Taking Notes Is Easy — But THIS Is the Hard Part
Here’s What Prolific Note-Takers Do to Get the Most Out of Their Notes
Are you taking notes?
If yes, congratulations — you’re doing something the vast majority of humans don’t: you’re taking notes, and make efforts to remember the exciting things you stumbled across.
But wait — is taking notes the hardest part of the equation?
As you guessed by reading the title, I argue it’s not.
If you’re ready to take a disturbing ride into “effective-note-taking-land,” fasten your seatbelt.
A lot of people think that capturing information is the most important part.
And guess what? On paper, it makes sense.
We’re swimming in an ocean of information overload.
We get hit by thousands of stimuli every day.
And we tend to think that we have to capture information that seems meaningful to us, motivated by the fear of losing it.
So what do we do?
We simply save it into a safe place for later.
Even though search engines exist, nothing can replace something we’ve written with our hands: may it be in a physical or digital notebook.
But guess what? 90% of the time, later never happens.
Most of us collect notes. We capture information like an archivist. That’s it.
We don’t go back to them (at least, not as often as intended). And when we do, we have a hard time finding what we think is supposed to be there.
Sometimes it can go even worse: We don’t remember why we took this or that note in the first place.
If we think about it, taking notes is a derivative of consumerism.
Let me explain:
Consuming is easy.
Consuming requires little or no effort.
Consuming makes us feel good.
If you think about it: we consume a lot of information… but also a lot of food.
While eating a burger is a guilty pleasure for many of us… Producing the burger isn’t that easy.
You have to raise and slaughter a cow cut it into stakes (sorry, vegans).
You have to plant wheat, harvest it, transform it into bread, etc.
Same goes for information.
It’s easy to watch a TedTalk — not that much producing one.
It’s easy to read a book — not that much writing one.
You got my point:
Most of our note-taking is easy. Really.
Especially with web clippers, shortcuts, and cloud-synced kindle highlights.
Most of the time, we watch videos, read an interesting article (like this one… hopefully), or simply want to write down an idea that just sparked.
We think that it’s the hardest part — taking a few seconds of our busy life to write things down.
But this is only the first stage of note-taking.
There is a whole other dimension to note-taking that many of us don’t even explore
It is… re-using them!
What do I mean by “re-using” them?
Creating something out of them.
Got an idea? Execute on it.
Read a great book? Summarize it and share it with the world.
You got my point.
All this comes down to re-engaging with the content.
The problem is that we think about our notes as disposable cutlery.
But it’s not.
In fact, your notes are valuable information mine that you could use to add more value to you, your family, your business, and ultimately…the world.
But re-engaging with your content is hard.
It involves creating instead of consuming.
Creating means getting out of your comfort zone.
Creating means having the courage to be judged and encounter critique.
We have to embrace the fact that we may get judged by what we’ve done.
Or that the idea we executed failed.
But this is what makes life, life.
If success were predictable, success wouldn’t mean that much.
Do you have a feeling of wasted potential with your notes?
If you can relate to what I’ve described here, then I have something for you:
I’ve created a 7-day free email course called “How to take better notes”.
This course will show you how to get on the right track and stop amassing notes without value… to finally unleash your full creative potential.
Best part? You can get it for FREE by Clicking here (safe link to my website).
– Matt Giaro
