this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2026
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I don't write full sentences, save when I want to record a passage from the book, just keywords or, using my own shorthand, things that remotely looks like sentences. Using some shorthand makes it incredibly quick to write stuff down.
And when I finish the book I index the card(s) and archive them in a storage system that lets me retrieve any book or author I've read to check my notes, even years later. I often forget about the books I read... but I know my external brain remembers them for me ;)
I've not invented the system, it has been a thing since there was books to be reads and people willing to think and write. It also has been most formalized by Luhmann (he calls it a Zettelkasten, aka 'cards in box'), he was an academic... but one can start very simply without much, if any, consideration for academia either ;)
BTW, I do that for books and also for my own writings. It's all on index cards before it gets a chance to morph into a more structured project. Making it dead simple to retrieve any idea or comment or whatever I need.