Take notes in your own words while reading, watching, and thinking
Not writing ideas while reading renders most of what we read as ineffectual
—Sönke Ahrens
Whenever you’re actively engaging with content—whether books, films, articles, or anything else—you’ll increase the amount of knowledge you gain if you take notes in your own words instead of simply underlining or highlighting something that stands out.
Underlining doesn’t retain whatever thought was going through your head when you read a passage, nor does it retain the context with which your brain processed it in. The only way to retain those are to make notes in the moment and in your own words. Those notes will lead you towards generating novel ideas.
By capturing notes in the moment and in your own words, you preserve both your thinking and the context of your thoughts, which will enable you to effectively refine ideas over time.
Start improving your note-taking by exploring How I take smart notes. Over time, this will help you stack the bricks and build a body of work.