Nine ways to take notes — templates for each
Nine ways of keeping notes — most of them older than the software everybody runs them in. Each one is here as a short article and as a template you can open in the app with no account, fill in, and keep.
They are not competing. Zettelkasten is for thinking, Getting Things Done is for commitments, Cornell is for taking something in, and the weekly review is what keeps whichever one you pick alive past a fortnight. Most people end up running two.
If you have no idea where to start: Getting Things Done if your problem is that things get dropped, PARA if your problem is that nothing is findable, the bullet journal if you have bounced off both.
- ZettelkastenNiklas Luhmann
Old notes keep turning up in new work, instead of being lost.
One idea per note, in your own words, filed next to the note it argues with.
Ten minutes a day emptying the inbox
Read the method →Open the template →The template- Inbox
- Notes
- Sources
- Index
- PARATiago Forte
You stop re-finding things you have already saved.
Projects, Areas, Resources, Archive — sorted by how soon it matters, not by what it is about.
One pass over Projects a week
Read the method →Open the template →The template- Projects
- Areas
- Resources
- Archive
- Getting Things DoneDavid Allen
Nothing you agreed to is left running in your head.
Capture everything, decide the next physical action, review it once a week.
Twenty minutes, once a week
Read the method →Open the template →The template- Inbox
- Next actions
- Projects
- Waiting for
- Someday / maybe
- The weekly review
- Bullet journalRyder Carroll
At the end of a day you can see where it actually went.
Rapid logging: tasks, events and notes as short bullets, one page a day.
Two minutes at the end of each day
Read the method →Open the template →The template- Today
- This month
- Future log
- Collections
- Cornell notesWalter Pauk
What you heard is still there a week later.
Cues, notes, summary — the page that makes you revise as you write.
Twenty minutes after each session
Read the method →Open the template →The template- Notes
- Cues
- Summary
- The Feynman techniqueRichard Feynman
The holes in what you know surface before anybody else finds them.
Explain it to a twelve-year-old; the gaps show up as sentences you cannot finish.
One sitting per idea, twice
Read the method →Open the template →The template- 1. Explain it plainly
- 2. Where I stumbled
- 3. Back to the source
- 4. Say it again, shorter
- The Eisenhower matrixDwight D. Eisenhower, by way of Stephen Covey
The important work gets done, not just the loud work.
Urgent and important are not the same word.
Five minutes each morning
Read the method →Open the template →The template- Important and urgent — today
- Important, not urgent — book the time
- Urgent, not important — who else?
- Neither — drop it
- The weekly reviewDavid Allen's habit, borrowed by everyone since
Whatever you set up in January is still running in June.
Fifty-two chances a year to notice what you have quietly stopped doing.
Twenty minutes, same time each week
Read the method →Open the template →The template- Daily log
- This week
- Previous weeks
- Second brain (CODE)Tiago Forte
What you read ends up in something you made.
Capture, Organise, Distil, Express — notes that end in something you made.
A little every time you open a note
Read the method →Open the template →The template- Capture
- Organise
- Distil
- Express