Since writing down thoughts is hard it’s crucial to have a note taking system before you start generating ‘writing output’.
Writing output examples
- Articles & Blog articles
- teaching materials
- Learning in the open
- Building in public articles
- Books
Once you have a ‘pool’ of notes, these can be used for any writing output, composing articles of these notes is trivial and can fit together like a ‘puzzle’.
Reference
Ahrens, Sönke. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking. 2nd edition, Revised and Expanded edition, Sönke Ahrens, 2022.
Highlights or timestamps
Highlights of How to take smart notes
The process of writing starts much, much earlier than that blank screen
— Highlight from Highlights of How to take smart notes
You can use this pool of notes not only to make writing easier, but also to learn for the long run and generate new ideas.
— Highlight from Highlights of How to take smart notes
Getting something that is already written into another written piece is incomparably easier than assembling everything in your mind and then trying to retrieve it from there.
— Highlight from Highlights of How to take smart notes