How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers

Published July 27, 2017 by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.

ISBN:: 9781542866507

(2 reviews)

An informational book that describes and advocates for the note taking system of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann. The author's primary claim is that Luhmann's system of keeping a slip-box (or "zettelkasten") full of interesting ideas and bibliographic references can help students, academics, and non-fiction writers be more productive.

5 editions

Sasu reviewed How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens

Inspiring, but the process description lacks clarity

4 stars

I found this book very inspiring, but when I actually tried to start using the Zettelkasten method, I found that I needed to find other resources to get enough clarity to get started. If you need to be sold on the merits of the method or want inspiration , this book may be helpful for you. If you just want to learn to use the Zettelkasten method, the abundance of freely available resources online is probably a better place to start.

Caliwegian reviewed How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens

Helpful but somewhat repetitive

3 stars

Zettlekasten is an interesting system for organizing ideas. It sounds quite promising and I intend to try it out.

The presentation of the method is somewhat abstract making it difficult to know where to begin.

The text is also repetitive with the same ideas resurfacing again and again