Why You Take Notes But Never Get Smarter 17 ▲ Martin Adams 103 days ago · 6 min read1101 words · Life · hide · 1 comments My knowledge journey started with listening to audiobooks. This is what gave me the bug for learning new things and to become an autodidact. I realised that in order to recall all the amazing things I'd been learning, I needed to take notes. Doing so helps me feel like I'm participating in the knowledge that I'm learning.However, as time passes, I found that I was forgetting what I'd made notes on. I want to recall aspects of the books that were really important to my understanding of a topic, but I just couldn't remember what they were. In some way, it's like remembering the punchline to a joke but not the lead-up.And I feel like I'm really improving because I'm getting all the new knowledge from the books, the audiobooks, and the videos that I'm watching. But, on the other hand, nothing's really changing. I don't feel smarter. It's like this form of note-taking is giving me the illusion of progress, but I'm not seeing the results.And it turns out, the problem isn't the effort that… Log in to reply on the Fediverse. Comments will appear here. Carsten Becker @chrpistorius@mastodon.online 103 days ago [-] Just today I happened to mention to one of our student assistants how I've always learned the most from actively researching and writing, both for class and now as a researcher—that is, from actively thinking things through, making connections, and putting my insights down on paper in a structured way. As tedious as the process can feel at times, it's never not been worth the effort in the end.
