Improving notes endlessly

I read an article and want to capture some valuable insights, so I open my note-taking and begin to type. But as I’m creating the note, I don’t come to simply writing down my insights as my thoughts drift away to all the knowledge I consumed on how to take good notes. I start thinking about:

• “the right tags”
• “the folder hierarchy”
• “where the note belongs”
• “which notes it should link to”
• “how to structure it”
• “how to capture its essence”

When my thoughts come back, I again look at a blank canvas and don’t really remember what I wanted to capture in the first place. Maybe you haven’t fallen into the same optimization trap like me. I would describe it as:

“The tendency to improve, tweak, or refine the system around a task instead of engaging with the task itself.”

My visions of a perfect knowledge system got in the way of getting the job done. I was engaging more with the idea of perfectly structured notes than with the actual task in front of me — simply writing down my thoughts. I was chasing reduced content, life-changing connections and ideas, and building a personal web of knowledge that would level up my thinking.

As a consequence, I never reached a state where I felt happy or satisfied with notes, nor did I make any progress. I got stuck at mingling around my notes and trying to make them better and stand out.

Note-Taking level: Expert

It feels kind of naive, but from the start, I was convinced I needed to take the “perfect note” to be able to benefit from it. I was consuming ideas on note-taking faster than my thinking was evolving. I was heavily relying on the concepts and advice of the literature as I thought they would help me build my system and elevate my note-taking. I was afraid of losing information if I didn’t stick to the rules. But in its core, it was the opposite: my desire to reach “note-taking-level” expert from the start created a contradiction.

All the information I had, according to what good note-taking should be like, was fighting the information that I was trying to get on paper.

I was feeling a huge gap appear between literature and my reality, which made me feel like I was doing something wrong. Which even made me stick more to the concepts than trusting my own thinking.

“I was applying structure before I had produced anything worth structuring.”

Managing a system instead of thinking

The result was excessively managing my system. My notes became some sort of a checklist. A checklist with a very high standard. In my thinking, these standards needed to be met to ensure learning and growth. And therefore I was following them almost religiously. But by that, they never became a true source of inspiration and critical thinking. I was outsourcing my thinking to a structure. And by that, I was relying more on external standards than on my internal judgment and thinking.

The consequences were severe: Instead of building a true source of personal knowledge, I was creating a polished-looking cabinet of notes. Everything was looking fine from the outside, but on the inside, it was shallow. My notes rather read like a copied Wikipedia article, but they were missing personality — authentic thoughts and insights. As this process was rather heavy than light and at the same time no value was created, I would lose interest and eventually stop taking notes for a while.

Trusting my own judgment again

What changed my perspective was realizing that my own thinking and judgement is something that has to be formed, before copying or blindly applying a framework of someone else. From then on, I saw external frameworks or concepts as a scaffold. But I no longer treat them as a substitute for my own thinking and experiences. Instead of “mindlessly” adopting a concept, I started to become aware of my intentions and trusted myself to watch my notes develop. One crucial shift was this:

“I started to open my note, and instead of blindly copying a structure, I was blindly typing on my keyboard.”

This became my personal definition of a perfect note. And once my intentions were clear, and my note-taking was free of any demands, my notes started to lead somewhere. For the first time, I had something to work with. And something more happened as I understood better what my own note-taking was about; I was able to use and adapt the external systems according to my needs. This approach brought me much closer to a more satisfying system.

“Systems can only stabilize and perform after patterns have emerged.”

This is where my own thinking and ideas started to take back control over my system.

Finding flow through imperfection

Imperfection is what makes our systems unique and beautiful. In the end, that’s what this is about for me: Having a personal system — maybe one that might look peculiar from the outside, but deeply resonates with me.

“The raw state of my notes became the spine of my note-taking.”

Once I became confident that making mistakes accelerates learning rather than slowing it down, my relationship with note-taking changed. I started treating it as a space without judgment. That was the moment my first and second brain finally relaxed — and note-taking became something that allowed me to enter a natural state of flow.

Structure should follow behavior, not precede it.