Andrew, thank you for sharing these lessons! After reading through this lesson, I promptly recorded my first note, then went for a walk around the neighborhood. While on my walk, two ideas came to mind: one a pondering and the other for one of my classes next year. Since I didn’t have a place for these “walk revelations”, they usually floated away into the ether. But, I had set up my notebooks, so both made it on to paper after my walk! Woohoo!!!
No offense, but this could have been condensed into a 10 minute read, maybe even 5, tops. You really have difficulty getting to the point. Were you trying to make this as long as possible? Famous Quote: "Brevity is the soul of wit."
In my “defense”, it takes a long time to write a short post that says what needs saying and I only had a few evenings over a couple weeks. Also, different people look for different things.
What would you say I should have removed and what do you think was my point? I’ll take what you say seriously and with gratitude!
No problem. It's not like you owe anyone anything. I appreciate the suggestions for what they are. I'm truly interested in ideas and suggests for better organizing information. Frankly, it is something I have always struggled with.
I realize you are trying for a lighthearted, playful tone in your writing. That can be advantageous, when the content you wish to convey is very dense and you need to thin it out so as not to overload the reader. But a little goes along way. You don't want to tax the reader's time and patience.
You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve outlined the next few posts and, because my mother, necessity, has spoken, they will be shorter. Your comment helps validate that decision.
Glad I could help. Though you may find it helpful to write like that in the first draft, just to get it out there. Then clean it up in the rewrite. Sometimes the biggest impediment to writing is expecting too much.
thank you so much for writing this! and oh my god, the amount of chuckles i let out from reading this... definitely had a good morning thanks to you :)
Thank you for taking the time to create this series, Andrew, it’s tremendously helpful!
My somewhat autistic brain becomes a bit worried and stressed though, because I use my journal for morning pages types of brain dumps and I’m not really sure if the Cornell system would be helpful or too much work just to get the notes down.
Also, I like writing down the stories that I have made in my head as to why something is upsetting me, and then questioning that story and finding where the holes in my argument are. Do you think this system would work for that type of writing as well?
Don't let the Cornell system slow you down. If the page isn't set up yet, just write. I am confident this system will work for the type of writing you describe and would be very grateful for feedback!
Loving this series. I may be being dense but, whilst I can see where journaling and common placing fits into this system, I am struggling to see where note taking at work (meeting notes, actions to follow up etc) will sit?
Only the other week I was thinking of lots of different notepads for different usages and then I come across your posts! I'm very new to the ideas you convey but would your note strategy be good for writing essays?
Absolutely! That is what I developed it for. I have loads of unusable notes from the years of doing it wrong and as a result I wrote far fewer essays than I should have. Since I started using this simple approach I’ve written a book and had it published and I’ve started a note processing Substack!
This is so helpful. This lesson helped me troubleshoot the notebook I keep for work and the trouble I get into searching for notes that are six months old. I can’t wait for lesson 2
This is helping me tremendously in identifying the flaws in my current system (10 years and 16 journals in! Needed something like this all that time) - thanks so much for putting the time and energy in for this. And I am fascinated to learn about the ticks in the top left.
Glad it’s helping! It took me a lot of years too. Many, many journals sit in my shelves with little use because they hide most of their secrets under their mass and behind the veil of time.
The ticks are for when I’ve added the pages to the index.
Ahh of course! Well - it could have been transferring info to another journal maybe. Yes, I just allocated a book as an über-Index to help me excavate the archive, but I fear the task is just too large at this stage.
However, you probably can index one of them in the next month or two. Pick one you think might possibly be valuable or else pick one that you think would be pretty easy to do, and index that one. If you do, you'll have one more notebook indexed than if you don't, which would be a modest improvement to the world!
If you are, say, reading a book with the intention to make notes (rather than happening to read something notable and grabbing whatever notebook is at hand) would you have all 3 notebooks open and waiting for a quotation, a thought or a rumination, as applicable, with your notes on the single—no doubt illustrious—volume now distributed among three notebooks for future redistillation? This seems like it would require, in addition to the 3 notebooks, a fairly large surface for these operations.
No, that would be too complicated and the goal is simplicity.
I have a few options for how to note while you read that will come up as we proceed, but at this point I would just have one notebook with me, and it would be the journal.
If a quotation comes up for Q, I would note the page number and the first couple words and the last word. Then I’d add it to Q when I’m done with the read. Details to follow!
I have even better solutions to show you later, but we can’t go too fast!
Here's to request jokes about "cursive" writing or whatever the hell you call this. Jokes aside, great post. I will set my notebooks. Thanks.
Andrew, thank you for sharing these lessons! After reading through this lesson, I promptly recorded my first note, then went for a walk around the neighborhood. While on my walk, two ideas came to mind: one a pondering and the other for one of my classes next year. Since I didn’t have a place for these “walk revelations”, they usually floated away into the ether. But, I had set up my notebooks, so both made it on to paper after my walk! Woohoo!!!
That’s wonderful news!
No offense, but this could have been condensed into a 10 minute read, maybe even 5, tops. You really have difficulty getting to the point. Were you trying to make this as long as possible? Famous Quote: "Brevity is the soul of wit."
No offense taken. I always value feedback.
In my “defense”, it takes a long time to write a short post that says what needs saying and I only had a few evenings over a couple weeks. Also, different people look for different things.
What would you say I should have removed and what do you think was my point? I’ll take what you say seriously and with gratitude!
No problem. It's not like you owe anyone anything. I appreciate the suggestions for what they are. I'm truly interested in ideas and suggests for better organizing information. Frankly, it is something I have always struggled with.
I realize you are trying for a lighthearted, playful tone in your writing. That can be advantageous, when the content you wish to convey is very dense and you need to thin it out so as not to overload the reader. But a little goes along way. You don't want to tax the reader's time and patience.
Thank you. That’s helpful.
You’ll be pleased to know that I’ve outlined the next few posts and, because my mother, necessity, has spoken, they will be shorter. Your comment helps validate that decision.
Glad I could help. Though you may find it helpful to write like that in the first draft, just to get it out there. Then clean it up in the rewrite. Sometimes the biggest impediment to writing is expecting too much.
thank you so much for writing this! and oh my god, the amount of chuckles i let out from reading this... definitely had a good morning thanks to you :)
Thank you. That is a day-making comment for me!
Chuckles are good, right?
Thank you for taking the time to create this series, Andrew, it’s tremendously helpful!
My somewhat autistic brain becomes a bit worried and stressed though, because I use my journal for morning pages types of brain dumps and I’m not really sure if the Cornell system would be helpful or too much work just to get the notes down.
Also, I like writing down the stories that I have made in my head as to why something is upsetting me, and then questioning that story and finding where the holes in my argument are. Do you think this system would work for that type of writing as well?
Don't let the Cornell system slow you down. If the page isn't set up yet, just write. I am confident this system will work for the type of writing you describe and would be very grateful for feedback!
Thanks for your comment and question.
Loving this series. I may be being dense but, whilst I can see where journaling and common placing fits into this system, I am struggling to see where note taking at work (meeting notes, actions to follow up etc) will sit?
Good news: the next post addresses that directly and the one after that will develop it further, Deo volente
Only the other week I was thinking of lots of different notepads for different usages and then I come across your posts! I'm very new to the ideas you convey but would your note strategy be good for writing essays?
Absolutely! That is what I developed it for. I have loads of unusable notes from the years of doing it wrong and as a result I wrote far fewer essays than I should have. Since I started using this simple approach I’ve written a book and had it published and I’ve started a note processing Substack!
I hope you find it helpful!!
I love this technique and made my first note using this very post! I feel accomplished already, and I can't wait for more lessons.
Thanks for letting me know. Next lesson coming soon!
Are you the same Andrew Kern of CiRCE Institute? Name sounded familiar then saw name in your Index.
This is so helpful. This lesson helped me troubleshoot the notebook I keep for work and the trouble I get into searching for notes that are six months old. I can’t wait for lesson 2
Very helpful! Looking forward to the rest of the series.
Hey, cheers for your advice and all your work in putting it together.
I remain intrigued, man, and look forward to the next instalment…in its own time.
Thank you for the encouraging words!
This is helping me tremendously in identifying the flaws in my current system (10 years and 16 journals in! Needed something like this all that time) - thanks so much for putting the time and energy in for this. And I am fascinated to learn about the ticks in the top left.
Glad it’s helping! It took me a lot of years too. Many, many journals sit in my shelves with little use because they hide most of their secrets under their mass and behind the veil of time.
The ticks are for when I’ve added the pages to the index.
Thanks for the note!
Ahh of course! Well - it could have been transferring info to another journal maybe. Yes, I just allocated a book as an über-Index to help me excavate the archive, but I fear the task is just too large at this stage.
The task is too large. Don't even think about it.
However, you probably can index one of them in the next month or two. Pick one you think might possibly be valuable or else pick one that you think would be pretty easy to do, and index that one. If you do, you'll have one more notebook indexed than if you don't, which would be a modest improvement to the world!
If you are, say, reading a book with the intention to make notes (rather than happening to read something notable and grabbing whatever notebook is at hand) would you have all 3 notebooks open and waiting for a quotation, a thought or a rumination, as applicable, with your notes on the single—no doubt illustrious—volume now distributed among three notebooks for future redistillation? This seems like it would require, in addition to the 3 notebooks, a fairly large surface for these operations.
No, that would be too complicated and the goal is simplicity.
I have a few options for how to note while you read that will come up as we proceed, but at this point I would just have one notebook with me, and it would be the journal.
If a quotation comes up for Q, I would note the page number and the first couple words and the last word. Then I’d add it to Q when I’m done with the read. Details to follow!
I have even better solutions to show you later, but we can’t go too fast!
Thanks for this latest post. Fantastic job. Well worth the wait. Looking forward to what comes next!
Thank you Stephen. Your enthusiasm encourages me!