Notes better than Google

As a writer, my notes are integral to my creative process. They constitute a bank of ideas and inspiration that I withdraw from repeatedly.

Over time, my network of digital notes has grown to be more valuable to me than Google. When I sit down to write, I search Evernote first for information to support my thesis. Google can be a great tool for research, but it will never be able to surface content that’s as personalized, targeted, and high quality as my own notes.

My notes in Evernote are useful because they’re curated. Only the very best ideas reside there.

Three filters ensure their quality:

1. Most of what I read online comes recommended by someone that I trust. So right off the bat, I know that I’m reading a high-quality article with information worth saving. Once I find an article to read, I save it with Instapaper.
2. As I read the article in Instapaper, I select choice paragraphs to export to Evernote. Without losing the context of the article, I chisel 2,000-word articles down to a few essential paragraphs.
3. Lastly, I highlight specific sentences in Evernote that I feel are important or representative of the key ideas. This is what I want to jump off the page when I revisit my note in the future.

Think about it. Did school teach you to take notes by rewriting the entire textbook?

Of course not. Yet that’s exactly what you’re doing when you bookmark full articles that you’ve read online. The note exists as proof of what you read, but it does a lousy job of reminding you why you read it.

Progressive summarization creates notes that are more valuable than the article itself. It promotes long-term retention and makes it easy to find relevant information when you need to reference it down the road.

Using Instapaper to read online, and then exporting saved passages to Evernote is the best way I know how to do this.