{"id":84431,"date":"2022-11-21T11:38:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T15:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=84431"},"modified":"2022-11-30T11:38:32","modified_gmt":"2022-11-30T15:38:32","slug":"how-to-make-perfect-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/how-to-make-perfect-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Make Perfect Notes: Take the Time to Refine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>How do you make perfect notes that are easy to understand? Why is refining notes important for projects?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tiago Forte&#8217;s book <em>Building a Second Brain<\/em> explains that perfecting your notes is a good way of increasing your productivity and creative potential. To do this, you need to begin refining your notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Read below to learn how to make perfect notes by practicing refinement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-refine-your-notes\"><strong>Refine<\/strong> Your Notes<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Forte explains that learning how to make perfect notes\u2014distilling them into their most basic format and removing any irrelevant information\u2014is the first step in creating a project. <strong>It should take place right before you create something based on those notes.<\/strong> This <em>shouldn\u2019t<\/em> take place at the same time as recording or sorting.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Refining your notes to their core essence will increase productivity and creativity<\/strong>. It\u2019ll save time in the future by allowing you to understand the note\u2019s utility as soon as you look at it. It\u2019ll also make it easier for you to apply the information to other relevant current or future projects. To effectively refine your notes, Forte recommends using the following process (which he calls Progressive Summarization):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since you\u2019ve already saved the smallest bit of information from the source, <strong>you\u2019ll start the refinement process by bolding the main points of the small chunk of information you\u2019ve saved.<\/strong> For example, if you\u2019ve saved a paragraph from an article, find and bold the <em>main points<\/em> of the excerpt\u2014the thesis, sentences that provide important explanations, keywords that remind you why you saved the information, or parts that especially stuck out to you. If you have an especially long or complex note, you can further distill it by highlighting or underlining the most important or surprising points of the bolded sections.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Then, for especially unique or valuable notes, Forte recommends including a short summary<\/strong> that explains the main points of the source and why you\u2019ve saved it (if you might forget) in as few words as possible. Using bullet points may be helpful for this step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-do-the-pros-of-forte-s-refinement-outweigh-the-cons\"><strong>Do the Pros of Forte\u2019s Refinement Outweigh the Cons?<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>While Forte argues that his method of perfecting notes increases productivity and creativity, critics of this process argue that <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@nickmilo22\/why-progressive-summarization-must-die-c2635d1f79f1\">it might actually <em>decrease<\/em> these abilities for a few different reasons.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, these critics argue that Forte\u2019s recommendation to refine information right before creating, rather than immediately after saving, encourages you to over-collect information. This is because refining a note helps you identify how useful it is\u2014if you don\u2019t at least <em>start<\/em> to refine notes before saving them, you might be saving massive amounts of irrelevant information and cluttering your ESS.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Second, critics argue that Forte\u2019s refinement process (bolding, highlighting, then summarizing) causes you to focus more on understanding the original source\u2019s perspective than on developing your own original insights from it, ultimately decreasing productivity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Third, refining your notes might actually decrease the progress you make toward your goals due to the Collector\u2019s Fallacy: collecting and engaging with information is easy and makes you <em>feel<\/em> like you\u2019ve made progress toward goals even if you haven\u2019t actually created anything. Spending multiple work sessions refining your notes might make you feel like you\u2019ve done something productive with your ESS information when you haven\u2019t actually created anything. This false confidence might ultimately prevent or slow your progress toward your goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do you make perfect notes that are easy to understand? Why is refining notes important for projects? Tiago Forte&#8217;s book Building a Second Brain explains that perfecting your notes is a good way of increasing your productivity and creative potential. To do this, you need to begin refining your notes. Read below to learn how to make perfect notes by practicing refinement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":8233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,43,30],"tags":[809],"class_list":["post-84431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-self-improvement","category-work","tag-building-a-second-brain","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to Make Perfect Notes: Take the Time to Refine - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Do you want notes that you can refer back to at any point for a project? 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