Organize Notes Inside Notion
My notes are a bit scattered but I enjoy this. For instance, my quick notes live on my phone, along the margins of a book page, and on scraps of paper shoved into whatever I'm reading. I wonder if traditional notes are a waste of time. Well, I know writing notes is a waste of time but I'm kind of bummed that it is. Writing pretty, dense notes is an art โ it's fun to color-code and underline and summarize. However, I find the quick, messy approach to work best for me in regards to converting input into output efficiently.
As for organizing notes, I use Notion as a place for documentation and storage. For example, if a page is dog-tagged, I will jot down the page and paragraph number in Notion with a small summary. I will also tag the note that corresponds to my concept system in order to compare resources easily.
Click to expand!
My Concept Tagging System In Notion
When I read, I try to actively remember important points with margin notes and external research. If my retention and comprehension are solid during the reading process, the need for dense notes is diminished. With that being said, querying notes with the help of Notion, makes re-reading a lot easier.
M/tag โ Major tag (ie. Politics, War)
S/Tag โ Subordinate tag (ie. Revolution, Battle/Conflict)
SS/Tag โ Subordinate tag of a Subordinate tag (ie. French Revolution)
C/Tag โ Category (ie. Battles In The French Revolution)
This is setup similarly to my tier system (Click image to expand)
Why I Use RemNote For Flashcards Over Anki
As for RemNote, I use this program to remember my notes. In a nutshell, RemNote is a flashcard generator (like Anki) that takes a block of notes in bullet-form and creates flashcards without the friction of custom card creation. Concepts and Descriptors are the keys to RemNote. 'Concepts' represent the front of the notecard and 'Descriptors' describe the concept on the back. For the program to understand where concepts and descriptors are in a block of notes, notes must be written in this fashion:
Concept :: Descriptor or
Major Concept
Descriptor
Subordinate Concept :: Descriptor
Subordinate Concept :: Descriptor
Descriptor
This incremental approach to notes is similar to how I scribble in the margins. With only a bit of rearranging and colon placement, I'm able to create flashcards that can be reinforced with a default spaced-repetition option (amazing!).
Learn more about RemNote here: https://www.remnote.io/documentation๏ปฟ
Notion Concepts Into RemNote
Lastly, If a note feels worthy of transferring over to RemNote, I will tag the concept (from Notion) at the end of the note inside my Rem. This tag will essentially create a backlink into a brand new page labeled with the title of the concept. All notes tagged under the same concept will appear in the same space and can be queued inside a separate flashcard deck.