Smart Notes is the note-taking method in Sönke Ahrens' book How to Take Smart Notes, which aims to make the 📝Zettelkasten idea accessible to students, academics, nonfiction writers and anyone else interested in reading, thinking and writing.
Ahrens first published the book in 2017 through CreateSpace and released a revised and expanded second edition in 2022, independently published in Hamburg. His course site says the book "popularised the idea of the zettelkasten."
The method builds on the slip-box of German sociologist 📝Niklas Luhmann, whose own summary of his life's work Ahrens quotes on the book's page: "My project: theory of society. Duration: 30 years. Costs: zero."
Ahrens' premise is that "The key to good writing and thinking lies in the intelligent organization of ideas and notes." A good note-taking system, he writes, is simple and well thought out, makes notes easy to find and points out relevant ones when they are needed, and "gets exponentially better the more you feed it."
The workflow carries ideas through three kinds of notes, covered in 📝Fleeting / Literature / Permanent Notes: quick captures made while busy with something else, notes on what one reads, and permanent notes kept in the slip-box.