Common pitfalls in note taking methods

Last updated Dec 17, 2022

• You think that every single thought, idea, or concept is equally important and that it is best to file everything away for when you need it. In other words, you treat every note as a permanent note.
• This creates a large quantity of notes, that you cannot link to other notes in your system in any reasonable way.
• Such notes cannot be found later, and the complexity involved in remembering the existance of the note makes the system messy.

• When you decide on the project that you want to work on, you collect information required for the project only. This means that for every project, you have to restart the process, and there is no reuse from your readings on past projects. This is inefficient.
• You come across ideas not relevant to current projects so you skip taking notes on them. This is a valuable loss of insight that might be highly application and even translate into a great idea for a future project.

• You treat every note as a fleeting note. You write ideas down on a scratch paper, and these pile up when you dont process them in any way, and soon you will forget their context and significance.

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