No. 001 – Thinking When Your Brain Feels Overloaded

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Introduction: What does it mean to learn today?

In a digital age where entertainment lasts 10 seconds, media is presented in the form of swipes, and texts that are LLM’d into articles that are indistinguishable from a real writer, we are swimming in a trove of information but lacking in insight. We read constantly (by asking an LLM to summarise the information and then text-to-speech it back to us) but are we truly enlightened and have we synthesised what we have read?

I remember back in university when I used to note-take (typically by aggressively highlighting) I learnt how to collect data points and information, but I never really learned how to connect or synthesise any of it. Over time, my civil engineering notes started looking like lines and circles rather than load paths or force equilibrium diagrams.

So I did what every other student probably did: I turned to YouTube videos, applications (I’m calling you out Notion), and courses on how to “learn better” and become “smarter” but I quickly realised that this wasn’t the right way to go about it.

Then one day I stumbled upon the book How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens which reimagined and reconceptualised my understanding of what it meant to learn, take notes, and the relationship I had with information and ideas. It not only taught how to build long lasting knowledge but also how to generate new thinking from it – it created a “positive feedback loop of learning”.

If you want to move away from just having ideas to generating them, then you need a system that isn’t dependent on tools but on a framework that works for you.

Part I: The Paradigm Shift – To thinking first, writing second

If you asked me what the most radical realisation I had from reading the book it would be that: writing is not the output of knowledge or information but, is rather what drives it. Essentially, you have to actively work towards insight rather than plan for it. To better understand this, I pose 2 ideas:

Idea #1: Learning/Taking notes is not preparation

We often treat learning like a linear checklist (and oftentimes it is the reality, see learning outcomes/curriculums). But what if we thought of learning and studying as a deep dive which would not only force you to do more than just absorb facts but also engages you to discover what supports an idea, what overlaps it, and what stands against it. This act of contextual confrontation is where the insight lives.

“For students, the need for writing mainly appears in the form of examination. In this understanding, the written work represents a preceded performance, namely learning, understanding and the ability to analyse other texts critically.

By writing, students demonstrate what they have learned and show their ability to think critically and develop ideas. This understanding is related to the idea that students prepare for independent research.

In this mindset, the writing of a paper is just another skill to be learned. It is compartmentalised from the other tasks – it is seen as one task among others.“

Idea #2: Structure vs. Planning

If you’re anal like me you would probably devise a plan thoroughly for something before actually starting – in the case of academia this would be the curriculum. But what I’ve come to realise over time, and through this book, is this critical distinction that we need to make:

A Plan forces you into a rigid structure making you inflexible to changes. A Structure however, provides an adaptable framework which would be a much better foundation for learning – allowing for ideas to interconnect and concepts to emerge from that.

A Structure is flexible and non-brittle providing the necessary groundwork for more lateral thinking and near-far transfer ¹

Structure is much more critical than Planning as planning does not allow for ideas to flow and transpire since it is rigid in essence. A good Structure in learning and thinking means you have a logical framework for thinking, writing, and process which allows for ideas and situations to ebb and flow dynamically and in continuous harmony. Adopting a Plan means you are imposing a Structure onto oneself which in essence removes that flexibility and fluidity that a solid Structure could otherwise offer.

Part II: The Mechanism – How Smart Notes/Learning/Thinking Connects Ideas

Remember when I called out Notion, yeah it’s not completely a waste of time – it is if you’re spending 3 hours learning how to use Notion instead of actually using Notion (cough). One of the ways to implement Ideas #1 and #2 is by using a mechanism (or tool) like Notion or whatever note taking app works for your Structure. The idea here is to actually do the writing.

“Imperfect action is always better than perfect inaction.” (yes this is a quote from me)

“Ideas don’t belong in your head; they can’t help anyone in your head.” (Hank Green)

One mechanism that made the ideas click for me was the Zettelkasten (or slipbox in English). I highly recommend taking some time to look into it, how it came about, and Niklas Luhmann in general ². Essentially what its concept stands for is an intellectual model for creating context. It strives to shift our linear and hierarchical thinking into a more networked web of relationships. The power lies in giving your ideas context. Instead of taking notes that are simply “here” (a random file), you write notes that say, “This idea relates to X because Y.”

And the way I like to think of this process is by two critical note types:

Bibliographical Notes: These describe the source material (e.g., “Chapter 3 on Quantum Physics”) → They act as citations and records.
Permanent (Atomic) Notes: This is where the Ideas #1 and #2 emerge. You take a single, core idea from your research/learning and you rewrite it in your own words → By rewriting it, you prove that you understand it and crucially, these notes can then be connected to 3–5 other ideas that are already in your vault of notes (even if those connections aren’t immediately obvious)

Learning and researching in this way provides rich content that spreads across wide topics and context.

Part III: The Process – Building Your Own Intellectual Flow State

I’ve touched a little on how I go about putting the theory into practice but what I want to stress is establishing a disciplined workflow that works for YOU and one that prioritises creation over collection. We want to get to a state of flow with our learning so that it is seamless and almost comes naturally making the overall process more enjoyable. If you still have troubles understanding, here are 7 progressive steps to try out as a stepping stone to building that momentum. I urge you not to take this as a strict manual but a rough guideline and feeler on how you might go about it.

The Learning/Note-Taking Workflow in 7 Steps:

Fleeting Notes These are small notes that you capture quickly and frictionlessly (e.g., think of an app like the Notes app on an iPhone). I prefer using an app called Obsidian ³ which is like Notion but some might say harder to use. I urge you to check it out and discover what works best for you but the idea here is to write it down in a way that is the most convenient.
Literature Notes Now, if you appreciate academia as much as I do, you’d probably remember writing your dissertation or research paper in your final year of university. Similarly, you want to keep a summary of what you’ve just read or listened to – making sure to keep these source-oriented. The point here is to remember where you came across an idea/content/information.
Permanent/Atomic Notes (The Core Work): Finally the real work is here where you’re taking your insights from (1) and (2) and rewriting it in your own words, voice, and possibly linking it to other ideas you’ve collected. The purpose and idea here is to force that understanding and to create that context and overlaps in knowledge and information.
Developing Topics Once you’ve started and momentum has started to build up, you can start gathering these Permanent Notes into thematic hubs where general ideas start to form
Drafting & Connecting When the time comes to actually write something like a report, an essay, or even a web-article like this one, you don’t start from scratch and you would be able to pull from your existing trove of notes and ideas that have been organized. By this point it now becomes more like curating and connecting ideas rather than writing ideas.
Revision Now, it’s important to continue to review and revise how you’re writing and collecting ideas once in a while to incorporate insights that you may have gained during the process itself

You may have noticed that step 7 is missing and if you’ve gotten to this point, the secret seven is to: Have fun with it YOUR WAY. I cannot stress how important it is to find a method that works for you. It took me 7 years of learning, re-learning how to learn, writing, and re-writing my writing to finally come to a point where synthesis is part of the entire process. If I could give another tip, it is that consistency matters much more than complexity. Even just spending 15 minutes a day making one high-quality piece of interconnected writing is better than planning an entire system that never actually materialises.

Conclusion: The Irreplaceable Human Engine

Just about a month ago one of the most powerful Large Language Models (Fable 5) was abruptly taken down by the US government ⁴. I sit here writing this at 0400 on a Thursday morning night shift because it got me thinking about the immense pace at which Artificial Intelligence has progressed over the last two years. This technology has not only revolutionised the way companies work, but is most definitely restructuring the way society functions and thinks – for better or for worse.

The ability to properly connect context, to build deep relational understanding, and to make connections between topics and ideas is a fundamentally human process that should not solely come from the adoption and use of AI. While I do not oppose this technology, I believe that our own thinking, learning, processes and personal knowledge system must function as a human-first intellectual shield – a space where YOU are in charge of this cognitive process. This system of knowledge synthesis, in which your ideas can flow frictionlessly and easily interconnect, will be crucial in ensuring that this ability is not lost.

How do you go about studying or learning about something new? How do your own thoughts manifest? Do you also form these webs of context that seemingly overlap? Do you see connections the same way or do you have another perspective? If any of what I’ve just mentioned resonates with you in any way, please let me know and drop me an email below.

Thank you for reading.

J.K.

see also David Epstein’s book Range ↩
https://zettelkasten.de/introduction/#luhmanns-zettelkasten ↩
https://obsidian.md/ ↩
https://www.anthropic.com/news/fable-mythos-access ↩