Any article that pretends to know what the right way of taking notes (say, "This is known as a commonplace book, and it is about how detailed your note-taking system should be unless you plan on thinking more elaborately than Leonardo da Vinci." in this article) is missing the point.

People think differently, people have different purposes and goals, people have different constraints on their time, their memory, their field. Can you procrastinate on note-taking? Sure. So can you on writing, and publishing, and building an audience, and writing papers, and doing the dishes.

Can people have a fantastic creative output by just opening a blank page and jotting down their thoughts? Sure. Can other people write great books with an elaborate notetaking system? Of course. There are plenty of people out there with terrific, obsessive note-taking and reference systems, Kubrick being one of the prime examples.

As someone with what looks from the outside to be an overarchitected note-taking system ( https://publish.obsidian.md/manuel ), it is a system that works great for me, and it is a system that makes me more creative and helps me discover ideas I would have never been able to articulate without. I used linear sketchbooks where I would write and draw whatever for years, filling hundreds of notebooks, and it came nowhere near my obsidian setup in terms of output and effectiveness.