How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking

What psychologists do not discuss, though, are the external conditions that allow us to be flexible in the first place.

To be flexible, we need an equally flexible work structure that doesn’t break down every time we depart from a preconceived plan.

We tend to call extremely slow writers, who always try to write as if for print, perfectionists. Even though it sounds like praise for extreme professionalism, it is not: A real professional would wait until it was time for proofreading, so he or she can focus on one thing at a time. While proofreading requires more focused attention, finding the r

The good news is that we can train ourselves to stay focused on one thing for longer if we avoid multitasking, remove possible distractions and separate different kinds of tasks as much as possible so they will not interfere with each other.

Experts rely on embodied experience, which enables them to reach the state of virtuosity. An expert in academic writing has a feel for the process, an acquired intuition for which task will bring one closer to the finished manuscript and what is only a distraction.

Psychologists used to associate scientific work exclusively with focused attention, while other, more floating kinds of attention were exclusively associated with creative work like art. We know today that we need both kinds of attention for art and science. It is not surprising, therefore, that this flexibility can be found among most, if not all,

Give Each Task the Right Kind of Attention

Letting the inner critic interfere with the author isn’t helpful, either. Here we have to focus our attention on our thoughts. If the critic constantly and prematurely interferes whenever a sentence isn’t perfect yet, we would never get anything on paper. We need to get our thoughts on paper first and improve them there, where we can look at them.

Become an Expert Instead of a Planner