Processing my reading notes

Mondays are usually my research days which means I get to play around with my notes, and like any big nerd I find this super fun. Unfortunately, I also woke up with a migraine so it’s not been my most productive day.

But I did process some of my notes, starting with the two I took on Shift.

Both quotes that I chose to highlight in Shift have something to do with inevitability.

The first quote is more a comment on politics and not really relevant to anything I’ll likely write about. So, I choose not to do anything else with that quote.

The second quote: “Predict the inevitable and you’re bound to be right one day,” on the other hand, makes me think about other things: fate, destiny, coincidence. It has the potential to spark something or be relevant to something else in the future.

So: it gets its own card.

Then comes the question of where do I put it?

Since the quote is about inevitability, the first thing I do is check the index under “I” to see if I have anything under that subject.

Since I don't, I think about what other themes it could link to. I don’t have anything under “fate” but I do have cards under “destiny.”

So, I go to the location for “destiny” and look through what I have.

None of the cards have anything to do with inevitability.

So, I create a new section for the topic and call it 1650/11 so that I will be able to find it after the cards about destiny.

Then I write the location on the card: 1650/11/1.

And file it away.

Each note goes through several steps of intentional decision-making. Some notes aren’t worth the effort. In fact, most aren’t.

Some notes can fall under various themes, so I just pick the one that feels the most relevant to the topics I’m likely to write about. It’s not so much about being able to find any particular card again as much as it is about giving it the best chance to be discovered later when I want to write about something in particular.

As for the other notes, they remain on the original notes card from the book and it get filed under the author. I can always reference that later if I need to.

And that's the full process. A bit involved for most people, but if you're a knowledge worker or creative then I believe it's worth the effort.