Summary of Sonke Ahrens's How To Take Smart Notes

Efficient and excellent writing relies on one crucial pillar: note-taking. This skill is often underdeveloped or totally missing in writers, whether they are professionals or students. In How to Take Smart Notes (2017), Sönke Ahrens details the slip-box note-taking method known as the Zettelkasten. This technique, adapted to both written and digital notes, shifts the focus from memorization and searching for notes to developing ideas through the note-taking and writing process, which becomes part of the thought process. The slip-box system allows writers to easily store and retrieve relevant notes while enhancing their creativity in finding topics to tackle.