Making Notes vs. Taking Notes
Productivity: From knowledge consumption to knowledge creation
I first learned about the concept of note taking and note making from The Bullet Journal newsletter and the importance for all knowledge workers to distinguish the differences.
In 1963, Edgar Wright wrote about the concepts of note taking and note making in his book about study methods. Note taking is the action of capturing content into a place where we can refer to later. Today the choices are abundant when it comes to digital note taking apps from Evernote, Notion, Roam, Google Keep, and more. Of course, simple manual notebook works too. Note taking is an important step to taking down information but more importantly, helping your brain offload information without burdening it with the task of remembering. Like David Allen, the author of Getting Things Done said, “Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them”.
On the other hand, note making is the act of generating and connecting ideas from the information we consume. Note making is a crucial skill in today’s digital age if you are a knowledge worker, or a content creator that consume massive load of information to produce your work. Note making would often lead to new insights, and ideas coupled with our own perspectives, experiences, and knowledge.
The rise of newer note taking apps like Roam and Obsidian with bi-directional linking features are perfect for note making. As a Roam user, whenever I take notes, I would attach a link to a word or a phrase using the bi-directional link feature. Over time, as my notes grow, I am able to see the connections that naturally emerges from my collection of notes. That’s the beauty of the bi-directional link feature which makes note making satisfying for me.
Note taking and note making are both essential skills to have whenever we consume information. I always believe that the act of sharing the knowledge we learn would help to crystalize the learning we partake in. So the next time you take notes, try taking a step further by connecting new information that matters to your work. You would have moved from simply consuming knowledge to creating knowledge.