I watched "The Giant's Notes": a gorgeous transformation from notes to records

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👉 If you want to listen to the audio version, please click here (opens in a new tab).

Have you ever encountered a book that made you want to proclaim its brilliance? Today I want to share with you a very interesting book: “Giants’ Notes (opens in a new tab)”. The author of this book is Kim Yi-han (opens in a new tab) (김익한), a university professor from South Korea. He claims to be South Korea’s first “recordist (opens in a new tab)” and is also quite active on the Internet. For me, who runs a note-taking community on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/note.taking.club (opens in a new tab)), this book aroused my curiosity in many ways.

The title of the book attracted me from the beginning, but what really fascinated me was the author’s unique insights into a seemingly ordinary but underthought behavior in our daily lives-writing notes (opens in a new tab). Professor Jin encourages everyone to write more notes and advocates turning yourself into a “recording human being”, which means not just writing down notes, but turning them into meaningful records through writing, classification and narration. This got me thinking: What is the real difference between notes and records? According to Professor Jin, notes are raw materials that have not been polished and filtered, while records are information that has been carefully organized and thought about.

So how do we elevate scattered notes into impactful records? Professor Jin emphasized that just writing notes is not enough. The real magic of journaling is when we revisit and read those notes aloud and get inspired by them. This touched me deeply. As a lecturer who often teaches people writing skills (opens in a new tab), I often tell students: “A good article is not just written, it often needs to be revised repeatedly. It needs to be read aloud, and the structure, logic and fluency must be checked between the lines, and whether there are typos?”

Professor Jin also pointed out that a mistake many people make is to shelve their notes. This is a dangerous habit, as these notes may get forgotten in the corners of our memory, never to see the light of day again. Well, I couldn’t agree more with that. Please think about it, how many times have you used a bookmark tool to mark a web page or jot down something, telling yourself “I’ll read it later when I have time”, only to have completely forgotten it? It’s like a squirrel hoarding acorns but never eating them.

Professor Jin believes that the key is not only to record more information, but to check these notes repeatedly to make them vivid, interesting and usable information. As for how to effectively use these records, I have some tips and tools that I will share with you when I have the opportunity in the future!

To sum up, Professor Jin Yihan’s “Giants’ Notes” (https://vista.im/giants-notes (opens in a new tab)) is not only a book advocating note-taking, but also a call to action. Let’s turn the random notes into meaningful records. Don’t underestimate this behavior, it may change our lives. So, grab your pen (or keyboard) and start journaling with purpose! Friends who are interested in this book can click this link (opens in a new tab) to purchase the book.

Welcome to join my note taking club (opens in a new tab), I hope everyone can record a beautiful life!

👉 If you want to listen to what I have to say, please click here (opens in a new tab).

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Further reading

• I read “First-class people read, where do they draw the line?” : Deep Thinking Techniques for Elite Reading: Don’t draw lines on existing beliefs, but absorb the unknown
• “77 Copywriting Promotion Tips That Will Make People Buy Their Fingers” Recommended Preface: Copywriting is a spiritual journey
• Recommended preface to “The Second Brain”: Embrace the AI era, start by utilizing the second brain