How to achieve more while studying less - Obsidian & Conceptual Notes

There are no fundamental disciplinary boundaries in the universe; there is only a unified set of concepts and ideas that are highly linked together within and across traditional academic disciplines, so organizing notes by subject silo prevents discovering cross-disciplinary connections.

“there are no such things as disciplines in the world there is no biology chemistry physics economics or history it's all just the universe it's just a bunch of concepts ideas floating around and highly linked together within and across the traditional quote-unquote disciplines”

The painter metaphor—needing all colors at your fingertips rather than having to interrupt creative work to fetch them—represents why information must be stored in easily accessible form (in your brain or searchable external system) rather than in hard-to-retrieve storage.

“when you store information in your head do you store things in eight and a half by eleven sheets of paper which arbitrarily cut off sentences at the margins or do you have a concept of da vinci a concept of shear stress a concept of supply and demand and a concept of mitochondria each of which are linked to lots of other concepts stories are fleeting concepts are what stick”

The problem we are solving is not how to take notes, but how to achieve quick access to relevant information from our brain.

“ultimately we want to pursue our passions and in order to do that and here's the underlying thesis of this video we need quick access to lots of relevant information that's the problem we're trying to solve we're not here to solve the problem of how best to take notes because we don't care about the notes we care about the information”

Sequential note-taking involves copying down everything a teacher writes with little active processing, whereas conceptual note-taking requires actively evaluating information in real time to determine if it is important, self-explanatory, or easy to memorize.

“in my new strategy on the right i would instead sit back and listen to what he was saying actively trying to put this stuff in my memory what this means is that i'm constantly evaluating whether the information is used that is unimportant self-explanatory or easy enough to memorize on the spot”

When taking conceptual notes, create atomic notes for each concept and link related ideas together, then add to existing notes when encountering the same concept again, rather than recording examples or non-intuitive steps separately from concept definitions.

“the professor started talking about the two different kinds of stress i already had a note for stress with that equation in it so i would just go in there and add these two categorizations next the professor drew this diagram which i also would have drawn on my drawing tablet i'd create a note called stress strain curve and put that picture in there and then in real time write down these labels that he was explaining each of these points of interest on the graph are concepts in themselves so i'd make a separate note for each of them which would go into more detail”

Instead of recording examples from lectures, learners should actively predict the next steps of worked problems and note the places where their predictions diverge from the actual solution, because these divergence points reveal which conceptual gaps are most likely to cause future errors.

“lastly i would not write down the examples instead i would sit back and try and predict what the professor will do next at each step in the problem when we deviate from each other i make a note of that and place it in the relevant note because that step that he took was obviously unintuitive to me this way i highlight the stuff that's likely to trip me up in the future without recording everything i already know how to do”

It is impossible to know how to optimally organize notes before having been exposed to all the relevant ideas, making it futile to attempt to impose organizational structure during initial note-taking.

“it's hard to know how to organize your notes in a way that makes sense to your individual brain before you've gained an exposure to all the ideas it's like trying to pack a car for a trip one item at a time the order of the items matters with a random order you'll end up with gaps and awkward spaces in between the suitcases and coolers that waste space it's better to lay everything out first and slot things into the places they can fit”

Sequential note-taking erases foundational knowledge by encouraging students to discard notes from earlier courses, making it difficult to apply first-principles thinking because lower-level concepts have been forgotten.

“if you forgot all the lower level stuff then it would be a nightmare every time you switch cars but apply this to school and it doesn't sound so weird because people take notes sequentially and jettison all the stuff they learn from high school this nightmare plays out all the time when people take classes they don't lean on old concepts for support since they forgot them so they put in way more effort than they would otherwise have to when learning the new stuff by keeping all your notes new and old together you can link back to them and use them to help you learn new stuff...sequential note taking strongly erases your knowledge of the fundamentals”

Creativity is fundamentally the process of making novel connections between previously-unconnected concepts, so focusing only on connections that are widely known prevents original creative output and keeps thinking within existing paradigms.

“creativity is just making something new but oftentimes that happens by making a connection between concepts that nobody's ever thought of before there are millions of concepts floating around out there all you gotta do is make a unique connection and that could be a million dollar idea if you only focus on the connections that everybody already knows about then you'll never create anything new”

You don't need to remember small facts like the height of the Empire State Building or the atomic mass of Gadolinium because these are variables that can be instantly looked up online, so don't waste mental bandwidth on fact memorization.

“you don't have to memorize the height of the empire state building or the atomic mass of gadolinium because those are just variables when you're coming up with something that involves those numbers you can just take the concept of those numbers and look them up when you need to googling something will usually be faster than your personal database”

Your notes should be written in a personal, conversational style with emojis, contractions, and improper grammar because they only need to make sense to you, not to a general audience, and personalization improves memorability.

“your notes don't have to make sense to anybody except yourself make them reflect your personality because that'll make them more memorable to you use emojis contractions improper grammar and write in a conversational tone in the end wikipedia already exists”

Your note-taking organizational structure is an evolving system that you'll never get right the first time, so you should get started quickly, build the system through use, and allow the structure to change as you discover what works for you.

“the beauty is that since your notes are atomic you can change your organizational structure easily in the future after you've had time to figure out what you want you're never going to get it right the first time it's an evolving system just get started think of some concept pocket lint the peloponnesian war the periodic table mulch and make a note for it”

Information that naturally sticks in memory without effort (like songs learned in 7th grade) should not be written down since it is already stored in the primary database.

“if something is already in your memory and you don't think you'll ever forget it like that song about south american capitals from 7th grade spanish class then don't write it down it's already in your primary database so it would be a waste of your time to write it in your secondary one”

Treat personal knowledge management as a tool to support your goals, not as a project in itself; avoid the trap of hoarding data without using it, as the goal is to help you pursue what you want to do with your life, not to maximize note collection.

“you might be tempted to treat your personal knowledge management system as a project in itself but it's not the goal is to help you remember things and help draw new connections you're not here to hoard data you're here to help pursue whatever it is you want to do with your life”