Every Self-Learner Should Keep a Compendium Notebook. Here's Why (and How)

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Thanks for all the resources 🤔

Hi Parker, please add the Portuguese translation in your videos!

Thanks. I appreciate this vid. Subbed and liked! :=)

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I agree 100% about hand writing instead of keyboards and writing apps. There is something special in the physical connection between hand and mind. Excellent video, thank you.

🤔 hmmm….if you make 100 compendia, do you have an in depth encyclopedia of 100 topics? And other random things I will ponder….

I realize that "putting into one's own words" is vague and unhelpful advice. Here it is how I do it.
I prompt myself. I imagine myself as a pedantic literature critic and try to find all the flaws of the book/subject exposition.
Too much wording, not beginner friendly, lacking nuance, too long sentences, too much tied to culture, author biases and etc. Then, I go a step further and think:
"How could i fix this flaw?" "how can I make this better?" "What is good enough to keep?" "Why learning this matters at all, for me and a possible reader?"and start crafting my arguments and exposition of the subject based on that.
Then, putting into my own words starts to flow out. THe brain needs more specific prompts. "put into your own words" is so vague.

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Thanks for taking the time to make this video. Very informative!!

Please redesign the Thunder Logo. I’m begging as a Thunder fan.

I really like your style because a lot of notebook people are very artistic and creative but it can get overwhelming.

I must admit I need a bibliography reference 📔 notebook, at this point, listing the topics of different unfinished to barely filled in notebooks and their color! 🎉 📝 📔 📒📓 📖 📚 🌌

Hand writing is top tier imo. I started a major in Anthropology and we were encouraged to take notes by hand since anthropologists rely on pen and paper on the field. Better mind-hand connection and better practice to be able to get ideas out faster 😇

Very informative video.

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How do I study myself like how do you think so deeply about why you are the way you are without getting stuck in a circle?

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🤔 Great explanation regarding the “how to” of indexing the notebook. Very helpful. 👍🏻😁

Watching the channel after a long while. I don't remember the dinosaur being so prominent in the intro earlier (something I commented about) Good to see changes have been made.

🤔 Discbound notebooks would be perfect for this purpose! The pages could be easily rearranged as the compendium expands and more detailed organization becomes increasingly useful.

I have always wanted to make one of these about my religious and spiritual path and historical information about the contributing traditions but have always given up because a bound notebook has intimidated me for this purpose (they always become zibaldones, which I love but are not quite the same), and typing up and printing out information and putting it into a binder has felt so impersonal and tactilely unpleasant. I'm finally going to give this a shot with the discbound notebook system. Thanks for your excellent breakdown of the different types of and purposes for compendiums, and the motivation and encouragement to make one!

Thanks for this

I have heard that if you look into the mirror and say the word "compendium" three times, Parker will appear behind you...

Thanks for wonderful content

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Great video as always! I'm wondering though (maybe you adress that in another video so if you did don't hesitate pointing it out),

1) have you learned ways to handwrite quicker, if so how? (do you do like doctors and scribble things only comprehensible to yourself? do you shorten most of your words? etc.) because the thing that makes it hard for me sometimes is simply that my mind races too quickly for my hand, and even though I know it's a good way to control ADHD, when there's a lot of infos to process and write down it can sometimes become quite unpleasant

2) how do you write down your notes, and by that I mean actually when? I don't know if the best way to do it is to do it on spot, wait for the end of the chapter, or wait until I finish the book. I write in my books like you do, which already takes time, and if I have to write on the side it can be painstakingly long when doing that with a long essay full of relevant infos.

I don't know if you'll take the time to read and answer but thanks anyway for all your great work! There needs to be more "personal development" targeting a deeper mind instead of a more productive/lucrative (capitalist) existence!

Brother, can you do a practical video of you studying a subject using a commonplace book?

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RE: Analog vs digital notes
I actually skimmed the literature and a few metaanalysis because I was interested in the topic. As far as I understand, as a non-psychologist:
1. There is a consistent, albeit weak, benefit for longhand notes over typed notes. The Gaussian distribution of student grades of the longhand vs typed notes groups overlap greatly but the different is statistically significant.
2. The gap shrinks if typists are restricted in typing speed.
3. It is probably the slow speed and multidimensional encoding that matters.

Longhand notes provide slow deliberateness and some degree of complex visual & tactile encoding OOTB.

Digital notes can also provide benefits to encoding that are unique to digital mediums, such as Anki and other spaced repetition apps offering optimal revision schedules. It may also be easier to apply digital notes to applied projects that help encode the knowledge in a deeper way, such as taking the digital notes and making a presentation or doing a project around it. It would be much more laborious to do similar from longhand notes.

I decided to take compendium-like digital notes, aim to take notes slowly and deliberately, and use spaced repetition to retain them. I use our research lab's internal meetings as a way to multidimensionally encode recently learned knowledge. I also have a large whiteboard surface where I physically work through the toughest mathematical concepts. This has worked for me in terms of being portable for frequent travels and also retaining much of the learning benefits!

Whats the difference bwetween this and a commonplace

Have you tried Rocketbook, a wipeable notepad in various sizes that you use an app to transfer to a document in a resource you have access to like Dropbox, Google Docs, or even just an e-mail. It should allow it to make converted to text PDFs though that hasn't worked for me even though I am a train mechanical designer who prints exclusively in a very consistent manner.

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I saw that you had time as a familiar stranger, what an interesting concept.

Its amazing how your channel has grown in 1 year proud of you.

I love the TVA Handbook. I have one also but have been saving it for something special. Not sure what or when that will be. After this I think I will enjoy it now! Liked your video and will watch more asap.

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Hey Parker, love ur stuff! You and Jared Henderson, got me back to taking physical notes and it’s game changing. Quick question, will you use one notebook for multiple books as you find something noteworthy to right down , or do you like taking individual notes on like note cards for each source, and then like collaborating it into one compendium? Sorry that might’ve then worded weird

maybe when i learn gregg

🤔On the topic of paper versus digital, for what it's worth...I keep a physical FieldNotes pocketbook as a Zibaldone and I use paper to keep notes because it forces a chronological flow of bullet points. But my dayrunner, personal handbook, all those, I keep digital. BUT! I keep a low-tech type of digital. I use a very old version of Word, and most of my functions are just little scripts I wrote in Autohotkey. It works for me and, having a word document of hyperlinks to scripts makes it really easy to make buttons so that I can keep endless digital commonplace books and compendiums, I can update them quickly, and I can cross-reference sections.

Loved this video and thanks for the articles.

PAPER works better for me as well. Keep the paper pushing! Lol I push it all the time.

As a retired elementary school teacher, I would make my students take notes in class, whether from my lectures or from sources they read.
I made sure to TEACH them how to take notes, because it's important for us to remember that note-taking is a skill, we aren't born with the ability to take notes.
Great stuff, Parker - thank you!

Really enjoying the video, dude! I think I found this video because I was looking for best ways to organize, in my new binder, all the music theory knowledge and guitar technique exercises I want to amass to make my practice better... and then happened upon this. I want to learn other subjects too (religion, history), so this seems like a very useful approach! Love the mustache! Take care.

Hey Parker, if you have no idea which Video you can make: What are your favourite Pens…..??? Much Love from the Leuchtturm- and Drehgriffel-Country..♥️

I use infinite canvas to note / process information ( it’s any program that offer extremely large writing space and use a stylus to write. I feel like it give me the most freedom and still get the benefit of hand written note. I feel like paper notebook give me less flexibility when I try to learn new topics since I can’t move things around an paper isn’t usually large enough to fit everything in one page. I wonder if the benefit of paper notebook is the fact that you write on paper or something else .

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I have noticed this man loves jiu-jitsu, or at least jiu-jitsu shirts.

Hello Sir, I am from India and I watch your videos. Thank you very much for getting the wonderful knowledge given by you.