Yes yes writing is thinking and good writing is good thinking but oh — are you avoiding that important thing that is gnawing at you that is just too painful to face?
Well, bad news, no amount of journalling is going to help you fire that employee or execute that break up.
Conversation
There are smaller, more pernicious forms of this. Like — no amount of good writing is going to help you go from customer worldview to executed marketing campaign.
Hell, no amount of good note taking is going to help you get from book notes to effective application.
3
1
16
Replying to
At least with the last example, “no amount” seems unreasonably strong… perhaps “good note taking is not necessary or sufficient to…”
1
Replying to
No, I’d go with no amount. I know people who take great, beautiful notes, of books, better than mine (and that’s a high bar) and then absolutely fail at application. They make up some reason for why they can’t apply the thing, because it’s painful or takes persistence and give up
1
3
I’m increasingly coming around to the idea that agency and good writing/note taking are orthogonal skills, and both are desirable, but both have no relation to each other.
2
2
6
Actually “is painful or takes persistence” are legible reasons for why people fail at application. A pernicious, less legible, more interesting version is “unable to let go of their existing lenses, and so block themselves from internalising the worldview needed to make it work”
1
3
Replying to
I acknowledge the personality factors you point to that make it difficult to apply insights learned, and that those factors are orthogonal to the quality of notes that a person takes. However…
1
1
Do you believe that if someone puts in the effort to engage more deeply with the material and retain more of it has not increased their likelihood of effective application?
Hard to argue against that, but given your valid personality points I get to “not necessary or sufficient”
1
3
Replying to
This is the thing I'm trying to get at. I THOUGHT that people who engage more deeply with the material and retain more would increase their likelihood of effective application. I'm heavily biased to believe that.
And yet I have two counter-examples.
1
My experience here is consistent with 's observation that the most effective readers and thinkers he knows do not take notes.
2
2
Similarly, some of the most effective operators I know don't take good notes. (I suppose you could add this to my list of counter-examples, which bumps it from 2 to ... 5?)
My current conclusion is that there's something else at play that is unrelated.
(Mind you, I'm only thinking of operators who read widely; there are many who don't do much book-learnin')
1
2
Well yes there exist people who can retain & apply material without taking good notes, so notes are only one of many methods they can use. Without (sub)conscious retention they would have to independently come to the same conclusions in order to apply, so notes aren’t necessary.
1
Show replies
So what do you think is the difference?
Some actually internalize the concepts? Internalize the mental frameworks?
And the other just take great notes and understand them deeply?
1
1
I don't yet know, but I intend to find out.
1
1
Show replies