Book Review: How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens

[JonathanLorimer]

https://jonathanlorimer.dev/posts/smart-notes-review.html

[DutchPete]

A well written review.

A lot has been written about the Zettelkasten, and when I 1^st got into note-taking in a serious way I embraced the Zk enthusiastically, thanks in no small part to Christian Tietze.

When he got Sascha Fast involved, I quickly lost interestbecause SF presents his ideas is the only right ones. And there we touch on the crux: there is no right or wrong way, everyone is unique and has their own way of note-taking that suits them best.

I have completely abandoned the Zk because it does not suit my use case. In fact, I have done the opposite and have long to very long notes about a topic, all interlinked to a greater or lesser extent. This is anathema to Zk'ers, of course, but that's fine with me.

My go-to note-taking app is Obsidian. Early next week they will put out a huuuuge update that will undoubtedly leave the competition even farther behind.

Your criticism of Ahrens's book is not the 1^st one: I believe he himself and others have hyped it up in no small way, and many a gullible note-taker has gone for it and seeming to love it.

BTW, I don't go for Nick Milo's LYT and MOC concepts either.

Thanks for an interesting, analytical review.