How to Take Notes

These are my opinions after failing to take notes for the past 4 years.

When I use the pronoun "you", know that I mean "I" or "me".

Rules

1. Write down every thought and idea you ever have, and everything you ever learn
2. Give these thoughts nice names
3. Link between them using their nice names
4. Stop here and go no further. Do not organize.

Organization does not scale.

Any amount of organization will fail you.

The best kind of organization will fail quickly. The worst kind of organization will appear to work for a long time, and then fail.

You may think that without organization, your thoughts and ideas will become a huge, unmaintainable mess.

That is not true. Your thoughts and ideas are already a huge, unmaintainable mess. To organize them is to lie to yourself.

Organization only adds rigor. Do not add rigor to your thoughts and ideas.

Organization begets re-organization.

Even if organization did scale, you cannot re-organize years worth of thoughts and ideas, you can only keep going or throw them out.

Throwing out ideas is terrible. Never put yourself in a position that leads to idea wasting.

I wish you luck in your journey of avoiding organization.