When To Take Notes From A Book
Note-taking from a book is a tricky proposition. It is a skill few harness even though it is available to us all. Now, if you are a reader who already has notebooks filled to the brim, this article is not for you. But, if you, kind, gentle reader are like me, someone who is a bit lazy when it comes to physical notetaking, then this is for you.
It’s obvious you should be taking notes from a book you are going to be tested on at school. And, for that matter, any book you are using as an aid to complete some specific task or build a skill. Whether you use Cornell notes, Outlining, Mapping, Chartering, or whatever, that is not important, what is important, however, is deciding whether or not the note merits writing down in the first place.
I’ve read volumes of books I have gladly forgotten. Similarly, I’ve read volumes where I learned one or two points, but they weren’t important or relevant, so I discarded them. When you are out of school and don’t need knowledge for work, what do you do? How can you still learn from reading, and when do you know to take notes? Because if you try to take notes from every book you read, you are going to struggle to continue reading. You are not a professional reviewer, meaning you are not paid a sum of money to read and write about a book, and you are (most likely) not a professor or a teacher or someone who will be explaining material to students. Therefore, why should you be taking notes at all?
It’s because you will inevitably come across books that blow your mind or create new thoughts and connections you previously didn’t have or an author expresses in words a feeling you’ve had but, until now, couldn’t put into words yourself. That is when you know you need to be taking notes. So, the first skill to learn is this: know when to put the book down and pick up the pen (or phone) to take the note. Seems ridiculous, I know, but us readers can tend to plow through a book, even when the book is rich and rewarding. We can easily steal the value it has from ourselves when we rush or lose patience.
If you are a reader, you have already gained the valuable skill of picking up a book and looking at the words. Now you need the additional skill of knowing when to put it back down. When should you put it back down, you say? Or, when do you know to put it down.
Well, first off, you will automatically know you should be taking a note whenever you get the impulsive feeling that you should reread your current book at some point in the future. Save yourself the trouble now! If you distinctly suspect you will want to reread a book in the future, you should be keeping a notebook close at hand. If you want to reread a book you need to be taking notes.
You will have to let your own feelings guide you on this one, because, try as you may, it will be with great difficulty you force yourself to learn from a book you don’t care for, or from a book you know on an intellectual level is important, but you can’t get yourself to accept this on a visceral level.
Why should you be taking notes at all? Some things are sticky in our minds and we never forget, but most things, no matter how profound, we will forget just as easily as we forget that very great thought we had earlier in the day. Let me illustrate by example. 20 years ago I watched a clip that had the lead singer of Limp Bizkit say that he kept a notepad with him everywhere he went in case a verse came to mind. He said that he did that because sometimes he’d think of a great verse but he wasn’t able to remember it by the time he got to a notebook and this was frustrating for him. This was a sticky memory that stuck with me even though I only saw the clip once and very long ago at that, simply because it was profound, it made total sense to me, and it was the first time I had heard of someone doing this. Now I do this with my phone and jot a quick note is something big occurs to me in the moment, because I know I will forget.
Books function the same exact way. You will have just as difficult a time remembering word for word passages from a book you read earlier that day as you would trying to remember a thought you had word for word. No matter how profound and mind blowing the new thought is, chances are it will fade and disappear entirely, hence your need to take notes. If you forgot or failed to take notes, sometimes a book summary, or a good critical review will help you remember so you can save yourself the time it takes to reread.
But again, putting the book down is the most important step. I had to put a good book down and run to my computer to write out this article because if I didn’t I would put it off, then forget, and then finally ensure no writing on this subject would ever happen. There are many articles I have constructed in my mind but ultimately fail to write because I can’t remember the points I was making when I was thinking about it. (And here, a commercial break because I had another thought I wanted to write down as a note before it escapes me forever: I dislike music with words [the horror!] because when I get a verse in my head stuck on repeat it prevents me from remembering thoughts I’ve been having. And now, back to our regular program).
A lot of my notes are nothing more than book and author recommendations I found in the text. Usually it’s an author I’ve never heard of and they sound important based on the context of what I’m reading, or I am hearing a title of a work from that author, and it’s something I’m already aware of but now it is shifting to the top of my reading list, or I’ve read a work of some kind being referenced multiple times and now I’m intrigued (a simple fallacy, but quite effective, the fallacy being our putting importance on things repeated [hence notes!]).
Don’t overdo it. Take, for example, Derek Sivers book notes. I actually couldn’t remember his name, and so I went on Timothy Ferriss’s site to search the podcast for his name because that’s all I could remember. It took awhile to come across something to jog my memory, because all I could remember was some guy took detailed notes of books he read and put them on his website. Do you already see the point I’ve made? What’s the point in taking long detailed notes of books if even basic information, such as someone’s name, gets lost? Let’s say I go on Derek’s site and start poking through his notes on books he’s read. Wow, there’s a lot of notes here, let’s see, what stands out. Oh, okay, this looks profound, like it might help me write better. And like the Southpark meme “Aaaaaand it’s gone!”
Only takes notes of things you really really want to remember. Only the diamonds in the rough, only the gold standard. Only things you want to mull over and repeat to yourself or consistently bring up in conversation. Stop feeling guilty about not remembering everything you read. Stop feeling guilty about not learning from a book. Some book things will stick with you whether you like it or not, and others will require effort and toil. Also, save yourself the time and headache and don’t bother remembering things that are polemical. People are going to think what they want and won’t care if you have a citation of a prestigious science journal, written by a well respected researcher, who painstakingly used the proper methodology of inquiry, who ensued good sources of information, who was peer-reviewed, etc. If the information causes cognitive dissonance, or the feelies, it’s probably a waste of time and damage to a relationship to try and be so thorough when communicating a point. I know, I know, I too lament our unthorough society.
