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Comment by Zambyte | Hacker News Reader

I still encourage you to write though. Writing has seriously transformed the way that I think. I refer to my notes very often too.

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Writing is a powerful learning tool also. I am often surprised that programming books and other learning materials don’t encourage writing and note taking, outside of an academic environment.

Just the act of writing an idea or a concept down helps to instil it in your mind, helping you either remember it or continue conceptualise the material you are learning about.

Reading, learning, doing and writing it all down is a powerful combination to accelerate learning, at least in my experience.

I still write a fair amount, I just don’t write book reports. The environment I find comfortable for reading isn’t conducive to taking notes that would be needed for writing later.

If there is a particular passages that really stands out I will note it down. I have a little collection of those (and other quotes) I sometimes read through.

I use a blank paper sheet as bookmark and carry a pen, so that I write down important notes from the book content on the bookmark. Afterwards the book is - ideally and dependent on the content - condensed to one sheet, that I can refer to later. It also helps with retaining the content.

I’ve tried this with an index card once and quickly filled it up. As I ran out of space I found myself question if someone was card worthy, which was a distraction.

I also tried writing in the margins on a book. I don’t like writing in the book due to it losing a lot of ability to shared after the fact, or if the book isn’t mine it’s a non-starter. That said, it was a very different experience, it was more like having a conversation with the author.

I may need to experiment more to try and find something that works.

> I found myself question if someone was card worthy, which was a distraction.

I think having a whole sheet might help. It's not enough to copy everything, but enough not to get sidetracked. Also, you might write down a reference to a page and 1-2 keywords only, or a couple of keywords describing one's own thought regarding a piece of content + a page reference.

I have also not found a great way to take notes while reading books, but most of my reading is on my computer right now. That makes digital note taking the obvious choice, and space isn't really an issue in that case. My way of deciding what to take notes on is by simply asking myself: could I want to remember this in the future? If the answer is yes (it usually is if I even considered asking it) I make a note of it. The note minimally contains a reference to the source, and some links to related topics. The links to related topics allows me to discover the note in the future by referencing the backlinks on those topics.

I recommend looking into the Zettelkasten method for note taking, if you are not already familiar. It is originally used with index cards, so you might find it to be a useful way to handle taking notes on index cards. I use a Zettelkasten-inspired digital note taking system called Org Roam. The thing I like the most about Zettelkasten is that it minimizes the effort for getting your ideas out of your head. You can worry about organizing the ideas after you have them laid out in front of you.

I use Obsidian at work to organize and plan. When looking up ways to effectively use that I stumbled down the Zettelkasten rabbit hole. It’s a little too involved for my needs. It seems like it might be good if I was doing research to write a book, but is too involved for my daily life. I can see where taking and organizing the notes would turn into a hobby, which is enough of a problem for me already.

I’ve considered reading on the computer, maybe I should actually give it a try.

> I’ve considered reading on the computer, maybe I should actually give it a try.

I should note that I haven't actually gotten into a workflow where I read ebooks and take notes. Most of the reading I do is documentation for systems I program with. I take tons of notes on documentation so I can easily find what I need again in the future.

You could try searching for "Post-it Flags, 200/High Volume Desk Grip Dispenser"

* They remove cleanly, if you're worried about permanently marking up or defacing a book.

* They are easy to write on (I've mostly used EF nib fountain pens).

* Best of all, since they are color-coded, you can invent your own scheme (e.g. blue == "I should revisit this", yellow == "my top N favorite quotes from this book", etc.)

Edit: to add another point

* They are large enough that you can write a decent sentence in there -- the "page flag" size might be a tad too small for that (but thanks to the EF nib, I often find myself using different-colored flags).

How do you know that writing has improved the way that you think? By what metrics did you come to that conclusion? If someone else showed you that by writing their transformed thinking reduced their quality of life, would you be less prescriptive to others?

"prescriptive" is a strong word to apply to an _encouragement_.

It would be quite sad if metrics were the only acceptable means of conveying personal experience.

By what metrics

Before they started writing regularly they were just a Zambit and look at them now. And who knows, you could make beebman following their method.

I have never experienced people telling me I have a good memory before I started my current writing habit. Within the last few months I have noticed 3 or 4 times people have made remarks about me having a good memory. I don't think that I actually have a much better memory than I used to, I think I have just offloaded so much that was occupying my brain into my computer without fear of forgetting it, that I am able to allocate a lot more memory towards things people actually notice.

I also believe I spend much more of my mental capacity on reason rather than recall. I think I have gotten slightly better at reasoning due to that, just going off how I feel when I try to reason about things; I feel more lucid than I used to. Trying to "remember" things is really more of a mechanical process for me than it is a mental one. I think of some keyword that is vaguely related to the concept I'm interested in, and then hop around the hyperlinks and backlinks in my notes until I find what I'm looking for.

Sometimes I will start this process to find a spot that I want to start writing a new note, only to discover that I have actually written the note already! That is always a trip when it happens.

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