avoid collecting information

Collecting information does not extend personal knowledge. Instead of just collecting information, I go through my studying process, which processes information to identify the most important ones to remember and to expand my understanding through facilitating the emergence of insight.

One form of collecting information is reading. When people read something interesting, they will remember it in a few days and exhibit after-reading glow. But they soon forget about it because they have simply collected information in their brain and failed to externalize the information into a system like talahardin. Without taking literature notes, you are just collecting concepts in your memory. Since memory is flawed, you eventually forget about what you read. Thus, reading without note-taking is only beneficial in the short-term. Some read and take highlights, but never process these (The problems of highlighting). To prevent us from collecting information, implement a short research cycle repeatedly.

References

Tietze, C. (100 C.E., 04:32). The Collector’s Fallacy. Zettelkasten. https://www.zettelkasten.de/posts/collectors-fallacy/