📽️ Reflections
- Wrote >500 notes and ~250,000 words since September on readings, lectures, data, and day-to-day thoughts
- The biggest change: My approach to writing
- Taking note-taking seriously means shifting from instrumental writing to careful and creative writing
- Keeping track of sources and the relations formed between ideas becomes critically important
Next: 📽️ Thank you
Transcript
I’ve been using this system for just under a year now and have just over 500 notes my collection, making up a total of nearly 250,000 words. But much more importantly, this system has helped me take note of and reflect on the many new concepts I’ve encountered over this time, as well as revisit ones I thought I knew well. It has also helped me collect, code, and draw upon data I’ve used for my research, connecting ideas and themes I may have otherwise missed.
There are some changes I have made to the system since I started, but the biggest change is my attitude towards writing and its impact on note-taking. Previously, I viewed notes as instrumental. Today, I see them as the foundational of my research and an extension of my thought process. For me, writing notes has gone from a practical necessity to a creative practice which helps me integrate more diverse knowledges in my work and reflect on both my own relation to these knowledges, as well as their relations to each other.