How to Take Smart Notes

The Illusion of Competence. So you read an actionable, insightful book. You learn visually by highlighting the key 
points and underline the key words. And then   an hour later or maybe it's 5 minutes later, if 
you're like me, you try to tell your loved ones,   your friends or family about all these amazing 
things that you've learned. But there's that   awkward pause... Why can't I explain what 
I just learned? What was that idea again? This happens to the best of us. It's 
called the illusion of competence. The   gist of it is all that underlining, all 
that highlighting, all that note taking

is giving us the illusion that we're learning 
something new while our brain is just relaxing   like a potato. So how to fix it? One way is to 
take smart notes. Actually, no air quotes. These   notes are actually smart. This is how Leonardo da 
Vinci took notes. You know, the polymath genius   who invented tanks, made scientific discoveries in 
astronomy, civil engineering, zoology, geometry,   and had time to paint on the side, like the Last 
Supper and the Mona Lisa. Niklas Luhmann also used   smart notes and published more than 70 books 
and almost 400 articles on the economy, lore,

politics, art, religion, media and even love. 
So if you want to become a powerful thinker, or   you just want to remember the things that you've 
learned, smart Notes is going to help you do that.   There are 3 things that make smart notes smart. 
The first one is smart notes are active, meaning   that they're not passive highlights, underlines 
and notes that just follow the author's flow.   1/ active smart notes Instead, it's about actively 
restructuring other people's thoughts into your

own structure. Now, you might ask, Well, what is 
my structure? Well, if you don't already have one,   here's a great one to get started: It's 
called Q/E/C. Q/E/C. It stands for Question,   Evidence and Conclusion. This is what I used in 
law school Even if you are not studying for law,   this still works because Professor Cal Newport 
from Georgetown University, who's written   lots of books on a deep work on time blocking 
on digital productivity, he uses this method,   and actually he was the one that named this the 
Q/E/C Note-Taking method. You look for only 3

things when you're reading: the questions, the 
evidence and the conclusion. This way it doesn't   matter what you're reading, which order the author 
puts his ideas in. You can always find these three   things and link them together. Professor Newport 
even has a system for identifying them while you   read. For any conclusions, ideas, you put a 
dot next to it. For the evidence and examples,   you put a dash across it. And when you review 
your notes, you think about which question are   these ideas trying to answer and which evidence 
links to these ideas. Let me give you a quick

example with the book Atomic Habits. James Clear, 
like his name, he's a very clear writer. So, many   of his headings are actually already questions. 
Then you go down the page and you look for new   ideas and put a dot next to them. He gives great 
examples and anecdotes, so you put a dash across   them. Once you've finished reading a section, 
then you can put all these notes together.   Start with question, give the evidence and write 
the conclusion down. This is how it can look like.   Now, most people stop here, right? I've 
got the question. I've got the evidence

I've got the conclusion. What more do I need? 
A-ha. This is where you are going to outsmart   others. Because the next thing about smart 
notes is that they are atomic. The size of your   notes and the ideas on them matter. When other 
people are organizing their notes in one giant   document, 2/ atomic smart notes whether digitally 
or in notebook, you do something different. You   make your notes atomic. This is a classic example 
of how tools actually shape and limit how you can   think. Think about it. If you use a giant word 
doc, how do you think? You think vertically,

right? You think chronologically, you think A, 
then B, then C. If you take away A and C, all of   a sudden you can't really remember what was B. But 
if you use atomic ideas not in one giant document,   but each idea stands alone by itself, then you 
can think in 3D, right? You can think up and down,   left to right. You can think diagonally. You 
can think about this pile and that pile. All   of a sudden your ideas come alive. This is what 
Charlie Munger was talking about when he said "The   first rule is that you can't really know anything 
if you just remember isolate the facts and try and

bang 'em back. If the facts don't hang together 
on a latticework of theory, don't have them in   a usable form." So once you've got your Q/E/C's, 
you want each Q, each E, each C - each question,   each evidence, each conclusion to be its own 
atomic note, because in the next step we are going   to rearrange them. Especially if you're using 
the Zettelkasten method, making your ideas atomic   is going to make all the difference. Because 
the third thing that makes smart notes smart

is that they are connected, which means one, we've 
already connected ideas with the Q/E/C method. But   there's a two, 3/ connected smart notes which is 
outside of these new things that you've learned,   you also want to connect new ideas to existing 
ideas, things that you already know. This is how   we will combat the illusion of competence. The 
way to get out of the illusion is to make sure   you're latching your new ideas onto existing ones. 
And how do you do that? You can try the compass   of the Zettelkasten thinking. I learned this 
one from my friend Fei. You take one idea in the

middle and you think in four different directions. 
Compass of Zettelkasten Thinking North is:   Where does this idea come from? West is: What's 
similar to this idea? East is: What competes   with this idea? And South is: Where can this 
idea link to next? Let me give you an example   from Atomic Habits again. "You do not rise to the 
level of your goals. You fall to the level of your   systems." Let's use that as the main idea. Okay, 
so let's go north. Where does this idea come from?   Well, James Clear says it comes from goal oriented 
thinking that most of us do. But the problem

is that winners and losers have the same goals, 
right? So what's different? It's the systems   they set that help them achieve those goals. Okay, 
then let's go West. What's similar to this idea of   don't focus on goals, focus on the system? Well, 
systems thinking is exactly about this idea.   I've talked about it in detail here. But the 
gist is that you want to troubleshoot a system   to make sure that you're reaching your 
eventual goal. So just like how we manage   large organizations, we can apply similar 
principles in our habit formations. Okay,

then let's go east. What competes with this idea 
of focus on systems, not goals? What's opposite?   What's missing? Well, we can say that goal setting 
is important. Right. It gives us a direction to   go towards and then have the system that get you 
there. But if your goals are wrong and you are on   the wrong trajectory, then it doesn't matter how 
good your system is, you're not going to get to   where you want to go. Goal setting has to happen 
first, but then you need the systems. All right,

then, let's go south. Where does the idea of goals 
and systems lead to? Well, as James Clear said   himself, is not just about forming good habits. 
It's also about breaking bad habits. Forming   atomic habits has helped people with addiction, 
with weight loss goals. Coming back to systems   thinking and larger organizations. Maybe we can 
apply the same principles and help organizations   break bad habits like problems in diversity, like 
protecting the environment. Wow. Just by thinking   in four different directions, we're coming up with 
ways to solve climate change and diversity issues.

Connecting ideas is essential. And if you want 
to take your smart note-taking to the next level,   then make sure you check out my Zettelkasten 
guide and I'll see you in the next one. Bye!