Explaining what you just read makes a lot of sense. The books I remember the most are the ones I tell my wife about, because I’m explaining them to her. Now I just need to slow down and re-read as necessary.
I do so much copy pasting into Obsidian but I stayed mentally lazy. Practicing this, kind of the Feynman technique, is really key in understanding and remembering. Thank you for this gem!
I love the become a teacher step! I think that is incredibly important and applies well even to Substack. If you learn something and go on to write about it, you are translating + teaching, and improving your own understanding.
Your line “the mind is not a vault but a garden” captures exactly why understanding feels alive: it asks us to tend, prune, and return until the idea becomes part of us.
Thank you for reframing learning as transformation instead of storage. 🌱
This article sort of exposed a problem I have. I read a fair bit and retain the information, apply maybe 5-10% of it because no everything is relevant to me.
I noticed that even though I understand it in my mind, it is usually difficult to express it in words. To that end, I started writing more but my capacity to explain only seems to expanded little.
The article was enlightening and I shall try to do more oratory and written explanations for a piece of text after reading/learning to improve.
I assume you misunderstood Zettelkasten. To make a good note for it, you have to do exactly what you wrote here. You never store someone's words, each note in Zettelkasten is your own words, which you can't achieve without really understanding. Also, Zettelkasten requires not just storing information, but regularly revisiting it. I don't want to go even deeper into explaining Zettelkasten, but in a quick summary, all the techniques you expressed in this post are essential to get a properly working zettelkasten.
One more note, if you'll give try to zettelkasten, try Capacities instead of Obsidian.
I think the problem with Zettelkasten is that most people don’t do the thinking part. Zettelkastens are great if they help you with your thinking, but most people replace actually thinking about what they’re writing with simply building a second brain. They build but don’t think about what they’ve built. All learning happens within the mind, and I’ve fallen victim to not using my mind with second brains a lot. But all your points are spot on! Second brains work well if you use the right techniques.
Explaining what you just read makes a lot of sense. The books I remember the most are the ones I tell my wife about, because I’m explaining them to her. Now I just need to slow down and re-read as necessary.
Same here. I love talking to my girlfriend about what I've been learning when we go to our favourite breakfast spot. It's the small things in life.
I do so much copy pasting into Obsidian but I stayed mentally lazy. Practicing this, kind of the Feynman technique, is really key in understanding and remembering. Thank you for this gem!
I did a lot of mindless writing when I had Obsidian. Hope this helps!!
I love the become a teacher step! I think that is incredibly important and applies well even to Substack. If you learn something and go on to write about it, you are translating + teaching, and improving your own understanding.
Your line “the mind is not a vault but a garden” captures exactly why understanding feels alive: it asks us to tend, prune, and return until the idea becomes part of us.
Thank you for reframing learning as transformation instead of storage. 🌱
This article sort of exposed a problem I have. I read a fair bit and retain the information, apply maybe 5-10% of it because no everything is relevant to me.
I noticed that even though I understand it in my mind, it is usually difficult to express it in words. To that end, I started writing more but my capacity to explain only seems to expanded little.
The article was enlightening and I shall try to do more oratory and written explanations for a piece of text after reading/learning to improve.
Thank you for writing the article
I assume you misunderstood Zettelkasten. To make a good note for it, you have to do exactly what you wrote here. You never store someone's words, each note in Zettelkasten is your own words, which you can't achieve without really understanding. Also, Zettelkasten requires not just storing information, but regularly revisiting it. I don't want to go even deeper into explaining Zettelkasten, but in a quick summary, all the techniques you expressed in this post are essential to get a properly working zettelkasten.
One more note, if you'll give try to zettelkasten, try Capacities instead of Obsidian.
I think the problem with Zettelkasten is that most people don’t do the thinking part. Zettelkastens are great if they help you with your thinking, but most people replace actually thinking about what they’re writing with simply building a second brain. They build but don’t think about what they’ve built. All learning happens within the mind, and I’ve fallen victim to not using my mind with second brains a lot. But all your points are spot on! Second brains work well if you use the right techniques.