Trying out Robert Greene's notecard system
Robert Greene is the author of The 48 Laws of Power, Mastery, The Laws of Human Nature, and other books. His books are thick “idea books” that discuss large concepts — power, war, discipline, etc. — through dozens of examples drawn from across the world and throughout history. Each book is the result of Greene reading hundreds of books, especially biographies. Greene has shared his research process that goes into each book, and it is simple but tedious:
Read lots of books.
While reading, mark them up: take notes in the margins, underline sentences, tab pages, or fold down corners.
A few weeks after finishing the book, go back and flip through it, page by page, and transfer the notes, quotes, and ideas onto individual notecards.
Organize the notecards by theme or topic.
Repeat for every book or article you read.
This eventually leads to thousands of notecards, organized by theme, drawn from every book or article you’ve picked up. For example, when Greene starts writing a chapter on irrationality in his book about human nature, he can turn to the section of his notecards about human irrationality and find a stack of notecards with quotes, examples, and ideas from all kinds of sources.
In other words, this notecard system helps you record and use what you’ve read, even years after putting the book down. Transferring the information from the book to the notecard also helps you see conceptual threads that run through book that may not have been obvious when you were deep in the text the first time you read it. Handwriting each notecard also boosts your understanding of the information and your ability to remember what you’ve read and now written.
Starting a lifelong project like this is daunting. It will take time and discipline, but the value of this system is obvious for anyone who wants to be a nonfiction writer.
This week, I started my own set of notecards. I quickly realized this process is not perfectly suited for someone like me, who listens to a decent amount of audiobooks in addition to reading. That’s a challenge I’m still working out a solution to. One idea I had was to note the timestamp in the audiobook while listening, but I typically do most of my listening while driving or walking my dog. For now, I’ll prioritize reading over listening and continue looking for solutions.