#sonke-ahrens — Public Fediverse posts

https://boffosocko.com/2023/09/24/lichtenberg-on-note-taking/

Maybe try a map?

First a hat tip to Austin Kleon. His most-recent post, Do you have a nemesis? included a mind map, which is the most-recent of the countless times I’ve encountered mind mapping. I’m a fan of Kleon for many reasons, not least of which is that he, like me, flouts the usual guidelines for the capitalization of one’s titles.

I’ve tried mind mapping a few times. (What’s that? Did I overdo it with software and processes? …yes, of course!) Today, I was feeling unmotivated to write for Open + Curious. I thought, “Just start. JUST START!” But I simply didn’t want to face the blank screen of the digital document.

Instead, I opened my idea garden wherein I capture interesting nuggets to be seeds for future writing. In my garden, I rarely (I first wrote “never,” but I don’t want to jinx myself) have trouble finding a nugget to write about. I grabbed my favorite pen, and flipped to a blank sheet in the little binder I keep. So much action! I felt like I was already writing. /s

On that mind map I wrote the “something new” at the center. It’s not a meaningless bit of meta; it’s the central idea from a captured nugget. At this point, staring at the paper with my pen in hand felt great, versus facing a digital document which always feels too structured for me to think in. (ref. Sönke Ahrens.) In just a few minutes of thinking and scribbling I had all those bubbles. Then I had a title. …then a route. …an outline. And from there the writing felt doable.

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Creating Smart Notes to Organize Your Thinking
In the world of continuous learning, taking notes is an essential part of the process. However, not all note-taking methods are created equal. In his book "How to Take Smart Notes," Sönke Ahrens introduces the zettelkasten note-taking system, a method used by German sociologist Nicholas Luhm
https://mikepaul.com/2023/05/15/creating-smart-notes-to-organize-your-thinking/
#education #luhmann #productivity #SmartNotes #SonkeAhrens #zettelkasten

The Tinderbox crowd has been doing lots of solid zettelkasten related material recently.

#meetup #sonke-ahrens #tinderbox #zettelkasten

https://boffosocko.com/2023/05/04/rsvp-to-tinderbox-meetup-2023-05-07/

https://boffosocko.com/2023/03/07/rules-against-quotes-in-zettelkasten-a-closer-look-at-ahrens-on-quotes-and-collecting/

After Ahrens’ book I see an awful lot of people talking about “processing” books. There are too many assumptions about what this can mean and this hides many levels of inherent work involved in analyzing and synthesizing knowledge. I would suggest that we’re better off talking about reading them, annotating, excerpting, and thinking about them, or maybe writing about and combining them with other knowledge than “processing” them.

#annotations #ars-excerpendi #processing #reading-practices #sonke-ahrens

https://boffosocko.com/2023/01/02/55813338/

Spaced repetition

Spaced repetition comes up in discussions of optimal learning. Once one learns something, it’s best to review it after a period of time, then a second review, third, etc.. with the time between the reviews increasing. There are class structures and software packages which implement this. (Randomly over the years I’ve even considered dumping everything I ever wanted to learn into such a system.)

Part of the power of the spacing is that you don’t come to expect when a particular bit of information will be reviewed. “Oh! I need that knowledge, I guess it is important.” It all apparently causes the brain to not allow the knowledge to expire and be lost. I’ve discovered that my regular usage of the slipbox is randomly, (in the sense that I have no sense of what or when to expect to bump into an idea again,) reminding me of things.

For example, I had a slip, “4c2se1j” with an idea for a blog post on it. As I was writing the post, which involved Sönke Ahrens, I flipped to her name in the slipbox to add this slip’s address to things related to her. She’s on the slip at “4c1ae(3)”. (Because “4c1ae” overflowed to a second “4c1ae(2)” and then third slip “4c1ae(3)”.) Next to her name I added “4c2se1j”. Your eyes may have glassed over, but that’s just another random moment in my using the slipbox—nothing particularly interesting there.

While doing that, my eyes flashed across two addresses already on Ahren’s line…

First, “2ho1”. Just four characters, but I instantly recognized the “2” as a book reference, and Ahren’s book is “HOw to take smart notes.” Several of the ideas from the book flashed through my mind.

Second, “4c2ko1a”. That looks gnarly, but “4c2” is themes. “4c2ko” then must be a word with first-letter K, and first-vowel O, and it has to be related to Ahrens? …that’s easy. That would be the slip for “KnOwledge systems”. I don’t know for sure (without looking) what’s on “4c2ko1a” but lots of ideas related to knowledge systems popped into my mind.

Don’t be distracted by my insane, paper-slips in physical-boxes system. There are countless ways to take notes. (Ahrens has a lot of great stuff to say about that, and I’d argue she has The stuff to say about it.) My point here is that by taking notes into a system that is designed to help me think—not tell me how to think—it does in fact help me think and helps me learn and remember.

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slip:4c2ko1c.

What shall 2022 be?

I’ve begun pondering what shall be 2022’s touchstone phrase, or word. 2021’s “festina lente” has served me well. I’ll miss it, but it’s been worn smooth after a year.

I was flipping through my notes. First my notes about previous years’ phrases, but then wandering through the slipbox. I wandered into the section audaciously labeled, Mastery Projects, and then swung a left into the aisle labeled, On Learning Itself. There’s a stack of slips in there, many of which are notes from a book. This captured quotation held my interest:

If writing is the medium of research and studying nothing else than research, then there is no reason not to work as if nothing else counts than writing.

~ Sönke Ahrens from, How to Take Smart Notes

Perhaps something chosen to remind me to write? …or why I want to write? “Seize the pen?” I feel I’m too far off in the weeds . . .

The next aisle is labeled, Fitness & Health and I swing in there. There’s a slip in there about one’s “first body” versus one’s “second body”, which I noted in 2017 based on a podcast with Jerzy Gregorek. That reminds of something else Gregorek said. I had to go elsewhere in the slipbox—via his name, and then into the huge section on Analects, to find his comments about, “Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.“

“Choices” then, perhaps?

cerne sapienter?

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Seriously

I know I’ve been off on two long tangents recently: The long series of posts about practicing self reflection kept this blog busy for two months, and before-and-after that I’ve been doing a deep rabbit hole exploration of Slipboxes. I’m still yappin’ about Slipboxes, but I think we’ll be seeing more random things here in April.

But before that happens here’s another thing related to the Slipbox: I found this really detailed summary of Ahrens’s, How to Take Smart Notes. I’ve been reading and studying these notes, as I’m reading and studying the book. Take a look at this post, How to Take… —the site is literally named The Rabbit Hole. You’ve been warned.

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slip:2ho1a.