How to Take Smart Notes

Blurb:
The key to good and efficient writing lies in the intelligent organisation of ideas and notes. This book helps students, academics and nonfiction writers to get more done, write intelligent texts and learn for the long run. It teaches you how to take smart notes and ensure they bring you and your projects forward.
The Take Smart Notes principle is based on established psychological insight and draws from a tried and tested note-taking-technique. This is the first comprehensive guide and description of this system in English, and not only does it explain how it works, but also why. It suits students and academics in the social sciences and humanities, nonfiction writers and others who are in the business of reading, thinking and writing.
Instead of wasting your time searching for notes, quotes or references, you can focus on what really counts: thinking, understanding and developing new ideas in writing. It does not matter if you prefer taking notes with pen and paper or on a computer, be it Windows, Mac or Linux. And you can start right away.

Thoughts:
Sönke Ahrens, a professor in systematic education at Hamburg University, has based this book on the remarkable note-taking system of the revered sociology professor Niklas Luhmann.
Luhmann wrote and organized over 90,000 index cards to support his 30-year-project ‘A Theory of Society’. His unique note-taking system, based on the Zettelkasten or slip-box method, helped him to write around 60 books and hundreds of articles on a wide range of subjects.
The book is not fully focused on note-taking. It also discusses many psychological concepts, such as the mere-exposure effect, Miller's law, survivorship bias, Parkinson's law, the tunnel effect, etc.
While Ahrens has described the Zettelkasten method and why you should adopt it, the how in ‘How to Take Smart Notes’ is rather vague. Also, he has stopped using the software mentioned in the book and has switched to another.
I liked the book in that it introduced me to Zettelkasten. I love the idea because it appeals to my systematic, organized side. However, the lack of illustrative examples makes the writing stiff and the book difficult to finish.
I read the first few chapters and liked and understood the method. I was disappointed that there were no examples to illustrate its actual implementation.

How to Think

Blurb:

How to Think is a contrarian treatise on why we're not as good at thinking as we assume - but how recovering this lost art can rescue our inner lives from the chaos of modern life.

As a celebrated cultural critic and a writer for national publications like The Atlantic and Harper's, Alan Jacobs has spent his adult life belonging to communities that often clash in America's culture wars. And in his years of confronting the big issues that divide us--political, social, religious--Jacobs has learned that many of our fiercest disputes occur not because we're doomed to be divided, but because the people involved simply aren't thinking.

Most of us don't want to think, Jacobs writes. Thinking is trouble. Thinking can force us out of familiar, comforting habits, and it can complicate our relationships with like-minded friends. Finally, thinking is slow, and that's a problem when our habits of consuming information (mostly online) leave us lost in the spin cycle of social media, partisan bickering, and confirmation bias.

In this smart, endlessly entertaining book, Jacobs diagnoses the many forces that act on us to prevent thinking--forces that have only worsened in the age of Twitter, "alternative facts," and information overload--and he also dispels the many myths we hold about what it means to think well. (For example: It's impossible to "think for yourself.")

Drawing on sources as far-flung as novelist Marilynne Robinson, basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain, British philosopher John Stuart Mill, and Christian theologian C.S. Lewis, Jacobs digs into the nuts and bolts of the cognitive process, offering hope that each of us can reclaim our mental lives from the impediments that plague us all. Because if we can learn to think together, maybe we can learn to live together, too.

Thoughts:

When I first heard the name of this book, I thought to myself: Oh yeah? Now you need to be told how to think?

Although I have been influenced by many, I have always been my own woman; I always think for myself. Just the other day, my mother commented on how different I was from some of my friends.

So, as I started reading it in January, I approached this book with a lot of skepticism. It took me until now to finish it. I liked the book so much that I ordered a print copy immediately after I finished reading it.

This book is not a step-by-step method on how to think. Nor is it a definitive book on logical thinking. It discusses logical fallacies and the formation of biases. It warns you that the myths and metaphors that you surround yourself with can be helpful as well as harmful. It suggests ways in which you can identify what is what and develop good thinking habits.

These may seem rather serious topics. They are, and Jacobs draws on classic literature, philosophy, and even the latest research to make his points. However, he does so in an engaging and conversational manner.

This was the perfect time for me to read this book. As the pandemic is on the rampage around me (I live in India), everyone is actively looking for and finding ways to demonize their RCOs (Repugnant Cultural Others).

I initially thought of sending this book to a few others who I felt needed to read this. However, I realized that I was falling into the trap of thinking that those who don’t agree with me are wrong. It would mean I was giving up on honesty, kindness, and empathy, which constitute some of the good thinking habits that Jacobs discusses in the book.

I loved the 12-point checklist for good thinking at the end of the book. Jacobs says that although it is not a fail-safe method, the willingness to make and use such a checklist, by adapting it to your circumstances, will help you think better.

This year I wanted to read books that made me think and learn. How to Think did exactly that.