Some interesting things

1. I recently finished Sönke Ahrens book, How to Take Smart Notes. I have been reading for three decades and this book humbled me by explaining how to read, think, and write in a way I’ve never heard before.
2. Since we’re on a reading kick, you may as well check out Ryan Holiday’s 3-Step System for Reading Like a Pro and How to Read More Like Ryan Holiday. They’re a detailed peek into his note-taking process, how he organizes information, and the secret to becoming a full-time reader. (Spoiler: Become a professional writer!)
3. What would you get if you mashed together a journal and an internet browser? The Command Browser — an internet browser built around journaling. Ahrens and Holiday (above) both talk about how your reading notes are a dialog with the writer — well, Command lets you do that for things you read on the internet — and it’s an absolute delight.
4. Speaking of internet writing, there’s an essay by Paul Graham on “How to Work Hard”, where he talks about discovering the work you’re suited for, but ultimately that — “A deep interest in a topic makes people work harder than any amount of discipline can.” 

How it all ties together…

Part of relearning how to read has meant learning how to collect ideas and connect them in my slipbox — a system for keeping notes and organizing ideas (see Ahrens’s book). The slipbox is ultimately full of things that interest me.

Writing is something that deeply interests me, but it’s ridiculous how difficult it is for me to do it when it’s outside of a professional context.

My hope is that by using a system, something else I’m interested in, I can trick my brain into enjoying the work of writing.

Explore your interests and it won’t feel like work, they say. Ok… I guess I’ll keep browsing the internet and jotting down my ideas.

In the meantime, thanks for reading.