Logs

11/24/2021

• Our minds need an external structure to think in. This is why writing is powerful.
• More ideas from Feynman
  • Reporter once referenced Feynman’s notes as records of his thinking. Feynman corrected him saying that the notes are his thinking, not records of it. The thinking happened on the paper, not in his head.
  • One way to test if you really understand something is to see if you could give an introductory lecture on it.
• Memorizing information is hard, but linking it to things we already know is much easier.
  • Example: How do you remember that arteries are thick and don’t have valves, while veins are thin and do have valves?
    • Arteries are thick because they need to sustain pressure from the heart pumping blood to the rest of the body
    • Veins have valves to prevent the backward flow of blood

11/20/2021

• Students who take written notes tend to remember more than students who type their notes
  • Underlying principle: hand-writing is slower than typing.
  • It’s difficult to hand write fast enough to verbatim copy what’s on the slides.
  • Therefore, you are forced to express the gist of the lecture in your own words as opposed to rotely copying down what’s on the slide.
• Writing exposes you to the holes in your understanding. Feynman principle: “You must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.”
  • Re-reading text fools you into thinking you understood it. This is the least effective study strategy.

11/11/2021

• It’s essential to distinguish between 3 kinds of notes:
  • Fleeting: underlines on books, sticky notes. These should be converted to permanent notes or discarded.
  • Permanent: “clean”, well-written notes that go in your zettlekasen.
  • Project-based: outline of what you want to write about, references, pointers to permanent notes
• It’s a misconception that we start writing from scratch.
  • Having a cluster of permanent notes is fertile ground for finding new ideas to write about.

11/09/2021

• Zettlekasen = “slip box” in German
• This system was invented by the sociologist Niklas Luhmann
• We need an external and centralized structure for our ideas
  • External because humans are bad at remembering what we read.
  • Centralized for quick search and retrieval.
    • If you take notes by highlighting or writing in the margins, it’s much more difficult to connect or organize ideas across different sources.
• Writing (not just passively reading) is super important. Do you really understand something if you can’t explain it?