like this - I bet Vicky is also a visual thinker

How do you take your notes? Please share your tips with us in the comment! If you enjoyed this, check out: » Zettelkasten for beginners: youtube.com/watch?v=GpV47... » Beginner's Guide to Obsidian: youtube.com/watch?v=GpV47... » Fei's post on the Compass of Zettelkasten Thinking: feeei.substack.com/p/the-esse...

This is just a pure gold, combining it with the "Feynman Technique" you can almost learn anything you want.

Takeaways: At time: 00:00 The illusion of competence occurs when we highlight, underline, and take notes without actually learning new information. Smart notes are active and involve restructuring other people's thoughts into our own structure. The Q/E/C method (Question, Evidence, Conclusion) is a great structure to use when taking smart notes. Smart notes should be atomic, meaning the size and ideas on them matter. Organizing notes in one giant document limits our ability to think, and creating atomic notes can help us become more powerful thinkers. 03:28 Using atomic ideas instead of a giant document allows for 3D thinking and easier recollection of ideas. Making each question, evidence, and conclusion its own atomic note is crucial for rearranging and connecting ideas. Connecting new ideas to existing ones helps combat the illusion of competence. The compass of the Zettelkasten thinking can be used to connect new ideas to existing ones in four different directions. Focusing on systems rather than goals is important for forming good habits and breaking bad ones. 06:57 Thinking in multiple directions can help generate solutions for climate change and diversity issues. Connecting ideas is important for problem-solving. The speaker suggests checking out their Zettelkasten guide for taking smart notes to the next level. The speaker concludes the transcript by saying goodbye. No information is provided on who the speaker is or where the transcript comes from.

I cannot fully express how grateful i am for you sharing this for free in the way that you do. Ive spent my whole life suffering from mental illness that held my mind hostage. Im 27 and finally getting the help i need to heal and my brain is on FIRE (in a good way). Ive felt so overwhelmed by all of my thoughts and ideas that can finally come through. Ive watched 5 of your videos so far and now i have hope that my thoughts and ideas can be put to use and wont just plague me. I cant wait to start putting things together and creating with my ideas. Thank you thank you thank you

but i read to relax and be a potato 🥔

I always get so excited to see new uploads from you; I'm really interested in the way that you think and I love that you share your learning with us all and try to explain it in a way that takes the heaviness out of the concepts. I have ADHD so these tips are especially helpful for me in managing the issues that come with that, especially as I ramp up to the next phase of my career. I'm about to order some index cards and try this out. What's interesting is that I'm also taking a data visualization class and I could see how all of this connects together.. we're trying to understand what is going on in our own brains and helping it along when the proper connections aren't made.

This video is a gift which I have looked for all day. Didn't waste my time on those 15 other videos because I found my way here. Thank you so much.

This is probably the best video on note taking I've come across. Succinct and to the point, with some great ideas for linking notes and making them memorable.

Wow QEC and the compass of Zettelkasten thinking are amazing tips! Also love the editing 🤩 thank you for making this video!

I love that you explain and talk about the idea behind, the system and not as a lot of other focus on features of a tool. Very much appreciated!

just realized I already done most of this so that's why my notes are so short and looks unorganized but is actually meaningful and memorable. this is the definition of work smarter not harder.