Unlike you I am still very ambivalent about note taking.
I got through most of my education relying on my (very much imperfect) memory, forgetting lots but generally remembering enough to get by, and always felt that for example taking notes during a lecture was too distracting from actually listening.
Then at some point a couple of years ago I got fed up about having to relearn the same things multiple times and started using Obsidian to try and systematically take notes on everything I read.
But recently I have been feeling that the transfer from mental representations to text is far too lossy, and text remains static while remembered information can be morphed and readapted dynamically with new information and new contexts. Whats worse using the notebook really does externalise memory in the sense that once I convert my ideas into text my mind seems to let go of the richer mental representations and either retain nothing or just the compressed textual ones.
So using the notebook feels a bit like I am deferring agency to another OIS that has much better memory (storage) than be, but is also probably stupider.
(will probably try to respond to some of the rest later)
I see what you mean. I agree that if you’re not using notebooks than the natural OIS boundary for you wouldn’t include notebooks! I think if you are now using Obsidian I probably would include that as part of the OIS you represent.
I really struggled with note taking during lectures. For math formulas and definitions, I definitely cannot rely on memory after hearing the definition in class one time. Although I use free recall techniques with fair success, I still need a reference to make sure I haven’t changed a detail or when my memory lapses. If the teacher followed the textbook, I would prefer to reference that, sometimes lightly annotating a digital copy. However I sometimes would start out not taking notes only to realize the content the teacher was teaching wasn’t easily found in textbooks. But in other classes I would take notes and then never look at them.
But that’s not really the use of notes I’m thinking of. I use notes to supplement my executive function and to develop ideas.
For executive function stuff, I use a heavily modified version of bullet journaling. It’s not so much that I’m trying to write down enough to fully explain ideas, rather I’m writing down enough to direct my attention to specific structures that exist in my mind.
For developing ideas I like to make iterative mind maps. That’s what I do for writing essays or starting code projects. With mind maps I feel the same as with bullet journaling, it is more about building, literally a map of the ideas in my mind and then iteratively adding more detail and using it to circulate my focus around the entire idea.
Only when writing for other people do I try to write in enough detail that the ideas could be reconstructed by the words alone. When writing for myself, I think of it more like indexes for recalling ideas that I have built in my mind.
One additional consideration wrt to the notebook:
Unlike you I am still very ambivalent about note taking.
I got through most of my education relying on my (very much imperfect) memory, forgetting lots but generally remembering enough to get by, and always felt that for example taking notes during a lecture was too distracting from actually listening.
Then at some point a couple of years ago I got fed up about having to relearn the same things multiple times and started using Obsidian to try and systematically take notes on everything I read.
But recently I have been feeling that the transfer from mental representations to text is far too lossy, and text remains static while remembered information can be morphed and readapted dynamically with new information and new contexts. Whats worse using the notebook really does externalise memory in the sense that once I convert my ideas into text my mind seems to let go of the richer mental representations and either retain nothing or just the compressed textual ones.
So using the notebook feels a bit like I am deferring agency to another OIS that has much better memory (storage) than be, but is also probably stupider.
(will probably try to respond to some of the rest later)
I see what you mean. I agree that if you’re not using notebooks than the natural OIS boundary for you wouldn’t include notebooks! I think if you are now using Obsidian I probably would include that as part of the OIS you represent.
I really struggled with note taking during lectures. For math formulas and definitions, I definitely cannot rely on memory after hearing the definition in class one time. Although I use free recall techniques with fair success, I still need a reference to make sure I haven’t changed a detail or when my memory lapses. If the teacher followed the textbook, I would prefer to reference that, sometimes lightly annotating a digital copy. However I sometimes would start out not taking notes only to realize the content the teacher was teaching wasn’t easily found in textbooks. But in other classes I would take notes and then never look at them.
But that’s not really the use of notes I’m thinking of. I use notes to supplement my executive function and to develop ideas.
For executive function stuff, I use a heavily modified version of bullet journaling. It’s not so much that I’m trying to write down enough to fully explain ideas, rather I’m writing down enough to direct my attention to specific structures that exist in my mind.
For developing ideas I like to make iterative mind maps. That’s what I do for writing essays or starting code projects. With mind maps I feel the same as with bullet journaling, it is more about building, literally a map of the ideas in my mind and then iteratively adding more detail and using it to circulate my focus around the entire idea.
Only when writing for other people do I try to write in enough detail that the ideas could be reconstructed by the words alone. When writing for myself, I think of it more like indexes for recalling ideas that I have built in my mind.