You know who I really admire.
People can not only retain the information they read from a book, but they can also reference it in a conversation.
A big problem that I have is I'll read books, but I only remember about 10 of the things that I've read.
The same thing applies to courses.
I take, conversations I have and conferences I go to.
Until now I actually have a system that has helped me retain information better, learn faster and also be a master at content creation.
And so I need to sit down and tell you about this system.
So here's how my system works.
When i'm reading, i will use my kindle, because i can highlight the things that speak to me.
But to take it a step further, i'll use this website right here where i can access all of my notes per book.
Then i'll use the evernote web clipper extension to transfer those notes onto my evernote from there.
You'll notice, within my evernote i have a notebook for each book that i'm reading, every conference that i've gone to, the courses that i'm taking, so on and so forth.
So not only am I storing a lot of the highlights that I take from Kindle into Evernote, but I also store a lot of the notes that I take from my general learning as well.
But the most important part of this system is the tagging system.
So every single note that I have, I'll make sure to tag it by topic.
That way, when I enter the tag section, I actually have an index of all the things that I've ever taken notes on.
This has been incredibly helpful when it comes to getting more content ideas, taking action, retaining information and just learning in general.
Now that you know the entire gist of how it works, keep watching until the end of this video, because I'll give you the step-by-step tutorial on how to set it up for yourself.
Let's get into it.
So the first step is to set up your Evernote, meaning that you're going to want to download Evernote.
And, by the way, I still use the free account and it's been working really well for me.
Now, once you have your Evernote open, you're then going to want to create a notebook.
Once you've created that notebook, you're now going to be able to create stacks.
And how I've organized my stacks is I've got book notes, meaning that all the books that I'll read I'll put under this stack.
I have conference notes.
All the conferences or events I go to I'll put under this stack meeting notes.
If I'm meeting cool people on zoom or in person and they say something that's really cool, I'll usually put it under this stack.
And then I also got course notes and internet notes, internet notes being that if there's certain YouTubers or blogs that I like reading, I'll usually put my notes in here.
Now, for each stack that you've created, you can now put individual notebooks inside, and this is really based on how you want to organize your Evernote dashboard.
Now let's talk about the second phase, which is how to organize your book notes.
So for me, if I have a physical book that I really like, I will always get the Kindle version, because it allows me to actually highlight the things that really speak to me.
Now, once you're done highlighting, what you can do is go to this website right here, where you can access all of your highlights for each book.
Next, what you're going to want to do is you're going to want to download the Google Chrome extension for Evernote, where you can start web clipping.
From there, you can click on organization, choose the notebook that you want the web clip to go to and click article.
Then you're going to want to save the clip.
What you'll notice is once you enter Evernote, the clip will already be there in that notebook.
And then from there, if you want to take it a step further, you can review each of those notes that you've highlighted and start separating them into separate notes.
If you would like for me, I just still have everything in one note because I haven't had the time to sort through everything yet.
Now let's talk about how I organize my conference and event notes.
One thing is when I attend events, I really don't like bringing a chunky laptop or really hold notes.
I really like to keep things light so I can be as mobile as possible.
But what I will do is I'll start writing chicken scratch notes as things come up in my notepad.
Then what I'll do is after the event is over, I'll transfer my chicken scratch over onto Evernote.
And this is where I'll really sit down and give myself a solid 30 to one hour on actually dissecting the notes, reflecting on them and expanding on them.
So what ends up happening is I will actually take my chicken scratch, split it into different categories of notes, and then I will really start fleshing the notes out.
So it ends up looking like this.
It does take a while to do this, but at the same time, it has really, really helped me retain the information.
And I think that the time investment is well worth it.
Now, the reason why you're going to want to split your big note up into other smaller notes is because we're going to talk about the tagging system.
So let's talk about it right now.
So the reason why you're going to want to set up tags is because personally, I think this is the only reason why I even have this system.
It allows me to create an entire index of every single thing I've learned, whether it's from a conference, whether it's from a course, a conversation or a book.
And so for each note that I have, I will start tagging things into different categories.
Now, these categories are going to be very unique to you, but these are the categories that I have in terms of tags.
I have conference tags so I know all the notes that I've taken from conferences and I'll have the individual conferences as well.
I then have a tag for content ideas.
So anything that I've learned that I feel could be a really great content idea that I could riff off of for YouTube newsletter Instagram, Tik TOK whatever it is, I'll tag it as content idea.
I also have one for quotes so I can easily access bomb quotes that I really, really love and I really want to hold onto.
And then I'll have topic specific tags.
So this will range from org dev finance, leadership, marketing, productivity, mindset.
It really depends on what you want for your tags.
What I also like is within those tags, you can also create sub tags as well.
That way you can really organize your thoughts in a super clean way without having way too many tags in your index.
And here's another hack.
If you have a lot of notes that you want to have as the same tag but you don't want to go through each of them individually, what you can do is you can select all the notes and then bulk add that tag.
I typically do this to bulk add all of the notes that I've taken from conferences.
So, as you can see guys, this system has single handedly increased the amount of content ideas I have.
It's actually helped me execute the ideas and the things that I learned from books and conferences and everywhere else.
And, most importantly, I am now one of those people that can easily reference the things that I've learned in a conversation which has made me sound infinitely smarter.
So snaps to that.
But anyways, show me some love.
If you like the system that you learned, comment below and say, thanks for the system.
So I know you've gotten until this point of the video.
Not to mention a really big reason.
Why I created the system in the first place is so that I can not only retain the information, but share the lessons that I've learned along the way with you guys.
And I share a lot of these lessons in my weekly newsletter called the confessions of a content creator to CEO.
Every single week, I'll share insights tips, strategies and lessons that I don't share anywhere else, on any other platform.
So if you want access to this type of content, then make sure you click the link in my description box or in the comment section below.
I would love to have you join the CEO newsletter family.
That being said, if you like this video, I'm sure you'll love these two videos that I have here as well.
I appreciate you guys and I will see you in my next video.
Bye guys and take care.
