April 23, 2024 • 35 mins
Are you a note-taking freak? Would you like to take better notes and be more productive? Note-taking can be a path to productivity -- or not!
Questions came pouring in about my "Massive Obsidian Vault Graph View with 18,753 Notes" view, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNTX-jnSmSk
Many asked why I have so many notes. What was I doing with these notes? And were these notes for business or pleasure?
In today's episode, I address that specific ask. How am I using these notes to improve career outcomes, increase my authority, and serve my clients?
Taking notes is more about improving your ability to think rather than the act of note-taking. Even notes on paper have value if done the right way.
Two places I'm helping clients better manage information:
These podcasts are possible by listeners like you. Ask questions, engage, and challenge your assumptions. The more you use these insights, the more powerful they become.
When you have questions, please ask them in the comments below. Or ask Justin Hitt directly by visiting https://www.justinhitt.com/contact/?utm_source=002-p0316a&utm_medium=spreaker&utm_campaign=d0830i&utm_content=benefit-from-note-taking
#NoteTaking #IncreaseProductivity #SecondBrain #InformationOverload #InformationManagement
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/inside-strategic-relations--3010682/support.
Questions came pouring in about my "Massive Obsidian Vault Graph View with 18,753 Notes" view, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNTX-jnSmSk
Many asked why I have so many notes. What was I doing with these notes? And were these notes for business or pleasure?
In today's episode, I address that specific ask. How am I using these notes to improve career outcomes, increase my authority, and serve my clients?
Taking notes is more about improving your ability to think rather than the act of note-taking. Even notes on paper have value if done the right way.
Two places I'm helping clients better manage information:
- Knowledge workers and subject-matter experts are learning how to be more influential. Discover career and consulting growth; join us at https://www.insidestrategicrelations.com/newsletter/?utm_source=002-p0316a&utm_medium=spreaker&utm_campaign=d0830i&utm_content=benefit-from-note-taking
- Freelance writers and copywriters are leveling up their ability to sell. Learn how to use words that sell and get more clients; join us at https://www.adbriefing.co.uk/newsletter/?utm_source=002-p0316a&utm_medium=spreaker&utm_campaign=d0830i&utm_content=benefit-from-note-taking
These podcasts are possible by listeners like you. Ask questions, engage, and challenge your assumptions. The more you use these insights, the more powerful they become.
When you have questions, please ask them in the comments below. Or ask Justin Hitt directly by visiting https://www.justinhitt.com/contact/?utm_source=002-p0316a&utm_medium=spreaker&utm_campaign=d0830i&utm_content=benefit-from-note-taking
#NoteTaking #IncreaseProductivity #SecondBrain #InformationOverload #InformationManagement
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/inside-strategic-relations--3010682/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The question is real, how muchdo you actually benefit from taking notes?
When you use a second brain productor a note taking application, are you
really benefiting yourself when it comes tobeing more influential in marketplace, having more
knowledge and access to knowledge, orbeing able to solve problems in business?
I'm going to address that right here. I'm just a hit with Inside Strategic
(00:23):
Relations. I'm that guy online thathas eighteen thy seven hundred and fifty three
notes in his Obsidian note taking application. Now, the current count today is
in that video is probably a coupleof years old. The current count today
is twenty seven one twenty seven notes. And the question that came in,
a very real and important question thatcame in is how much do you benefit
(00:46):
from taking these notes? And thisperson is not being sarcastic. They have
the same dilemma. They're probably likeme at times, feeling like they're wasting
a lot of time when you canactually read or learn something. Now here,
this is very important in the language. Let me read it exactly how
they put it. I feel likeit's wasting a lot of time while you
could actually read, for example,or learn something. Well, my notes
(01:08):
are the result of reading. NowI read on purpose. I don't read
as much entertaining material. I doread from a very wide range of topics.
In the range of topics, ifwe were to make a list of
the professional topics, which is riskmanagement and business development, and then there's
subtopics on that which could be informationmanagement, documentary, retention, how do
(01:32):
we learn creative, creative and criticalthinking. So if we laid out those
subjects of work related, consulting relatedactivities, and then we compared it with
the topics in which I read andmight even take notes about, I have
a much broader list, so Iread about agricultural topics, environmental topics.
(01:53):
I'm a master naturalist, so Ihave notes where I've attended a seminar on
beneficial insects, and then I've takensome notes here. All of this is
in the system. So twenty seventhousand records seems like a lot of records,
but it's a misnomer number. It'skind of like a headline, a
clickbait headline, because it's how arethose notes taken? And more importantly,
(02:16):
why are those notes taken? Andso a lot of folks can take notes
because it feels like you're doing somethingand At times, I'll have an idea
come to mind and instead of writingit on a piece of paper that's on
my desk, and now it's alittle hard to do drawings I used to
do. I used to have oneof those notepads that were digital notepads,
(02:36):
so I could do a drawing andend up as a PDF file. But
now I end up with hundreds ofPDF files because when I have an idea,
I take a note. And thereason I'm looking around here is because,
unfortunately, there are piles of papers, literally piles of papers that include
notes that haven't yet been processed.So I will agree that note taking can
(02:59):
be counter productive or even unproductive ifdone the wrong way. And you might
say, well, justin you're doingit the wrong way. But a lot
of my thinking is done externally.So first we've got to start with how
do you think? How do youprocess information? I can sit down and
read a book. I read prettyquickly. I've taken speed reading classes.
(03:19):
I can read through a book inone sitting. I could just sit down
and just read one hundred pages inone sitting. I enjoy that. If
it's a topic I'm interested in,I'll go through it pretty quickly, but
I'll time save the moment. Sosometimes I'll be reading. So if I'm
reading The True Believer by Eric Hofferand there's a note in there and it's
like, wow, that makes sense. I want to remember that. I
(03:44):
don't necessarily remember it in my brain. I might write it down somewhere.
And so some of the notes inmy obsidian are files that include hundreds of
notes. Now the notes could beI organize the notes topically because I'm using
it Zeel cast In method, buttopically within atomic notes. So let me
break that down. Why is thisimportant? So, first off, if
(04:09):
you consume a lot of information,so you're a knowledge worker and you read
books or you're working on projects,it is necessary to take notes to synthesize
the original material or multiple pieces ofmaterials. So I might read five books
on the same topic, and Iwant to synthesize those ideas in order to
implement the ideas into solving some problem. And so I might read a book
(04:31):
like the Eric Hoffer book and Imight say, wow, this is very
interesting. What does it mean tome? So that could be one note,
it could be just the quote.It could be three notes, It
could be the quote and some commentary. It could be a note with some
bullet points. But there may bea time that I'll sit down after I've
clustered notes around a particular topic,and I might say, hey, this
(04:53):
is interesting, maybe I need towrite a paper about this. Now,
the professional area of risk management,business element, and then the subcategories there
are going to be the primary areasthat I'm going to build a report or
I'm going to write a paper,or because I'm not in college anymore,
so when I was in college,I might do all this reading on purpose
(05:13):
to write a paper. But nowI'm collecting notes because well, that's interesting.
I don't want to forget it now. One thing that I found is
very important, because I did showyou the pile of paper on my desk
here, is that I actually useengineering notebooks now. So instead of having
piles of paper everywhere, I mightwrite something in my engineering notebook. And
this book is from twenty twenty one. I filled this whole notebook with this
(05:36):
whole notebook up in twenty twenty one, this one in twenty twenty one.
This is a way of processing calledjournaling. Now that's different from the zetlcast
and method because if I'm going totype it up in the computer and make
it searchable. I want those atomicnotes that cross reference, and I can
do cross referencing in the engineering notebook, and the engineering notebook has numbered pages.
(05:58):
But my point is the capture ofinformation is part of my way of
processing information. I don't want torely on my memory, primarily because I
took a college level class on howthe brain works, and the brain doesn't
work very well. The brain canbe easily tricked. That's why a lot
of people take notes. They feellike they're productive, but then when they
look back on the notes, theyrealize they've got a pile of notes and
(06:20):
nothing else. So Number one,if you're a student, and I am
a lifetime student, you're going totake notes to capture key ideas and concepts
to create a mnemonic reference. Nowwhat's mnemonic mean. It means a memory
tool that's going to help you rememberspecific and useful information that you may need
(06:42):
to recall in the future. Soif you're taking notes about things that doesn't
really matter to you, it doesn'thave a high level of interest, you
are wasting your time. But ifit's career related, if it's subject or
topical related, to a course ofstudy, if it's related to some problem
that you have that you're trying tosolve. These are notes that are highly
productive. Now, the act oftaking notes itself is not productive at all.
(07:06):
You could sit down, read abook, immediately implement the book,
and then get the results. Thatwas the reason you read the book in
the first place. However, lifeis very busy. There's a lot of
distractions. You could get a telephonecall there, something could happen, and
so the notes also provide a placeholderfor knowledge. Now, I also have
(07:29):
notes that include all conversations online.I don't engage in social media or answer
comments to the web, to theblog posts, or answer comments to the
videos just to do it. Idon't need that kind of social engagement.
If I didn't have a computer,I could find enough social activities to do
now. However, I do prefersocial activities that are role based. I
(07:51):
guess that would be like melay based. I guess I'd rather get a message
from somebody and then answer that message, like we're doing right here. With
this particular comment that was made onthe Massive Obscenian Vault graph view with eighteen
seven hundred and fifty three notes.Again, I have twenty seven thousand notes.
Now what I find is by havingthis external memory, I do tend
(08:15):
to take the same notes more thanonce. And this is very important to
understand the concept. Let's say,and I got an example here. I
have read these books, so Ihave at times staff, I have virtual
assistance, a secretary, somebody who'sdoing administrative work. And I have read
all three of these books. Okay, and these books are about being a
(08:37):
great personal assistant. I actually readthese books and use these insights myself to
have better executive function and skills.Now, this is very important to pay
attention to. I had not takenany notes about these books because the notes
are in these books. So thisis the consumption of information. And not
(08:58):
all these books have highlights or anythingon it. But sometimes the consumption of
information is about as you're processing materials, taking notes in the margin, highlighting
things. But now we have theproblem that that's trapped in a book.
And I actually thought these copies hadI actually have PDFs as well that have
(09:18):
annotations in them. But so there'slike one book market here. I think
these are the copies that I have. I'm actually sitting in my conference room
where usually assistant would sit. Idon't have any assistants at my house right
now. This is my home,one of my home office areas. Anyway,
here's my point. I can referencethat book anytime I need it because
(09:39):
I know mnemonically, I know thatthat book contains a subset of information on
administrative services, and like for example, the Definitive Personal Assistant and Secretarial Handbook
has specific activities on how to accomplishcertain tasks in business. I times I'm
(10:00):
responsible for bookkeeping, I'm responsible forfollowing up on emails, I'm responsible for
correspondence. But in those times thatI'm not, I wanted consistency in the
implementation of those activities, and sowe use the book as a note because
it's got a great table of contents, it's got a great index, it's
easy to recall the information. Now, what I find is beneficial about note
(10:24):
taking applications like Notion, like City, and like all these other platforms,
even a bunch of textpiles in afolder, is that if I want to
recall information, I can search forthat information. Now, every note I
have, if it's as a resultof reading a book or piece of material,
has the original citation in it,and so when I go search,
(10:48):
for example, I have up onmy screen. I have a challenge here
with doing interviews. So I dointerviews, I answer questions, and the
recording is not always clean, andit takes a lot of time to get
out of the office to publish formy newsletter, or to publish for my
consulting work, or to publish asa response to somebody's question. Now what
happens here is it I don't wantto watch a thirty minute video. I
(11:11):
don't want to watch a twenty minutevideo. I don't want to read a
book. I don't want to goin all the details. But those key
points that caught my attention are nowsearchable in a text based platform. Now
the text is very important because Imight write a Python script to cluster you
know, I might be doing textanalytics and clustering ideas because I'm writing a
(11:31):
new book. But again, whatis a deliverable? Why are you taking
notes? And then how do wehave notes that are conducive or are aligned
with those areas in which we mayneed to produce an output. So I
do have notes in here that whenI search for the note and it comes
(11:52):
up, it is gobblybook. Ifound a few lists of keywords for so
I used to have a hosting companyand I was doing a lot of work
for hosting companies. I had listsof keywords about virtual private servers and all
those keywords. That has no valueto me. Now that's not useful to
me, it's probably not useful toanybody else, So I just delete that
(12:13):
note. So, yeah, you'regonna get notes in the system that are
a complete waste of time, thatare a distraction. Maybe you're just sorting
out an idea. And when youlook at the notes in the future,
it doesn't make any sense. Itdoesn't seem it's useful. However, if
the structure's good and the note isa mnemonic, so it's memory aid,
(12:33):
it may give you. It maytrigger an idea. You may look at
that note and say, and thissays right here, objective colon, clean,
interview with guests, normal volume onboth sides, ability to share screens.
Okay, so that might trigger mybrain. I need a product to
help me do this, or Ineed an assistant to help me with this,
or I need to hire an editingcompany. It hasn't solved the problem,
(12:56):
but it has reminded me that Ihave this thing go on and on,
so that when I take the note, I can just let it go
of my brain. I don't haveto fill my brain up with a bunch
of stuff that hasn't that isn't goingto benefit me today. When it comes
to administrative assistant activities. Have Iliked these books so much? I dedicated
a space on the desk next toa person who would be doing administrative work,
(13:20):
and I just I use these bookstoo, And so when that administrative
person was in here, maybe I'vehired somebody new and they have a question
about how to respond to emails orthe difference between white mail, which is
correspondence from potential customers versus administrative mail. That might be, you know,
a copy of a digital copy ofa bill. How do we manage those
(13:41):
things. I don't have to answerthat question. I can say to them,
Hey, there's a couple of booksright next to desk, wy don't
you browse through those and then comecome back to me with a procedure or
a process. And then that procedureor process I may codify it in my
note taking system, print out aPDF file to them, and then that's
the proceed you we use in house, but all the notes getting up to
(14:01):
that point, all the details areabout preference. All of that can come
together in a cluster of ideas toproduce that paper faster than if I had
to sit down and read all threeof these books right away and then write
a procedure. And in many casesI might get in here and say,
oh, look on page one fortysix, just do that. So we
(14:22):
have to and to avoid that wastingof time, we are optimizing our time
to build artifacts and tools that willagain move you towards an outcome, a
specific outcome. We have a programabout outcome management. A lot of people
today are trying to start businesses andthey're trying to do this, try and
(14:45):
do that, and then the shinyobjects and distractions have them all over the
place, and the original intent whyis it that they start at the business
in the first place, is completelylost and next thing you knew, they're
feeding social media platforms, they're feedingthe YouTube algorithm. They're trying to make
friends and influence people, and they'renot making any money in business. The
(15:09):
reason you would start a business mightbe for the tax simplification implications. It
may be to serve a specific customergroup and exchange value. But again it
can be easily distracted. So thenotes become an anchor. So in my
note system, for example, Ihave project profiles and so that I can
pull up with a particular tool here, and I'm not sharing my desktop right
(15:31):
now, because if we were doinga coaching, I would tailor what I
show you based on your specific needs. And if you were a business owner
or an executive and you want itto be more productive, these notes provide
a personal preview of where information isstored and such. A lot of solopreneurs,
for example, copywriters, marketers,folks that have small agencies, they
(15:52):
can use a note taking application toorganize ideas as they're writing content organized ideas
as their manager day to day marketingcampaigns Now is a second brain or note
taking application the end all not necessarilyif you have a team of people.
For example, if you're researching,if you're in a research lab. I've
worked with academics before, you mayhave a bunch of researchers that are bringing
(16:15):
together information and you may want toall be in the same repository. So
platforms like Lotus notes, SharePoint,any kind of document management system where you
can search those will help library keyinformation and then help you manage and delegate
a team to gather that information up. Because again, the note taking is
(16:37):
about simplifying, translating, creating referenceto, and delivering large complex sets of
data into smaller, bite sized chunksso that we can make informed decisions as
we create some kind of deliverable Whenwe're looking at this, what is the
benefit of taking all these notes?Well, if we use the notes and
(16:59):
we can easily recall the content fromthese notes, then the benefit is that
I save a tremendous amount of timeI would still read the book. So
sometimes I'm going to solve a problem. I'm going to buy five books on
the topic. I'll read all fivebooks. I'll outline the key ideas and
concepts that are relevant to the problemthat I have. I'll from that outline
build out underneath that, maybe someprocedures, maybe some checklists. These are
(17:25):
all notes. An outline is aconcept for notes, and then at the
end of that I will go usethe outline or the procedures or the checklist
in the course of business to getthe outcome and result. Now, in
my case, because I own apublishing company. I might use those procedures
for five or ten years. Imight develop notes and profiles and preferences around
(17:45):
those procedures, and then after tenor fifteen years, I might be able
to come out and just publish abook about it. So I have a
program called Podcasting for Profits. I'vebeen podcasting for more than twenty years,
and I've made profits podcasting, andso I've now gone from notes on how
to do something years and years agoto tuning my skill set as I progress,
(18:07):
being a continual learner, being alifetime learner, and then ultimately I
end up with a big library ofmaterials. What I like about opcity is
it allows me to do these clusters. Now you can do that with machine
learning, you could do that withtext analytics. But it does a good
job of giving me a cluster.And if I see a cluster that's highly
concentrated and I've had ten or fifteenquestions from clients about that particular topic,
(18:30):
I might publish a report or apaper, or i might write a course
for example. And now I'm goingto monetize those notes. Now, when
I wrote those original notes, theintent for the note was so that I
could do a podcast, and thenI realized, well, creating a podcast
doesn't have a lot of value ifyou don't have listeners. It doesn't have
a lot of value. If Idon't have specific target listeners, it doesn't
(18:52):
have a lot of value. Ifthose listeners aren't willing to pay me to
solve a problem, it doesn't havea lot of value. If I don't
consistently and see all that timeline,that long timeline, develop notes, and
I refine the notes because it's partof a thinking process to produce an outcome,
to clarify information, and then toultimately get to where I am.
(19:14):
And then because I have the notes, those are artifacts. I might even
have articles. I might have apodcast about podcasting or a report about podcasting.
I can then flip those materials intoa book, deliverable into a course,
deliverable into something else. Now,a lot of my materials, and
to be fair, a lot ofmy notes were commissioned, and let me
(19:37):
share what that means. So Ican read something, I can learn something.
I can attend a course. Butover the years, I'm going to
attend supplemental materials building on my previouslessons. But there are times a client
will come to me and say,justin you're good at writing technical documents,
you're good at doing research, you'regood at managing small teams to do these
(19:59):
things. I'd like you to createfor me a report on So, for
example, when COVID first happened inNovember of twenty nineteen, a client came
to me and said, Hey,something's going on here. What's the opportunity.
So they asked me to write areport because they wanted to know how
they should handle COVID in their business. And I did, say twenty nineteen,
this was before it was in thenews. Very often, the notes
(20:23):
I've taken in the past positioned meas someone you turn to when you need
answers for obscure topics. And soI did my research. I pulled my
documents, and when I'm doing research, I'm downloading all the original PDFs I
run into. I could be creatingPDFs. I'm taking notes in my note
taking system. I'm using Zotero tomanage my references between different documents. I'm
(20:47):
analyzing information and then writing a summaryanalysis. So that particular client, I
said, look, we've got threeissues here. We've got origin, we've
got how to respond, We've gotother connotations or issues, and I said,
which of these you'd you like meto cover the most. They weren't
as concerned about the origin, butthey were concerned about how their company should
(21:07):
respond and the legal liability associated withtheir response, because again my area of
expertise is risk management, and sothey say, Okay, what's the human
resources risk if we send everybody homeversus keeping them in the office, if
we require vaccines or don't require vaccines. So I ended up having several clients
(21:27):
to write the commission report, becausethe way I do a commission report is
I have five or six clients andI'm writing one report for five or six
clients. And so again I gathertheir questions, I gather their areas of
concern, I gather the frustrations thatthey have. I gather the outcomes that
they're looking to accomplish. And thenthey don't worry about it. They go
on with the regular course of business. They've got important things to do.
(21:48):
And then I bring in my researchers. I bring in what I do.
I build these note sets, andthen from the note set I turn around
and create a commissioned report, whichthen the client will provide feedback, and
then we will tailor the report tofinalize based on their feedback. Because a
lot of times, why commission areport if the report isn't going to give
you a plan of action or multipleplans of action so you can solve a
(22:11):
specific problem. Again, why doI show you that whole workflow? Because
in my world, as a technicalwriter, as a copywriter, as a
marketer, I create a lot ofcollateral materials that have a high value to
recycle, and so if you're goingto take notes, you want a high
value to recycle. Now again,maybe I'm different. Maybe I'm special because
(22:34):
I recycled my Punic Wars report fromelementary school through high school, and I
kept adding to the report, andI kept expanding the report. I can't
find the damn report, and Idon't remember anything about the Punic Wars.
But I do know that as Irecycled materials, I could write the report
faster, I could write it ata new level. I wasn't turning in
(22:57):
the same report. The elementary schoolreport was elementary school quality, the middle
school was middle school quality. Butultimately I didn't have to go back.
So I've got notes that are morethan twenty three years old in this system
that from time to time will berecovered. But if I were to look
at the activity of these reports,so twenty seven thousand notes, probably only
(23:18):
twenty percent of the notes are beingused today. The rest of them,
if they were deleted, I wouldn'tknow, I wouldn't care, wouldn't necessarily
care. However, my business modelis as a writer, is built on
specific topic areas, and while I'mmaybe taking notes on areas of interest,
it's more for memory purpose. Soif I take notes on specific areas of
(23:44):
interest, I might just use thatbecause I'm interested in the topic, and
I might be thinking later, Hey, you know, I'd like to I'd
like to attract some beneficial insects.Do I have any notes on beneficial insect
habitat? And then I might havethat it may not fit the need a
purpose of what I'm trying to accomplish. Then, but I might have links
to webinars or to a link toa YouTube video or something where I can
(24:07):
get additional information. So again it'sa very important question. A lot of
folks are wasting time taking notes becausethey don't have a system for using the
notes to create some kind of deliverable. A lot of folks take notes without
following a guideline that works for them. So zedel casting works for me because
that's how I was already taking atomicnotes twenty years ago before I knew what
(24:30):
zedel casting was, and I wasmaking cross references. And again the engineering
notebooks. I've used engineering notebooks along long time, even into high school,
because I grew up near pax Riverand there's a lot of engineers and
they use engineering notebooks. And Ilove the fact that in the corner there's
a number for every page. Soif my notebook has a code, so
(24:52):
this is notebook zer zero four,I can go zero zero four dot whatever
page and recall information. I've beendoing that for twenty years. I had
no idea what z'lcast it was,because I was shown that by engineers.
And then these are legal logs,by the way, and so when you're
inventing things or coming up with newideas and concepts, this evidence is my
(25:14):
original thought. That may not beas anal you may not be that antal
retentive, you may not care.But again, when I was in college
and I had to write a twentypage paper, I can knock that out.
In fact, this skill set wasso valuable that I have written other
people's doctoral thesises, so I cantake any topic. Now, I don't
do this for any topic. Ido it for topics that I have some
(25:36):
level of interest in, because itis an arduous activity to write somebody's master's
paper or doctoral thesis. Again,if you're just taking notes for business,
maybe you're a content developer and you'rewriting content for a newsletter. Having these
atomic notes on different ideas and concepts, having copies of conversations with customers,
(25:59):
those things actually make it useful towrite content that somebody cares to read.
Because again, if you're writing notesthat you can't use or notes that you'll
never use, then why write thenote in the first place. Now,
reading the book, Reading the bookis important. I've read some books multiple
times, and like I said,I've taken notes inside of books that I
find very useful. But I've alsodone, in the course of my consulting
(26:22):
activity, deep level analysis of books. So the book rules for radicals,
I probably record it maybe eight hoursof the concepts of the book. This
was a commission with a client duringthe BLM riots. And then there's other
January sixth and stuff. People havecome in and ask stuff. So I've
looked at okay rules for radicals.There's mass delusions. There's a bunch of
(26:45):
different books. I might have gonein and read those multiple times. And
so those books actually have notes insidethe book Archipelo, the Gulag book.
I can go back and reference mynotes on that. I wouldn't want to
read that almost thousand page set ofbooks again. So we've got the original
text, We've got notes that providea mnemonic reference to what's in depth in
(27:07):
the book itself, and then wecan build on top of that whatever the
deliverable is. And I keep goingback to the deliverable. Do you have
to write a term paper? Areyou writing a master's thesis? Are you
writing a doctoral thesis? Are youwriting a paper for business purposes, a
white paper, special report. I'mthe author of Establishing Instinct Credibility, and
the premise of the book is thatyou're going to write a report for a
(27:30):
specific audience that demonstrates your ability todo complex services so that they'll hire you
for high ticket services or they'll hireyou as an employee. Again, taking
the notes makes that easier. Takingthe notes makes it helps you discover new
ideas, But if you're not goingto use the notes, then don't bother.
(27:51):
I believe the second brain tools makeit easier to take notes, but
that ease often makes it easy totake notes about things that don't have any
use their value. Also, youhave to be careful not to be contemplating.
There's a lot of distraction on socialmedia where people are contemplating things that
(28:11):
have no real application in their ownlife. And so if you fill your
notes up full of those conversations,you know, the latest burns and comebacks
that you can use on social media, it's not going to be beneficial.
Could be entertaining, but not necessarilybeneficial. So again the question was how
much did you benefit? I makemy living off of these notes and these
(28:36):
observations and the analysis of these notes, and the derivative materials created from notes
and observations combined. Is it wastingtime? It is by fifty percent of
what I do. Like this pileof material. I cannot search through this
pile of material. I have toliterally sit down every day and pull this
(28:56):
material out. Where in a inan engineering notebook, I've got a table
of contents which I just picked thatup and stuff fell out of it.
See it's not perfect. But ifyou're too focused on making it perfect and
making every note productive and making everybook you read tied to your career or
(29:17):
tied to your area of interest,you're going to you're just going to burn
a lot of time and you're neverreally going to become a subject matter expert.
Now taking notes, I didn't knowtwenty three years ago, or even
thirty years ago that taking notes wasgoing to help me become a subject matter
expert. I had no idea.I just knew that taking notes made it
(29:38):
easier to write a paper. Icould take notes on index cards, and
then each index card had a uniquetitle, a unique subject and a little
title. And I knew that ifI put those index cards on the floor
or whatever, you know, putthem on a table, I could organize
those notes into an outline, andthen it made it easier to write a
paper. And so these are skillssets that overlap that the tools themselves can
(30:03):
distract. But it's not a wasteof time if you're using the notes.
Now, if I made a giantpile of index cards, and each index
card had a nice little title anda little note on it and had perfect
cross references, and I never putit in an outline, and I never
filed it in a cabinet in anorganized way, and I never recalled those
(30:26):
materials. Then yes, I wouldbe wasting time. I actually I have
complete books. I have a bookon how to optimize business to business websites
that's a stack of index cards probablyabout that thick. And I never wrote
the book ever because I didn't havean audience who wanted to buy the book.
And if I'm in the business ofwriting books and reports and courses that
people buy, why write the coursethat nobody wants to buy? And then
(30:51):
the underlying fact here is that howdo I know nobody wants to buy it?
Because I have methodology for publishing.So if you work from the methodology
for publishing, you know, demandfocused activity, then you're likely to take
highly valuable notes. But even thoughif you just take notes, you know,
notes that don't tend to be valuable, if you can do them in
(31:15):
a fast way, then as longas you're not focusing too much time there,
you'd be good to go. SoI hope this has answered your question.
I do actually go back and readthe books. How do I know
what books I should read? Becausethe notes are nomonic device? And why
do I take notes? Because Iwrite documents and reports and I publish materials.
But I also take notes in areasof just general interest gardening. Actually,
(31:41):
the notes in general interest ended upbecoming a blog. I have a
blog that has you know, it'spretty. It's kind of popular, not
super popular, but again it's myoutlet. So I think the last thing
is because he says read, forexample, or learn something. I think
the notes are part of my learningprocess. And so if I'm shoving a
(32:04):
lot of stuff in my brain intopic areas tied to my work and career
and my professional life, and thena lot of topics tied to my personal
life, I know the brain doesn'tremember things. It actually reconstructs ideas and
memories. I don't want to reconstructit the wrong way. Okay, So
I want to take the notes sothat if I have to answer a question
(32:27):
like in this case, I cangive you authoritative answer. Now let's end
this with this last bit here.So I've gone on thirty three minutes about
how taking notes is useful. Andthis video is not transcribed. It's simply
loaded to YouTube and I reference itin the comment. And I did that
because I can answer the same questionmany times, So if somebody else asked
this question, I can link tothe same video, so it's a time
(32:50):
saving activity. But I don't havethe transcript of this video somewhere, so
I'll have a note that represents thisvideo and has a link to the video.
So if anybody ever asked a questionhow much do you benefit from taking
notes? I don't have to answerthe question again. I can point to
this video if they have additional questions, more specific questions, or they've hired
(33:13):
me for consultation, because maybe they'rea publisher, maybe they're a writer,
Maybe they're a copywriter or a marketer. Maybe they're a business executive who's taking
notes throughout their entire career and thenwants to publish a book when it comes
time for retirement for passive income,for example. Then I've actually built a
stream to drive leads into my courseof business, and therefore that original note,
(33:36):
as insignificant as it is, willhelp me find this video so that
I can share it with the nextperson. So I hope I've given you
a couple practical examples of how notetaking can be very productive but also a
big distraction. I hope I've givenyou some ideas on how note taking is
only part of a larger process forpublishing or creating some kind of deliverable And
(33:59):
then finally, I've hope I've shownyou how note taking is actually a mnemonic
device to help you recall information ina way that's actually beneficial to creating an
outcome. Because I didn't even gointo artificial intelligence, but essentially the querying
mechanism you use to recall these notes. We want to make sure that you
(34:20):
understand what you're recovering so that youcan use what you're recovering in your note
taking system or thank you for beinga part of what we do here.
This is now a podcast episode,so that's a third use for this particular
video, and I hope I'm stimulatingthose ideas and concepts because as a knowledge
worker, you're paid on productivity thatis difficult to measure, and you also
(34:44):
have to have evidence in many caseswhen you're in higher stakes activities, and
so note taking is a critical part, but not a primary part of getting
results. I'm justin hit with insidestrategic relations, where we help business owners
and executives, knowledge workers and professionalsuse knowledge to gain influence, whether that's
a better career path, whether that'slayoff, proofing your current position or creating
(35:09):
a business on your own. Weshow you how to use, store,
manage information in such a way thenit works on your behalf. I'll never
have to go take those notes againif I take good notes in the first
place, and then I'll use thosenotes many times so they'll pay for themselves
if I have that outcome focused.You can visit us at www dot inside
(35:30):
strategic relations dot com to ask questionsor put some questions in the comments below.
I would love to answer your questionbecause it challenges all the notes I've
taken in the past. It challengesall the professional skills and insights that I've
gained, and gives me an opportunityto package this up and hopefully be useful
to you. Thanks for watching,and I'll see you next one.
The question is real, how muchdo you actually benefit from taking notes?
When you use a second brain productor a note taking application, are you
really benefiting yourself when it comes tobeing more influential in marketplace, having more
knowledge and access to knowledge, orbeing able to solve problems in business?
I'm going to address that right here. I'm just a hit with Inside Strategic
(00:23):
Relations. I'm that guy online thathas eighteen thy seven hundred and fifty three
notes in his Obsidian note taking application. Now, the current count today is
in that video is probably a coupleof years old. The current count today
is twenty seven one twenty seven notes. And the question that came in,
a very real and important question thatcame in is how much do you benefit
(00:46):
from taking these notes? And thisperson is not being sarcastic. They have
the same dilemma. They're probably likeme at times, feeling like they're wasting
a lot of time when you canactually read or learn something. Now here,
this is very important in the language. Let me read it exactly how
they put it. I feel likeit's wasting a lot of time while you
could actually read, for example,or learn something. Well, my notes
(01:08):
are the result of reading. NowI read on purpose. I don't read
as much entertaining material. I doread from a very wide range of topics.
In the range of topics, ifwe were to make a list of
the professional topics, which is riskmanagement and business development, and then there's
subtopics on that which could be informationmanagement, documentary, retention, how do
(01:32):
we learn creative, creative and criticalthinking. So if we laid out those
subjects of work related, consulting relatedactivities, and then we compared it with
the topics in which I read andmight even take notes about, I have
a much broader list, so Iread about agricultural topics, environmental topics.
(01:53):
I'm a master naturalist, so Ihave notes where I've attended a seminar on
beneficial insects, and then I've takensome notes here. All of this is
in the system. So twenty seventhousand records seems like a lot of records,
but it's a misnomer number. It'skind of like a headline, a
clickbait headline, because it's how arethose notes taken? And more importantly,
(02:16):
why are those notes taken? Andso a lot of folks can take notes
because it feels like you're doing somethingand At times, I'll have an idea
come to mind and instead of writingit on a piece of paper that's on
my desk, and now it's alittle hard to do drawings I used to
do. I used to have oneof those notepads that were digital notepads,
(02:36):
so I could do a drawing andend up as a PDF file. But
now I end up with hundreds ofPDF files because when I have an idea,
I take a note. And thereason I'm looking around here is because,
unfortunately, there are piles of papers, literally piles of papers that include
notes that haven't yet been processed.So I will agree that note taking can
(02:59):
be counter productive or even unproductive ifdone the wrong way. And you might
say, well, justin you're doingit the wrong way. But a lot
of my thinking is done externally.So first we've got to start with how
do you think? How do youprocess information? I can sit down and
read a book. I read prettyquickly. I've taken speed reading classes.
(03:19):
I can read through a book inone sitting. I could just sit down
and just read one hundred pages inone sitting. I enjoy that. If
it's a topic I'm interested in,I'll go through it pretty quickly, but
I'll time save the moment. Sosometimes I'll be reading. So if I'm
reading The True Believer by Eric Hofferand there's a note in there and it's
like, wow, that makes sense. I want to remember that. I
(03:44):
don't necessarily remember it in my brain. I might write it down somewhere.
And so some of the notes inmy obsidian are files that include hundreds of
notes. Now the notes could beI organize the notes topically because I'm using
it Zeel cast In method, buttopically within atomic notes. So let me
break that down. Why is thisimportant? So, first off, if
(04:09):
you consume a lot of information,so you're a knowledge worker and you read
books or you're working on projects,it is necessary to take notes to synthesize
the original material or multiple pieces ofmaterials. So I might read five books
on the same topic, and Iwant to synthesize those ideas in order to
implement the ideas into solving some problem. And so I might read a book
(04:31):
like the Eric Hoffer book and Imight say, wow, this is very
interesting. What does it mean tome? So that could be one note,
it could be just the quote.It could be three notes, It
could be the quote and some commentary. It could be a note with some
bullet points. But there may bea time that I'll sit down after I've
clustered notes around a particular topic,and I might say, hey, this
(04:53):
is interesting, maybe I need towrite a paper about this. Now,
the professional area of risk management,business element, and then the subcategories there
are going to be the primary areasthat I'm going to build a report or
I'm going to write a paper,or because I'm not in college anymore,
so when I was in college,I might do all this reading on purpose
(05:13):
to write a paper. But nowI'm collecting notes because well, that's interesting.
I don't want to forget it now. One thing that I found is
very important, because I did showyou the pile of paper on my desk
here, is that I actually useengineering notebooks now. So instead of having
piles of paper everywhere, I mightwrite something in my engineering notebook. And
this book is from twenty twenty one. I filled this whole notebook with this
(05:36):
whole notebook up in twenty twenty one, this one in twenty twenty one.
This is a way of processing calledjournaling. Now that's different from the zetlcast
and method because if I'm going totype it up in the computer and make
it searchable. I want those atomicnotes that cross reference, and I can
do cross referencing in the engineering notebook, and the engineering notebook has numbered pages.
(05:58):
But my point is the capture ofinformation is part of my way of
processing information. I don't want torely on my memory, primarily because I
took a college level class on howthe brain works, and the brain doesn't
work very well. The brain canbe easily tricked. That's why a lot
of people take notes. They feellike they're productive, but then when they
look back on the notes, theyrealize they've got a pile of notes and
(06:20):
nothing else. So Number one,if you're a student, and I am
a lifetime student, you're going totake notes to capture key ideas and concepts
to create a mnemonic reference. Nowwhat's mnemonic mean. It means a memory
tool that's going to help you rememberspecific and useful information that you may need
(06:42):
to recall in the future. Soif you're taking notes about things that doesn't
really matter to you, it doesn'thave a high level of interest, you
are wasting your time. But ifit's career related, if it's subject or
topical related, to a course ofstudy, if it's related to some problem
that you have that you're trying tosolve. These are notes that are highly
productive. Now, the act oftaking notes itself is not productive at all.
(07:06):
You could sit down, read abook, immediately implement the book,
and then get the results. Thatwas the reason you read the book in
the first place. However, lifeis very busy. There's a lot of
distractions. You could get a telephonecall there, something could happen, and
so the notes also provide a placeholderfor knowledge. Now, I also have
(07:29):
notes that include all conversations online.I don't engage in social media or answer
comments to the web, to theblog posts, or answer comments to the
videos just to do it. Idon't need that kind of social engagement.
If I didn't have a computer,I could find enough social activities to do
now. However, I do prefersocial activities that are role based. I
(07:51):
guess that would be like melay based. I guess I'd rather get a message
from somebody and then answer that message, like we're doing right here. With
this particular comment that was made onthe Massive Obscenian Vault graph view with eighteen
seven hundred and fifty three notes.Again, I have twenty seven thousand notes.
Now what I find is by havingthis external memory, I do tend
(08:15):
to take the same notes more thanonce. And this is very important to
understand the concept. Let's say,and I got an example here. I
have read these books, so Ihave at times staff, I have virtual
assistance, a secretary, somebody who'sdoing administrative work. And I have read
all three of these books. Okay, and these books are about being a
(08:37):
great personal assistant. I actually readthese books and use these insights myself to
have better executive function and skills.Now, this is very important to pay
attention to. I had not takenany notes about these books because the notes
are in these books. So thisis the consumption of information. And not
(08:58):
all these books have highlights or anythingon it. But sometimes the consumption of
information is about as you're processing materials, taking notes in the margin, highlighting
things. But now we have theproblem that that's trapped in a book.
And I actually thought these copies hadI actually have PDFs as well that have
(09:18):
annotations in them. But so there'slike one book market here. I think
these are the copies that I have. I'm actually sitting in my conference room
where usually assistant would sit. Idon't have any assistants at my house right
now. This is my home,one of my home office areas. Anyway,
here's my point. I can referencethat book anytime I need it because
(09:39):
I know mnemonically, I know thatthat book contains a subset of information on
administrative services, and like for example, the Definitive Personal Assistant and Secretarial Handbook
has specific activities on how to accomplishcertain tasks in business. I times I'm
(10:00):
responsible for bookkeeping, I'm responsible forfollowing up on emails, I'm responsible for
correspondence. But in those times thatI'm not, I wanted consistency in the
implementation of those activities, and sowe use the book as a note because
it's got a great table of contents, it's got a great index, it's
easy to recall the information. Now, what I find is beneficial about note
(10:24):
taking applications like Notion, like City, and like all these other platforms,
even a bunch of textpiles in afolder, is that if I want to
recall information, I can search forthat information. Now, every note I
have, if it's as a resultof reading a book or piece of material,
has the original citation in it,and so when I go search,
(10:48):
for example, I have up onmy screen. I have a challenge here
with doing interviews. So I dointerviews, I answer questions, and the
recording is not always clean, andit takes a lot of time to get
out of the office to publish formy newsletter, or to publish for my
consulting work, or to publish asa response to somebody's question. Now what
happens here is it I don't wantto watch a thirty minute video. I
(11:11):
don't want to watch a twenty minutevideo. I don't want to read a
book. I don't want to goin all the details. But those key
points that caught my attention are nowsearchable in a text based platform. Now
the text is very important because Imight write a Python script to cluster you
know, I might be doing textanalytics and clustering ideas because I'm writing a
(11:31):
new book. But again, whatis a deliverable? Why are you taking
notes? And then how do wehave notes that are conducive or are aligned
with those areas in which we mayneed to produce an output. So I
do have notes in here that whenI search for the note and it comes
(11:52):
up, it is gobblybook. Ifound a few lists of keywords for so
I used to have a hosting companyand I was doing a lot of work
for hosting companies. I had listsof keywords about virtual private servers and all
those keywords. That has no valueto me. Now that's not useful to
me, it's probably not useful toanybody else, So I just delete that
(12:13):
note. So, yeah, you'regonna get notes in the system that are
a complete waste of time, thatare a distraction. Maybe you're just sorting
out an idea. And when youlook at the notes in the future,
it doesn't make any sense. Itdoesn't seem it's useful. However, if
the structure's good and the note isa mnemonic, so it's memory aid,
(12:33):
it may give you. It maytrigger an idea. You may look at
that note and say, and thissays right here, objective colon, clean,
interview with guests, normal volume onboth sides, ability to share screens.
Okay, so that might trigger mybrain. I need a product to
help me do this, or Ineed an assistant to help me with this,
or I need to hire an editingcompany. It hasn't solved the problem,
(12:56):
but it has reminded me that Ihave this thing go on and on,
so that when I take the note, I can just let it go
of my brain. I don't haveto fill my brain up with a bunch
of stuff that hasn't that isn't goingto benefit me today. When it comes
to administrative assistant activities. Have Iliked these books so much? I dedicated
a space on the desk next toa person who would be doing administrative work,
(13:20):
and I just I use these bookstoo, And so when that administrative
person was in here, maybe I'vehired somebody new and they have a question
about how to respond to emails orthe difference between white mail, which is
correspondence from potential customers versus administrative mail. That might be, you know,
a copy of a digital copy ofa bill. How do we manage those
(13:41):
things. I don't have to answerthat question. I can say to them,
Hey, there's a couple of booksright next to desk, wy don't
you browse through those and then comecome back to me with a procedure or
a process. And then that procedureor process I may codify it in my
note taking system, print out aPDF file to them, and then that's
the proceed you we use in house, but all the notes getting up to
(14:01):
that point, all the details areabout preference. All of that can come
together in a cluster of ideas toproduce that paper faster than if I had
to sit down and read all threeof these books right away and then write
a procedure. And in many casesI might get in here and say,
oh, look on page one fortysix, just do that. So we
(14:22):
have to and to avoid that wastingof time, we are optimizing our time
to build artifacts and tools that willagain move you towards an outcome, a
specific outcome. We have a programabout outcome management. A lot of people
today are trying to start businesses andthey're trying to do this, try and
(14:45):
do that, and then the shinyobjects and distractions have them all over the
place, and the original intent whyis it that they start at the business
in the first place, is completelylost and next thing you knew, they're
feeding social media platforms, they're feedingthe YouTube algorithm. They're trying to make
friends and influence people, and they'renot making any money in business. The
(15:09):
reason you would start a business mightbe for the tax simplification implications. It
may be to serve a specific customergroup and exchange value. But again it
can be easily distracted. So thenotes become an anchor. So in my
note system, for example, Ihave project profiles and so that I can
pull up with a particular tool here, and I'm not sharing my desktop right
(15:31):
now, because if we were doinga coaching, I would tailor what I
show you based on your specific needs. And if you were a business owner
or an executive and you want itto be more productive, these notes provide
a personal preview of where information isstored and such. A lot of solopreneurs,
for example, copywriters, marketers,folks that have small agencies, they
(15:52):
can use a note taking application toorganize ideas as they're writing content organized ideas
as their manager day to day marketingcampaigns Now is a second brain or note
taking application the end all not necessarilyif you have a team of people.
For example, if you're researching,if you're in a research lab. I've
worked with academics before, you mayhave a bunch of researchers that are bringing
(16:15):
together information and you may want toall be in the same repository. So
platforms like Lotus notes, SharePoint,any kind of document management system where you
can search those will help library keyinformation and then help you manage and delegate
a team to gather that information up. Because again, the note taking is
(16:37):
about simplifying, translating, creating referenceto, and delivering large complex sets of
data into smaller, bite sized chunksso that we can make informed decisions as
we create some kind of deliverable Whenwe're looking at this, what is the
benefit of taking all these notes?Well, if we use the notes and
(16:59):
we can easily recall the content fromthese notes, then the benefit is that
I save a tremendous amount of timeI would still read the book. So
sometimes I'm going to solve a problem. I'm going to buy five books on
the topic. I'll read all fivebooks. I'll outline the key ideas and
concepts that are relevant to the problemthat I have. I'll from that outline
build out underneath that, maybe someprocedures, maybe some checklists. These are
(17:25):
all notes. An outline is aconcept for notes, and then at the
end of that I will go usethe outline or the procedures or the checklist
in the course of business to getthe outcome and result. Now, in
my case, because I own apublishing company. I might use those procedures
for five or ten years. Imight develop notes and profiles and preferences around
(17:45):
those procedures, and then after tenor fifteen years, I might be able
to come out and just publish abook about it. So I have a
program called Podcasting for Profits. I'vebeen podcasting for more than twenty years,
and I've made profits podcasting, andso I've now gone from notes on how
to do something years and years agoto tuning my skill set as I progress,
(18:07):
being a continual learner, being alifetime learner, and then ultimately I
end up with a big library ofmaterials. What I like about opcity is
it allows me to do these clusters. Now you can do that with machine
learning, you could do that withtext analytics. But it does a good
job of giving me a cluster.And if I see a cluster that's highly
concentrated and I've had ten or fifteenquestions from clients about that particular topic,
(18:30):
I might publish a report or apaper, or i might write a course
for example. And now I'm goingto monetize those notes. Now, when
I wrote those original notes, theintent for the note was so that I
could do a podcast, and thenI realized, well, creating a podcast
doesn't have a lot of value ifyou don't have listeners. It doesn't have
a lot of value. If Idon't have specific target listeners, it doesn't
(18:52):
have a lot of value. Ifthose listeners aren't willing to pay me to
solve a problem, it doesn't havea lot of value. If I don't
consistently and see all that timeline,that long timeline, develop notes, and
I refine the notes because it's partof a thinking process to produce an outcome,
to clarify information, and then toultimately get to where I am.
(19:14):
And then because I have the notes, those are artifacts. I might even
have articles. I might have apodcast about podcasting or a report about podcasting.
I can then flip those materials intoa book, deliverable into a course,
deliverable into something else. Now,a lot of my materials, and
to be fair, a lot ofmy notes were commissioned, and let me
(19:37):
share what that means. So Ican read something, I can learn something.
I can attend a course. Butover the years, I'm going to
attend supplemental materials building on my previouslessons. But there are times a client
will come to me and say,justin you're good at writing technical documents,
you're good at doing research, you'regood at managing small teams to do these
(19:59):
things. I'd like you to createfor me a report on So, for
example, when COVID first happened inNovember of twenty nineteen, a client came
to me and said, Hey,something's going on here. What's the opportunity.
So they asked me to write areport because they wanted to know how
they should handle COVID in their business. And I did, say twenty nineteen,
this was before it was in thenews. Very often, the notes
(20:23):
I've taken in the past positioned meas someone you turn to when you need
answers for obscure topics. And soI did my research. I pulled my
documents, and when I'm doing research, I'm downloading all the original PDFs I
run into. I could be creatingPDFs. I'm taking notes in my note
taking system. I'm using Zotero tomanage my references between different documents. I'm
(20:47):
analyzing information and then writing a summaryanalysis. So that particular client, I
said, look, we've got threeissues here. We've got origin, we've
got how to respond, We've gotother connotations or issues, and I said,
which of these you'd you like meto cover the most. They weren't
as concerned about the origin, butthey were concerned about how their company should
(21:07):
respond and the legal liability associated withtheir response, because again my area of
expertise is risk management, and sothey say, Okay, what's the human
resources risk if we send everybody homeversus keeping them in the office, if
we require vaccines or don't require vaccines. So I ended up having several clients
(21:27):
to write the commission report, becausethe way I do a commission report is
I have five or six clients andI'm writing one report for five or six
clients. And so again I gathertheir questions, I gather their areas of
concern, I gather the frustrations thatthey have. I gather the outcomes that
they're looking to accomplish. And thenthey don't worry about it. They go
on with the regular course of business. They've got important things to do.
(21:48):
And then I bring in my researchers. I bring in what I do.
I build these note sets, andthen from the note set I turn around
and create a commissioned report, whichthen the client will provide feedback, and
then we will tailor the report tofinalize based on their feedback. Because a
lot of times, why commission areport if the report isn't going to give
you a plan of action or multipleplans of action so you can solve a
(22:11):
specific problem. Again, why doI show you that whole workflow? Because
in my world, as a technicalwriter, as a copywriter, as a
marketer, I create a lot ofcollateral materials that have a high value to
recycle, and so if you're goingto take notes, you want a high
value to recycle. Now again,maybe I'm different. Maybe I'm special because
(22:34):
I recycled my Punic Wars report fromelementary school through high school, and I
kept adding to the report, andI kept expanding the report. I can't
find the damn report, and Idon't remember anything about the Punic Wars.
But I do know that as Irecycled materials, I could write the report
faster, I could write it ata new level. I wasn't turning in
(22:57):
the same report. The elementary schoolreport was elementary school quality, the middle
school was middle school quality. Butultimately I didn't have to go back.
So I've got notes that are morethan twenty three years old in this system
that from time to time will berecovered. But if I were to look
at the activity of these reports,so twenty seven thousand notes, probably only
(23:18):
twenty percent of the notes are beingused today. The rest of them,
if they were deleted, I wouldn'tknow, I wouldn't care, wouldn't necessarily
care. However, my business modelis as a writer, is built on
specific topic areas, and while I'mmaybe taking notes on areas of interest,
it's more for memory purpose. Soif I take notes on specific areas of
(23:44):
interest, I might just use thatbecause I'm interested in the topic, and
I might be thinking later, Hey, you know, I'd like to I'd
like to attract some beneficial insects.Do I have any notes on beneficial insect
habitat? And then I might havethat it may not fit the need a
purpose of what I'm trying to accomplish. Then, but I might have links
to webinars or to a link toa YouTube video or something where I can
(24:07):
get additional information. So again it'sa very important question. A lot of
folks are wasting time taking notes becausethey don't have a system for using the
notes to create some kind of deliverable. A lot of folks take notes without
following a guideline that works for them. So zedel casting works for me because
that's how I was already taking atomicnotes twenty years ago before I knew what
(24:30):
zedel casting was, and I wasmaking cross references. And again the engineering
notebooks. I've used engineering notebooks along long time, even into high school,
because I grew up near pax Riverand there's a lot of engineers and
they use engineering notebooks. And Ilove the fact that in the corner there's
a number for every page. Soif my notebook has a code, so
(24:52):
this is notebook zer zero four,I can go zero zero four dot whatever
page and recall information. I've beendoing that for twenty years. I had
no idea what z'lcast it was,because I was shown that by engineers.
And then these are legal logs,by the way, and so when you're
inventing things or coming up with newideas and concepts, this evidence is my
(25:14):
original thought. That may not beas anal you may not be that antal
retentive, you may not care.But again, when I was in college
and I had to write a twentypage paper, I can knock that out.
In fact, this skill set wasso valuable that I have written other
people's doctoral thesises, so I cantake any topic. Now, I don't
do this for any topic. Ido it for topics that I have some
(25:36):
level of interest in, because itis an arduous activity to write somebody's master's
paper or doctoral thesis. Again,if you're just taking notes for business,
maybe you're a content developer and you'rewriting content for a newsletter. Having these
atomic notes on different ideas and concepts, having copies of conversations with customers,
(25:59):
those things actually make it useful towrite content that somebody cares to read.
Because again, if you're writing notesthat you can't use or notes that you'll
never use, then why write thenote in the first place. Now,
reading the book, Reading the bookis important. I've read some books multiple
times, and like I said,I've taken notes inside of books that I
find very useful. But I've alsodone, in the course of my consulting
(26:22):
activity, deep level analysis of books. So the book rules for radicals,
I probably record it maybe eight hoursof the concepts of the book. This
was a commission with a client duringthe BLM riots. And then there's other
January sixth and stuff. People havecome in and ask stuff. So I've
looked at okay rules for radicals.There's mass delusions. There's a bunch of
(26:45):
different books. I might have gonein and read those multiple times. And
so those books actually have notes insidethe book Archipelo, the Gulag book.
I can go back and reference mynotes on that. I wouldn't want to
read that almost thousand page set ofbooks again. So we've got the original
text, We've got notes that providea mnemonic reference to what's in depth in
(27:07):
the book itself, and then wecan build on top of that whatever the
deliverable is. And I keep goingback to the deliverable. Do you have
to write a term paper? Areyou writing a master's thesis? Are you
writing a doctoral thesis? Are youwriting a paper for business purposes, a
white paper, special report. I'mthe author of Establishing Instinct Credibility, and
the premise of the book is thatyou're going to write a report for a
(27:30):
specific audience that demonstrates your ability todo complex services so that they'll hire you
for high ticket services or they'll hireyou as an employee. Again, taking
the notes makes that easier. Takingthe notes makes it helps you discover new
ideas, But if you're not goingto use the notes, then don't bother.
(27:51):
I believe the second brain tools makeit easier to take notes, but
that ease often makes it easy totake notes about things that don't have any
use their value. Also, youhave to be careful not to be contemplating.
There's a lot of distraction on socialmedia where people are contemplating things that
(28:11):
have no real application in their ownlife. And so if you fill your
notes up full of those conversations,you know, the latest burns and comebacks
that you can use on social media, it's not going to be beneficial.
Could be entertaining, but not necessarilybeneficial. So again the question was how
much did you benefit? I makemy living off of these notes and these
(28:36):
observations and the analysis of these notes, and the derivative materials created from notes
and observations combined. Is it wastingtime? It is by fifty percent of
what I do. Like this pileof material. I cannot search through this
pile of material. I have toliterally sit down every day and pull this
(28:56):
material out. Where in a inan engineering notebook, I've got a table
of contents which I just picked thatup and stuff fell out of it.
See it's not perfect. But ifyou're too focused on making it perfect and
making every note productive and making everybook you read tied to your career or
(29:17):
tied to your area of interest,you're going to you're just going to burn
a lot of time and you're neverreally going to become a subject matter expert.
Now taking notes, I didn't knowtwenty three years ago, or even
thirty years ago that taking notes wasgoing to help me become a subject matter
expert. I had no idea.I just knew that taking notes made it
(29:38):
easier to write a paper. Icould take notes on index cards, and
then each index card had a uniquetitle, a unique subject and a little
title. And I knew that ifI put those index cards on the floor
or whatever, you know, putthem on a table, I could organize
those notes into an outline, andthen it made it easier to write a
paper. And so these are skillssets that overlap that the tools themselves can
(30:03):
distract. But it's not a wasteof time if you're using the notes.
Now, if I made a giantpile of index cards, and each index
card had a nice little title anda little note on it and had perfect
cross references, and I never putit in an outline, and I never
filed it in a cabinet in anorganized way, and I never recalled those
(30:26):
materials. Then yes, I wouldbe wasting time. I actually I have
complete books. I have a bookon how to optimize business to business websites
that's a stack of index cards probablyabout that thick. And I never wrote
the book ever because I didn't havean audience who wanted to buy the book.
And if I'm in the business ofwriting books and reports and courses that
people buy, why write the coursethat nobody wants to buy? And then
(30:51):
the underlying fact here is that howdo I know nobody wants to buy it?
Because I have methodology for publishing.So if you work from the methodology
for publishing, you know, demandfocused activity, then you're likely to take
highly valuable notes. But even thoughif you just take notes, you know,
notes that don't tend to be valuable, if you can do them in
(31:15):
a fast way, then as longas you're not focusing too much time there,
you'd be good to go. SoI hope this has answered your question.
I do actually go back and readthe books. How do I know
what books I should read? Becausethe notes are nomonic device? And why
do I take notes? Because Iwrite documents and reports and I publish materials.
But I also take notes in areasof just general interest gardening. Actually,
(31:41):
the notes in general interest ended upbecoming a blog. I have a
blog that has you know, it'spretty. It's kind of popular, not
super popular, but again it's myoutlet. So I think the last thing
is because he says read, forexample, or learn something. I think
the notes are part of my learningprocess. And so if I'm shoving a
(32:04):
lot of stuff in my brain intopic areas tied to my work and career
and my professional life, and thena lot of topics tied to my personal
life, I know the brain doesn'tremember things. It actually reconstructs ideas and
memories. I don't want to reconstructit the wrong way. Okay, So
I want to take the notes sothat if I have to answer a question
(32:27):
like in this case, I cangive you authoritative answer. Now let's end
this with this last bit here.So I've gone on thirty three minutes about
how taking notes is useful. Andthis video is not transcribed. It's simply
loaded to YouTube and I reference itin the comment. And I did that
because I can answer the same questionmany times, So if somebody else asked
this question, I can link tothe same video, so it's a time
(32:50):
saving activity. But I don't havethe transcript of this video somewhere, so
I'll have a note that represents thisvideo and has a link to the video.
So if anybody ever asked a questionhow much do you benefit from taking
notes? I don't have to answerthe question again. I can point to
this video if they have additional questions, more specific questions, or they've hired
(33:13):
me for consultation, because maybe they'rea publisher, maybe they're a writer,
Maybe they're a copywriter or a marketer. Maybe they're a business executive who's taking
notes throughout their entire career and thenwants to publish a book when it comes
time for retirement for passive income,for example. Then I've actually built a
stream to drive leads into my courseof business, and therefore that original note,
(33:36):
as insignificant as it is, willhelp me find this video so that
I can share it with the nextperson. So I hope I've given you
a couple practical examples of how notetaking can be very productive but also a
big distraction. I hope I've givenyou some ideas on how note taking is
only part of a larger process forpublishing or creating some kind of deliverable And
(33:59):
then finally, I've hope I've shownyou how note taking is actually a mnemonic
device to help you recall information ina way that's actually beneficial to creating an
outcome. Because I didn't even gointo artificial intelligence, but essentially the querying
mechanism you use to recall these notes. We want to make sure that you
(34:20):
understand what you're recovering so that youcan use what you're recovering in your note
taking system or thank you for beinga part of what we do here.
This is now a podcast episode,so that's a third use for this particular
video, and I hope I'm stimulatingthose ideas and concepts because as a knowledge
worker, you're paid on productivity thatis difficult to measure, and you also
(34:44):
have to have evidence in many caseswhen you're in higher stakes activities, and
so note taking is a critical part, but not a primary part of getting
results. I'm justin hit with insidestrategic relations, where we help business owners
and executives, knowledge workers and professionalsuse knowledge to gain influence, whether that's
a better career path, whether that'slayoff, proofing your current position or creating
(35:09):
a business on your own. Weshow you how to use, store,
manage information in such a way thenit works on your behalf. I'll never
have to go take those notes againif I take good notes in the first
place, and then I'll use thosenotes many times so they'll pay for themselves
if I have that outcome focused.You can visit us at www dot inside
(35:30):
strategic relations dot com to ask questionsor put some questions in the comments below.
I would love to answer your questionbecause it challenges all the notes I've
taken in the past. It challengesall the professional skills and insights that I've
gained, and gives me an opportunityto package this up and hopefully be useful
to you. Thanks for watching,and I'll see you next one.
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