Literature Notes

Literature notes are atomic notes for a specific piece of media I’ve consumed and given some thought to. For example a link, a book, a podcast episode, a tweet, a quote, an instagram post, etc.

It could be almost anything, but it’s an entity someone else has created that I’m saving because it stood out to me, gave me an idea, enhanced my thinking of a topic in some way, or feels like it could be useful to me in the future. That’s why I’m saving it.

In my system, I think of them as clippings. They could be thought of as bookmarks, saved, or anything along those lines.

A really great description of Literature Notes was in the book Digital Zettelkasten by David Kadavy:

Literature notes are informal summaries you write about a piece of media you've consumed. Whether you've read a book or an article, listened to a podcast, watched a documentary, or had a conversation with an expert, a literature note is something you can review to remind you of the main points you learned. This often takes the form of a bullet-point list, perhaps broken up by topic.

My version of Literature Notes: Clippings. I prefer the word Clipping, because it makes it much less formal.