Turn information into knowledge
Information is different from knowledge.
Information is what you consume. Knowledge is what is left after.Information has a short sell-by date. Knowledge is long-lasting and reusable.
One way to picture this is to think of information as separate Lego pieces whereas knowledge are Lego pieces being made into a shape.
We have been taking notes forever. At school, at meetings, at their own home reading articles and books.
But what's the end goal of it?
The end goal is to turn information into knowledge and embed it into long-term memory.
Yet, when it comes to note-taking, we still behave like a passive consumer. We collect without taking any action on them. We let our notes pile up, become dusted and forgotten.
What if we take a more active role? Instead of letting these notes waste away, we can create something from them — a blog post, tweets, a newsletter. Can we perhaps add more value to other people's lives and our own?
How exactly can you produce from the notes?
You can just write about what you read. But a more powerful way is to embed what you learn into your long-term memory.
In this article How To Take Good Notes (Part 3), Mike Giannuis explains 3 ways to do that:
- Ask questions.
- Lessons.
- Connection.
I highly recommend you read the full post. But here’s 2 methods you need to pay close attention to:
- Active recall
- Make past connections.
Active recall is the efficient principle of learning which stimulates memory during the learning process.
One way to practice active recall is to ask questions. The more questions you ask, the more active you engage your brain and the more likely you store information into your long-term memory.
Another way is to make connections to existing knowledge. Knowledge is built on connection. In fact, the only thing that differentiate knowledge and information is connection. The more connections you can associate with what you already know, the higher your chance of embedding what you learn into memory.
But beyond this, you can take an advanced step: Create a system of evergreen notes.
What are evergreen notes?
According Andy Matuschak, evergreen notes are notes that are "written and organized to evolve, contribute, and accumulate over time, across projects”.
In contrast to quick notes you take while reading a book or listening to a podcast, evergreen notes are made to last for years and reused for many purposes.
Evergreen notes are hard to make because it requires you to not only explain the ideas again in your words but also add your own original ideas.
Yet, this process is ridden with benefits.
A short-term benefit is that you can repurpose your notes into tweets, newsletter sessions or mini-blog posts.
A long-term benefit is your evergreen notes can add up into a massive body of personalized knowledge to rely upon every time you put the pen down to write. With this, you have a system.
Your knowledge of something is no longer a blurry mess but a spider-web of linked ideas continuously expanding, which you can see with your own eyes.
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