Syllabus
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Document Version 2025.1.1 TJD 19 February 2025 14:20 GMT GB-LDN
Introduction
I've always been a "shop class" kid. If computers hadn't been invented, I would have probably joined a trade union as a carpenter or electrician. Having access to practical, hands-on experiences made my education, starting in middle school, somewhat bearable for an awkward 12-year-old. Working in the shop gave me early access to Computer Aided Design (CAD) and an appreciation for connecting the physical with the digital. And most importantly, the sense of pride and purpose in the world.
In this syllabus, I want to share some knowledge, mostly practical, some more esoteric, that will arm you to make a small dent in the world.
Week One: Notes
Goal
Make yourself a system you can rely on for recording, organising, and retrieving notes. It can be as fancy or simple as you want—emphasis on reliability.
This course isn't meant to make you a master note-taker by any means, but hopefully, you can expand your repertoire of techniques to think better by taking better notes. Most of the techniques I describe here are from Sönke Ahrens' fantastic book How to Take Smart Notes, which I cannot recommend enough.
Sönke is a teacher of the Zettelkasten method (German for "slip-box" or "note box"), which can be physical or digital. The main idea here is to collect notes of your ideas (Fleeting notes) and the reading/media you consume (Literature notes) and process that information into written reference material (Permanent notes) while maintaining connections between said notes.
Core Components
The Slip Box (Digital or Physical)
- Where you store your permanent notes.
- It can be implemented using software like Obsidian or physical index cards.
Note-Taking Tools
- For capturing quick thoughts (fleeting notes)
- A notebook, phone app, etc.
Reference Manager (Advanced)
- For managing bibliographic information
- Examples: Zotero, BibDesk, Mendeley
Types of Notes
- Fleeting Notes
- Quick, temporary captures of ideas
- They should be kept in a separate "Seed Box" and be processed within a day or two.
- Literature Notes
- Summaries of what you've read
- Written in your own words
- Include source references
- Permanent Notes (Zettels)
- One idea per note
- Self-contained and understandable in the future
- Written "as if for print."
Key Principles
- Getting Things Done
- Work in phases: collect, process, and write.
- Atomicity
- One note = one idea
- Like a Dieter Rams design: "Weniger, aber besser" (Less, but better)
- Connectivity
- Notes should link to other notes
- Fleeting and literature notes grow and connect into permanent notes
- Always explain why you're making connections
- Personal Touch
- Write in your own words
- Make it your system
Getting Started Steps
- Choose your tools (digital or analogue)
- Start capturing fleeting and literature notes
- Process these into permanent notes
- Create meaningful connections between notes
- Review and revise regularly
Pro Tips
- Don't obsess over organisation — let structure emerge naturally
- Focus on creating meaningful connections
- Write for your future self
- Trust the process — it takes time to build momentum
As you can see, the goal of note-taking isn't to capture everything but to build a framework from which to work.
Tools
Simple index cards and the writing instrument of your choice are usually the best places to start. If you are feeling fancy, Field Notes, LEUCHTTURM1917, and Rhodia are brands I keep returning to. They use high-quality paper and work well with a wide variety of pens and pencils. The size and shape don't matter, but I recommend getting a pocket-sized notebook for—get this—your pocket. Something roughly in the A5 size range seems to be the sweet spot to stash in a bag; anything bigger tends to be too clunky to want to be carried regularly.
Pens and pencils are a personal choice; for me, nothing beats a good old-fashioned wooden pencil and a slick sharpener for getting ideas out of your brain and onto the page. If you haven't used a gel pen since high school, the old stalwart Pilot G2 family of retractable gel ink rollerballs and the Zebra Sarasa Japanese gel pens are well worth trying. Try the Pentel 200 Series Mechanical Pencils if a mechanical pencil feels more your speed.
Useful Idea: Take some letter-sized/a4 loose-leaf paper (steal some from the printer at work) and fold it into 1/4ths. You now have a little 4-panel grid for planning things out if you add Post-it notes to the mix, and now you have a Kanban board. Each Post-it represents a task, and each grid panel is a phase of a project, for example: Not Started, In Progress, Testing, Complete.
Other Resources and References
'Brain rot' is Oxford word of the year — Top 10 tips to avoid it
The Hipster PDA
Post-its
zettelkasten.de
Zettelkasten (Wiki)
All credit for inspiration goes to Cristina Jerney's project A Syllabus for Generalists.
