Principles of Note-Taking⁠↗

Writing is not the outcome of thinking, it’s the place where thinking takes place. Only once your thoughts are out of your head can you begin to make sense of them.

How do you know which parts of your note should be backlinked? Generally speaking it’s a good idea to backlink all entities (such as people’s name, locations, companies, etc). If it starts with a capital, backlink it.

Physical space is a really important part of memory formation and recall. For example: sometimes when moving between two rooms you’ll forget something, only to remember when you return. Dates are great hooks for recall too. We all associate memories with time to some extent or another. For example, a forgotten memory may often be recovered by recalling what you were doing around that time (which can be enough of a hook to remember the rest). This is why daily journaling (which we cover next) is so powerful. Any notes made in your daily-notes are automatically associated with a date.