Interesting the first few principles are not about note-taking, but writing in general. If you believe in the power of the written word to drive clarity (e.g. as in Amazon-style 6-page narratives), these principles are gold:
Principle #1: Writing is not the outcome of thinking; it is the medium in which thinking takes place
Principle #2: Do your work as if writing is the only thing that matters
Principle #5: Standardization enables creativity
Principle #6: Our work only gets better when exposed to high-quality feedback
While I confirm that writing is a powerful medium for thinking, anybody writer with a shower to take or a hike to walk will tell you that thinking takes place in many ways.
Parts like "If you want to learn and remember something long-term, you have to write it down" depends so much of context. Again, writing down does help me to commit things in memory, but for some information, audio is better. For others, repeating in my head is better.
Good advice all in all, but the definitive tone of the article is not needed IMO.
There is this tendency to reduce everything to simple rules that are simply wrong. Nuance takes more effort to put into words and to understand. And so we end up with these 'soundbite' bits of wisdom that are worse than nothing at all.
Writing something down requires clarity, and clarity can be gained in many ways. Writing something down that isn't clear yet will result in (hopefully) spotting that lack of clarity before you press 'send' or 'publish'. But that doesn't mean that all for stuff that ends up written is happening while writing it down and without a very good idea of what you are trying to communicate beforehand you'll end up with bad writing.
This is an interesting point because it could help explain why scientists enjoy programming, even when we sometimes do it to our own detriment. Nothing clarifies a quantitative thought process better than having to write it down in the form of code. And the code either runs or it doesn't, so you know that at least it has some level of self consistency before you walk away from it.
> While I confirm that writing is a powerful medium for thinking, anybody writer with a shower to take or a hike to walk will tell you that thinking takes place in many ways.
This is an article about note taking, not taking showers or going on hikes, or thinking in general, so I think trying to interpret its points outside that context is unreasonable. I think you’re imposing an unreasonably literal an exclusive interpretation of the point. The author doesn’t say it’s the _only_ medium.
On definitive tone, would the article really be clearer if it constantly went off on digressions about non-note taking contexts to every single point? I see criticisms of articles like this here all the time and it’s really tiresome. If every article linked here was full of caveats and digressions on every last point, they would be unreadable. I’ll take a succinct, opinionated expression of someone’s experience and point of view over a rambling exploration of every last facet of a topic any time.
"Completing these tasks is exceedingly difficult inside the confines of our heads. We need an external medium in which to perform this elaboration, and writing is the most effective and convenient one ever invented."
Which is not even close to saying that writing is the only medium, and in fact confirms that there are other mediums to think, including just keeping stuff in your head.
We reason symbolically and in an alphabetic culture such as our its entirely forgivable to name paper and the scribbles you put on it in order to think 'writing'.
Keeping stuff in your head while thinking with the stuff in your head changes it. The same with memories. If you have not noticed this, please challenge the statement: Keeping stuff in your head does not work; you need to externalize in order to use your differential engine, aka brain in order to 'think.'
Having said all this, I think because I am. not the other way 'round! everything else that you may think is thinking, maybe emotional/felt or aesthetic judging, would come from deeper down the stack.
Anyway, tell me about these other media.. and show me how you're not driving complex symbolic insights with them!
I come in peace, but look, say I'm exploring things in martial arts. Then I'm only listening to the kinesthetic domain, sinking into it if you will by dismissing ratio in order to learn through another mode.
I can learn like that, without any thinking at all!
We can only learn anchored in feedback, and if you can give yourself the feedback while writing, talking out loud alone, or better yet, with a listener, then you get feedback that keeps you thinking.
Verbalization and conversation maybe media, but writing, coding, sketching definitely are places where I notice my thinking.. What other 'media' did you have in mind?
I feel a tension that I'll lose an idea unless I write it down. After it is written down, I'm able to work with it in a relxaed manner.
I think recording it with audio might be ok too, because you won't lose the idea. But the next step after that is to work with it, and audio doesn't easily give you immediate playback.
With writing there's sort of a feedback loop where you look at what you wrote and turn it over and figure out what's wrong with it and rewrite it or expound on it.
That said, it's your call on "lists of 10 things" because there are some trite internet ones, and some 10-commandment ones.
I confess I'm having trouble understanding what principle #2 means. I would appreciate it if someone who read that and responded with a feeling of 'yeah that definitely makes sense' could elaborate.
Another way he states that principle is essentially "write as if you're going to publish your work." (In a journal, blog, etc.) This purpose informs how you work on the subject. It will encourage you not to gloss over vague explanations or detour into irrelevant minutiae. After all, the presentation (you'll never give) will be an embarrassment if you get a core question and fumble through an answer because don't really understand it.
I interpreted it to mean that if we do not rely on writing, but merely use it as an augmentation, that our record will be incomplete and therefore not trustworthy, just a list of rumors. To promote the writing to a first class witness is necessary for it to be truly a work partner, a reliable source and a type of a mind to confer and converse with, in a weird but equal way as another person.
1. That the creative part should be applied to first creating the standard, and then when dealing with the ideas, deal with the ideas, not the process.
2. That a standardized process makes creating easier because you're not trying to do it all at once.
It's hard to argue with either one of these. Additionally, constraints are often very helpful in the creative process. Let's say you're developing a character for a novel. Would you rather face a blank page or a character profile? You're still free to break the standard as necessary, but you've at least got some kind of foundation to stand on. Even being a hacker is about being creative in the face of standard processes...
Principle #1: Writing is not the outcome of thinking; it is the medium in which thinking takes place
Principle #2: Do your work as if writing is the only thing that matters
Principle #5: Standardization enables creativity
Principle #6: Our work only gets better when exposed to high-quality feedback