Information Distilling

Distilling is the process of making knowledge “time travel” well.

We need to make note easily graspable for our future self so we don’t need to reread the source material. Striking a balance between concise representation and preserving context is challenging. Additionally, we can’t invest excessive time in note-taking.

Common signs that knowledge doesn't time travel well

  1. I read an insightful article and think it may be handy. When the time come to do the task, I need to reread the whole source material
  2. I read my old note and have no idea what it means

Tiago Forte propose progressive summarization as a method for distilling.