When I was in school, teachers always emphasized the importance of taking notes in class and while reading books. In the first semester of my first year of junior high school, our English teacher gave us a requirement to bring our own notebook to record the grammar knowledge she taught in class. From then on, every English class, whenever grammar or vocabulary appeared on the blackboard or in the PPT, I would immediately jot it down with a pen. This is my first memory of taking notes.
On January 24, 2021, I recorded my first note using flomo, which was also my first encounter with a note-taking app. I don't have much recollection of how I came to know about flomo. Today, almost three years later, I read the book "The Method of Note-Taking" written by flomo's founder, Shao Nan and Light. I always thought that note-taking was simply about jotting down whatever I wanted to remember in any way I liked. However, after reading this book, I realized that there is a technique to note-taking, and learning these techniques can save a lot of time and effort.
The book "The Method of Note-Taking" is divided into four parts. After reading it, based on my understanding, I believe it mainly introduces three aspects: why we should take notes, what we should take notes on, and how to effectively take notes.
The purpose of taking notes is not to collect information, but to help ourselves in the future when we encounter problems. It is about "supporting our future selves." For example, as a student majoring in human resource management, recording knowledge about performance management may come in handy when I work in that field in the future.
Based on my note-taking content, most of it consists of my occasional inspirations and ideas that come to me in a moment of enlightenment. This is also the reason why flomo was created - to conveniently and quickly record inspirations, as well as valuable and meaningful content seen on social platforms.
The book mentions that we can record the following types of content:
- Recording our own thoughts
- Recording inspiring content
- Recording counterintuitive information
- Recording things that evoke our emotions
- Recording our own practical experiences
- ...
When it comes to effective note-taking, it is not just about the end result, but also the process. As the book says, input should not be the goal, but rather a process to achieve the goal. The ultimate goal is to change ourselves and the world.
Therefore, the key to effective note-taking lies in information preprocessing. First and foremost, do not simply copy and paste, but learn to take notes in your own words. Increasing the difficulty of note-taking can help us remember the content more effectively. Secondly, review your notes regularly. I used to lack the habit of reviewing, so I was not clear about what I had recorded or not recorded in my flomo. By reviewing our notes, we allow our brains to continue receiving stimulation from the past notes. This is also an important method of preprocessing notes. On one hand, it helps counteract the forgetting curve, and on the other hand, it promotes internalization of knowledge. During this process, we may have new insights and thoughts about our past notes, so it is important to supplement and update them in a timely manner. Lastly, use tags to categorize your notes. The function of tags is mainly for classification and retrieval. Unlike folders, we can add different tags to the same note, and different keywords can be used to search for corresponding notes. The book also mentions tagging methods, whether it is the original P.A.R.A. principle or the modified I.P.R.A. principle by Shao Nan. It should be adjusted according to our own habits and needs, and strive to fit our own habits. I am still exploring my own classification method.
In terms of using notes, this book is not advertising for flomo. In fact, the methods mentioned in the book can be applied to any note-taking app, or even the most traditional handwritten notes.
Therefore, there is no need to be too entangled in choosing a note-taking app. Most people do not need very specialized features. For example, the term "double-linked" has been popular in the past two years, but only a few people truly understand and use this feature. Most users only need a tool for recording and easy retrieval.
In my article "How to Recommend Blog and Note-Taking Apps to Others?" on Douban, I also mentioned that when using note-taking apps, it is best to start with something simple and gradually move towards more complex ones. For beginners, choosing an all-in-one app like Notion or Obsidian is easy to give up because there is too much to learn and the cost is too high.
If you have never used a note-taking app before and want to start taking notes, I think flomo is the best choice.
I uninstalled flomo for a period of time and imported my data into my self-hosted memos program, naively thinking that memos could perfectly replace flomo.
Originally, memos was intended to be an open-source alternative to flomo, but now it is more like a decentralized microblogging platform. Content can be made public, and some people collect memos sites to create a small square, which is intended to facilitate viewing of publicly shared content. As a result, memos has become a platform for showcasing content, increasing exposure, and driving traffic to personal websites. In addition to personal thoughts, there are various websites, videos, and images. However, I have always believed that the content stored in flomo or memos should be private.
At the same time, it is unclear what memos really wants to be as a product. There is no roadmap on the project page, and when users suggest adding new features, the developers simply add them if they think it's feasible. As Han Yu said, memos is a project, while flomo is a product. There is a huge difference between the two. A project is something created through code, while a product is created through thinking and code. The most important difference lies in the "thinking" process.
The philosophy of flomo is to continuously record, and the meaning will naturally emerge. This perfectly corresponds to the idea that note-taking is a process and requires a long-term perspective. Your notes will bring meaning and value at some point in the future.
Therefore, last month, I abandoned memos and returned to flomo.
In conclusion, I would like to end this article with my short review of this book on Douban:
This is a great book that is easy to understand and rich in content. It is not just an advertisement for flomo. It truly introduces methods and insights for note-taking. I recommend it to people who already have a note-taking habit and those who want to start taking notes.