According to How to Take Smart Notes, learning occurs when you articulate your thoughts on paper. The slipbox advocated in this book helps you Learn, Think, and Write in a system external to your brain.
3/24/26
A core idea of How to Take Smart Notes is that Your brain lies to you. When you think of ideas in your head they feel real and complete. It takes the act of actually trying to express them in an artifact to realize they are full of holes.
The act of writing (or creating any other expression of an idea) clarifies your thinking. You can see what you’re putting onto the page and try to fill the holes in your thoughts. You can build on top of the concrete expression on paper instead of the abstraction in your head.