On Notetaking and Focus
Writing down my knowledge with a fountain pen in different exotic colours motivates me. When I get a new colour, I want to study more. Anytime I ink up my pen, I get the urge to get through just one chapter of a book, just so that I can write more.
Methods of Notetaking
Over my life, I have tried various notetaking methods, ranging from Sketchnoting to Outlining. I threw everything I could at a wall and saw what stuck; two methods did. Those two methods are the Feynman Study Method and the Cornell Notetaking Method. I wondered for a long time what it is about those two methods that make my studies enjoyable.
Cornell
The Cornell method gives an easy, simple structure for your notes. This is perfect for organised and structured people like me, who need a way to organise knowledge. There are mainly two methods that have been used over time: free-flowing methods like the Zettelkasten and hierarchical ones like the Cornell.
Unfortunately, Zettelkasten did not work for me. It is supposed to work like your brain, but my problem with that is that our brain is a mess of seemingly random connections. For a person who likes organisation, this method leaves your knowledge messy. Another problem I have found with Zettelkasten is its inconvenience. I like analogue tools, and this method is damn hard to do analogue. Having your Zettelkasten in file cabinets is inconvenient to say the least. So you are left with digital options like Obsidian, Joplin, Logseq, or Zettlr. For me, personally, that is a massive disadvantage. There is a notebook method, but unfortunately, it also did not seem to work for me.
We are left with hierarchical methods. Of these, there are a few, most notably the outline, Cornell, mind map, and boxing. I have tried all of them and have settled for Cornell. The outline would make me take too many notes, spreading one topic over too many pages. Boxing is too unstructured, and mind mapping will almost always run me out of space (although I have seen a helpful post, but didn't get a chance to practice it enough).
We are left only with Cornell: its cues, summary, and notes. These three simple headings allow you to quickly outline any topic that you have studied. A big bonus point of Cornell is that you can add the cue column to Anki easily.
The Ultimate System
The true power of Cornell arrives when we combine it with the Feynman Study Technique. Making analogies in your main notes, then making cues for them in the cue column, and then memorising the cue column with the help of Anki.
One problem that people often encounter with the Cornell method, which I myself often made, is memorising too much and understanding too little. It's important to balance memorisation with understanding. This is something that Feynman also noticed in Brazil. He noted that students could recite full passages and definitions, but when it came to applying them, they found it impossible. This is what, in my opinion, separates education and true learning. Passing an exam will test your knowledge, but it will not test your understanding. This is what analogies are for. They help you to understand the system; ideally, you should have an analogy for each key point in the concept that you are learning. This is helpful for math concepts, since they reach an absurd level of abstraction, and "grounding" those ideas with analogies will help you.
I remember when I first discovered the Feynman Study Technique. At the time, I was going through Elementary Linear Algebra, and had struggled with understanding some of the more advanced topics like Subspaces, Basis, and Inner Product Spaces. I vividly remember Gilbert Strang's Lecture detailing that a subspace can stretch infinitely in an imaginary space; concepts like those will confuse anyone. But when you finally do "ground" them by imagining spaces like football fields and basis like the measures of a space, then you can slowly but surely grasp what is happening.
I cannot speak for more complex topics. Linear Algebra and basic Calculus are as far as I am so far, but I imagine that the deeper you get, the harder it is to make analogies, which is why it's important to keep making them. This works well for mathematics, but it can also be applied to computer science and almost any topic you can think of, especially if it is theoretical. For applied topics, I often use fewer analogies, as most of the stuff can be learnt by simply exercising and is "simple" enough to get your head around without analogies. But whenever I struggle with even the most realistic problem or topic, the first thing I do is try to make an analogy for it, and then test if that analogy is working. This is another thing to keep in mind: It's not enough to make an analogy; you have to make sure that it works. In today's world, this is easier than before, with AI tools that can fact-check your content and make sure everything you do is valid. However, I'd still recommend creating analogies on your own, without the help of ChatGPT. But if you want to go down the GPT route, there is a nice Studying GPT if you have GPT+, which utilises the Feynman method to make you analogies. If I struggle to make an analogy, or have no clue what a topic is about, I use this GPT.
Focusing
It's important to prioritise focus during study. With modern technology, this is a feat that is quite hard to achieve, and there are distractions around every corner, especially in corporate and professional environments. Dedicating just a few hours a week to quiet down and focus on a single topic can help not only increase your productivity but also help your mental health. This is something that Cal Newport talks about extensively in his book Deep Work. The premise is that to master complex things quickly, you need to isolate yourself and reach a flow-state where you are deeply focused on a topic. This is especially useful for mathematics.
I myself struggle with what Cal Newport calls Deep Work. It's quite hard to focus on something when you have three monitors in front of you, each one displaying a different website or, even worse, social media. I find it easier to focus when I turn off all my devices and even leave my watch outside my room, leaving only space for me, the textbook, fountain pen, and paper. I'd recommend you try this. Don't try to commit to tons of work at first. Try doing 10 or 20 minutes of this type of study a week, and see how it feels for you. For different people, different things work, and Deep Work is no different. It is not a one-size-fits-all solution.
Another method other than Deep Work that I found extremely helpful is the Pomodoro Method. Specifically, the 25-5 minute split. I know some people do a 50-10 minute split, or even longer, but I have found that 25 minutes works the best for me. This method completely contradicts Cal Newport's theory on Deep Work. That does not mean that one has to go all-in on one or the other. Just because Pomodoro distracts you every 25 minutes does not mean that you cannot do productive work in that time, especially if you have a job or a study method which involves juggling many tasks at once and switching between tasks.
This is true for everything, and it is no different for studying, but we have to find the balance between focus and the need to rest. Doing Deep Work for 8 hours a day will tire you out; we are all biological creatures after all, and it is important to have breaks, which the Pomodoro Method gives you. If you are having a difficult
day and find it hard to study, I'd recommend the Pomodoro Method, but when you feel energetic and motivated, I found that Deep Work works best. It's also important to remember that Deep Work is just a method, not a scientifically-proven technique for grasping things (or maybe I just don't know any papers about it; notify me if you know some). Someone found out something that works for them and decided to share it with other people. It's not something to be anxious or stressed about, and don't fear that you are missing out on productivity just because you don't do Deep Work. Ultimately, do what works for you and balance it. Like James Clear said in his book Atomic Habits, work with your advantages and master something that you are naturally good at. If you are good at juggling tasks and find it hard to focus, then work more on juggling tasks than training to focus more. Both are advantageous, but do not ditch juggling tasks only because you want to be more focused.
Conclusion
Find balance and work towards your advantages. Quantify your studies without caring about quality at first. Quality will come later. It just takes a lot of time, like Meg Jay said in The Defining Decade: It takes 10,000 hours to master a topic. You will not produce quality work overnight.
I have shared what works for me; maybe you can try it and it will work for you. Maybe you will try it and find it completely pointless. Maybe you excel at Zettelkasten and hate hierarchies, or vice versa. But ultimately, all we can do is try, try to see what works, and master the methods that we like.
Thank you.