Throughout history, note taking has been a powerful tool for some of the most influential people in history.
Thomas Edison, for example, was responsible for 1,093 patents and inventions and what we find is that he amassed more than five million pages of notes.
Bill Gates follows his own note-taking habit, carrying a notebook with him to jot down important points. Tim Ferris has gone as far as to say he takes notes like some people take drugs.
But why is note taking so important? Behavioral science expert Caroline Webb explains that writing down ideas as soon as they come to mind helps us to use our intelligence more effectively.
The Benefits of Note Taking
Retain Important Information
Your mind is for having ideas & not holding them-David Allen
According to research, note-taking allows you to better remember the stuff you read. This is because the effort required to take notes helps form new pathways in the brain and encode the information in a way that stores it better in your long-term memory. This does not happen as effectively when passively taking information in.
Think and Write More Clearly
Read to collect the dots, write to connect them pic.twitter.com/YbgnKKFUNn
— David Perell (@david_perell) July 5, 2021
Writing is the best facilitator for thinking, reading, learning, understanding and generating ideas. Notes can help you build up your thoughts while you think, read, understand, and generate ideas. Writing down your ideas can help you learn them in the long run and helps your thoughts make sense.
A Civilization built on Notes.
“We have 30 books left behind from Muslim Andalusia so that we could split the atom. If half of the one million burned books could survive, we would already travel between galaxies in space.”
Pierre Curie
Like Pierre Curie, many historians & philosophers believes that is was Islamic Civilization that pulled Europe out of Dark ages.
The hallmark of this civilization was there immense zealous for knowledge. They produced some of the best thinkers & scientist.
If we look into the lives of early people of this civilization, we find many examples of how they would busy themselves with writing and taking notes. Some of them while attending circles of knowledge would even go to the extent of writing down notes onto their sleeves, if they ran out of paper.
Our blessed Prophet Muhammed (PBUH) himself commanded writing down knowledge in gatherings where knowledge is being taught. It is reported in an authentic hadith reported by Imam Khateeb al-Baghdadi (May God have mercy on him), that the Prophet (PBUH) said,
“Trap knowledge.” The Companions asked, ‘How Messenger of Allah?’ The Prophet replied: “By writing it down.”
It has also been reported that if they ran out of space to write on their sleeves, they would then even go to the extent of writing on the top of their shoes!
After the circle finished they would then walk home barefoot while holding their shoes in their hands. Upon reaching their home, they would then transfer the notes from their shoes onto paper.
We also find in the story of one of the greatest theologian & jurist : Imam Ahmed bin Hanbal that his mother used to fill his pockets with various kinds of notes & send him to circles of knowledge as early in the morning before sunrise.
Another amusing incident which highlights the importance of taking notes has been narrated by Muhammad Ibn Mubashshir al-Karmeeni (raheemaullah) who said,
“Once Muhammad Ibn Salaam al-Baikandi’s pen broke whilst in the gathering of a Shaikh, so he announced, “A pen for a Deenaar!” Whereby immediately pens began to fall upon him.” [Siyar A’laam an-Nubalaa, Vol 10, page 629]
Imam Ash-Sha’bi (raheemaullah) said: “If you hear anything (which brings you benefit), write it down, even on a wall.”
In contrast, today one of study finds that 40% of students learn nothing in four years of college. It’s pretty amazing. What a waste of money and time. The reason they learn, it’s all about just working for the grade and then when the exams are over, , they just forget everything.
However in the Islamic tradition, you have to retain knowledge. And retention means review what’s called as Mudhakarah.
💬Quote of the Week
🧭Weekly Compass
📧 Newsletter: Nesslabs: Human writing. Write Anne-Laure discusses on the taking over of “the human endeavor of writing” by AI robot: Chat GPT & its implications on us.
📑 Article: Can We Think Deeply about Important Ideas without Writing about Them? This article by from Renovatio Journal discusses the connection between cerebrating ideas & the act of writing.
🧠Food for Thought
📖Read & Rise
📺 Video: I tried Artificial Intelligence in Medicine: Mind-blowing Results.
📚 Book Summary: How to Take Smart Notes.
🛠️ Tools for Thought
Obsidian Note App is a powerful, open-source note taking application that allows users to link and organize their notes with powerful features. It is designed to be a knowledge base for users to store and organize their notes and ideas.