How To Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking by Sönke Ahrens

How To Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking by Sönke Ahrens read like a college dissertation. I first listened to (or at least started) How To Take Smart Notes as an audiobook while on a road trip. I didn't feel like I quite got it, so I immediately read the paperback version when I arrived home. While I understood Ahrens's point about the slip-box and its potential usefulness, I kept waiting for a depth into the process that never seemed to develop. How To Take Smart Notes felt repetitive beyond simply being consistent. Ahrens does a decent job of explaining his point, but I never felt excited about what the slip-box or its potential to change my productivity. Having read many, many books about writing techniques, this certainly felt like an option among many options including ones that already work for me. Ahrens claims that the slip-box is the only way to be productive several times and alludes to it even more putting my skepticism into overdrive. Overall, How To Take Smart Notes seems like a well-intentioned attempt to give people, particularly those in academia, a better way to write and even to think about what they're writing, but it fell short of convincing me to try using the slip-box.


Currently Reading:


A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn 

If I Must Die: Poetry and Prose by Refaat Alareer

Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving & Thriving with the Self-Absorbed by Wendy T. Behary


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