Steal Sam Altman's Genius Note-Taking Method (Pocket Notebook Power!)

hey guys today's video is going to be something a little bit fun and different actually a few weeks ago I was watching a video with David Perell I think I pronounced that correctly and he does a lot of videos on how people write and interviews a lot of really interesting folks interviews them about their process of writing and this particular video had Sam Alman which most of you probably know from open Ai and previous to that why combinator so venture capitalist super duper you know smart and Innovative person and in particular he's someone that as

you can imagine is just full of ideas constantly and so kind of at early stage of this interview and I'm going to play a little clip here in a second he actually is sparked to kind of talk about his process of note taking and he pulls out of his pocket a little pocket notebook and so I'm going to let you take a look at this clip and then I'll be right back and then after that we'll do a little top down and we'll talk about this strategy and how I've actually been using it for the

last couple weeks let's take a look at the video first and have Sam personally explain his strategy in using a pocket notebook do you take notes during the week that you reflect on or is it just all your head no I'm a huge notetaker oh tell me about that there's all these like fancy notebooks in the world yeah you don't want those um you definitely want a spiral notebook because one thing that's important is you can rip Pages out frequently and you also want it to lie like flat and open on the table and if

you like open pages you want them to like you know like be able to lay like like this whatever you definitely want to be able to like rip Pages out I'm a big believer of like I take a bunch of notes and then I like clearly like rip them out so I can look at multiple Pages at the same time and I can like crumple them up and throw them on the floor and I'm done like when our house cleaner comes in on like a whatever there's just just these pile of crumpled papers that I'm

like typed my notes in or whatever on the floor you definitely want like a kind of paper that is uh like good to write on which is a feel thing but most paper is terrible to write on huh um you want a hard front and back to the notepad so and you also want something that can fit in a pocket I was about to say that I think the unibal micro5 pen um is the best pen overall but the Muji 36 or 37 in dark blue ink is a very nice pen for other reasons uh

so those are the two I would use but I think this kind of notebook and one of those two pens is the right answer and how many notes you're writing per day on that thing uh I go through one of these like every three two or three weeks oh wow so you're taking a lot of well this you can see how much I've ripped out like this used to have like 100 pages in so that's how you think about it so you're going to basically take the notebook and then you rip out the pages you

don't have completed notebook I don't have completed notebooks wow what inspired this where does this come from lots of trial and error uh many kinds of notebooks many pens many different systems this one's really good so you saw how Sam does it and so I went out to Amazon and found something that was kind of consistent with with his prescription uh these notebooks actually this is a brand that I've used pretty consistently for and you've heard me talk about this on another videos my my in my three notebook system I have kind of a horizontal

notebook uh orientation that I put underneath my keyboard and this is the same brand and so it meets the prescription and also I had um this pen laying around which is actually a space pen and uh interestingly enough it's the only pen that really fits in here so kind of like the most interesting part of this system um because in this system um I kind of put aside uh and I don't think I'll do this for very long I we'll talk about this in a second my lock be uh pocket Journal which I like to

kind of keep and the problem with this uh particularly with what you heard Sam talk about in the use of his notebook um is he justes tear sheets out and so this is like ideal for kind of keeping track of those as you're indexing them now I know he talks about sort of tearing them out and immediately putting them um into you know some other system and again I'll talk about that I put mine in to notion um but you know a system like this um and using my pocket notebook from locky um would kind

of be the best scenario but unfortunately this doesn't do the job doesn't fit in here because of that spiral thing so you're kind of left instead of having this nice little thing to have your your writing instruments on you're kind of stuck with figuring out how to find something that fits here and I'm not a big ballpoint guy U but this is really all that fits and I kind of went through my collection of pens this uh this is my uni one which I love as well kind of does it but it's kind of a

pain in the butt I to stick it in and out there so this is probably if I do this more often or long term I probably just kind of suck it up and go with this cuz I like this so much better than a ballpoint yeah my other go-to um you know kind of does it so that might be an option as well the the larger this is the micro uni ball um it'll fit in there but the uh the the kind of the normal size for whatever reason it's a little bit thick thicker and

so it doesn't fit in there of course you're like a complete no-go for any sort of Fountain pin um especially if it's the least bit nice so um so you're kind of stuck you know maybe you do a Parker or something like that so there are options uh for sure in this but um let's take a look at how I'm using this system and we'll go through um a little bit of a top down and take a a look at this and I'll go through the complete system system from what I put in here particularly

um and and then also um what do I rip out and what do I do with it and you can see um well maybe you can't really notice but I've already started to to pull some pages out of this um and index them uh into notion so let's take a look at the top down all right let's do a a top down and um sort of review how I'm implementing Sam alman's uh pocket notebook strategy so um again if you've ever you know watched some of my videos before you know I'm a big fan of

of the lockb uh for a couple different reasons one uh I can store you know whatever my writing utensils uh and appliances are really easy um I can stick you know standard field notes in here um you can use the lockb version um if you prefer that or if you want to go to the cheaper option um from Amazon this is the field book and so I'm a big you know user of of this um an active um user as you can see uh of this system and to some degree I kind of do some

of what Sam is talking about and then I kind of earmark some stuff uh to to put into um my sort of larger um you know database which is notion and so however um I thought there were some interesting features to what um Sam had to say here so one you you can kind of have a similar setup and having like I I talk in kind of the intro about your PIN options are are a little more um sort of constrained but you can certainly find some pins that work in here so that's kind of

a a self-contained system you don't have to do extra Loops or you know have necessarily um a notebook cover or pocket notebook cover um so that's kind of interesting like I said I pulled out these um and I'll link to the actual brand so this is this is a great great brand I looked through a couple to to find something that would sort of satisfy the the specs uh of what Sam Alman was talking about um so this is one I came up with um it's got the craft cover um so of course you can

write on this label it uh in whatever way you would want to do it um and then as you go in here this is you know really good good paper you could actually even do some watercolor um on this if you wanted to and some some sketching I will probably do that but you can see in the first um sort of week or so I've already torn some pages out of here uh but I wanted to give you a real feel for sort of you know specifically what I'm using this notebook for um so you

can see here um this is a podcast and I'm working on uh a book currently and so you'll probably learn more about this on this channel uh as I progress a little bit further in this so I took some notes specific um to some book advice that Tim Ferris I think this was um yeah this is Tim Ferris and Ryan holiday um podcast uh together uh I can't remember who was leading I think Ryan was leading it but anyway grab some notes there this is this is definitely going to get ripped out um and you

know put an index inside of uh my notion uh database because this is specific advice particularly this around beta readers that I'm going to use you can continue it over here this is another podcast uh with Rick Rubin and again grab some quotes so it's kind of feeling a little bit like a commonplace uh notebook up into this there you go got the working title of my new book again a book advice um that I got uh somewhere along the way uh that I want to incorporate in there um and then this like sort of

again the commonplace uh approach and I think this is kind of how this will work however I think and you're going to see some ideas in here before but um again sort of capturing some interesting things here this got some book reviews and some uh things to to kind of look into um from some of those audience development uh this is a concept inside of the book that I'm working on and so I was kind of working through and thinking through some ideas there again something that's going to come out and uh will ultimately be

incorporated on I'll I'll give you a look at this inated on um a not card here and you can probably tell that uh I'm I'm a fan of Ryan holiday and his approach to books so this is actually the book um as it stands today uh so far so this a lot of the research that's going into that so so this particular um you know item will be pulled out and um put into that stack and built into a card expressive writing was a concept that I wanted to look into more depth I didn't um

really understand that it went quickly where I heard it and so I just put it on here as a note to myself to do a little more research and see if that's useful so again book recommendation some pieces from that another concept that I heard that I wanted to to do a little deeper dive on in the future this is a a tip on using uh chat GPT this is a concept again that I'm going to take out um and put into a piece of um of content uh that I haven't developed yet so it

was a theme something triggered the thought and I just kind of wrote it down here it's like hey I need to I need to talk to people uh about why it's hard to do PPC on your own if you're not an expert this is kind of interesting to uh in the concept of personal Brands uh I wanted to rearch these two individuals um in a little more depth interestingly enough as I started doing that um Napoleon Hill um is a bit of a Shyer apparently there's a um a Gizmodo uh article it's a little bit

older now kind of talks of him as um somewhat of a charlatan so um I know a lot of people respect him and and maybe the writings are still have some validity but it's kind of interesting as you start to research these people and and sort of the story behind them uh sometimes you you may come to different conclusions than kind of what you uh originally thought so anyway um that was a note there oh here we go we're um we're talking about this this is me sort of outlining uh this particular video um and

the concept that I wanted to bring to you and and kind of share with you on how um using this so a couple things just to go um specific um to this as you as I flip through this and Sam mentioned this and I took this to Heart like you can see I I ripped this out uh and this is something I was not doing before so if you kind of look at my normal uh method even though I rip some of these Pages out I use both sides of the page and so as a

result of that I potentially lose um part of that information particularly if I'm you know moving it obviously if I move it I can use both but if I want to put it in a different place so you can see like my book writing process um we have different tabs here and so I each note should be relatively discreet and so his process uh captured that better um and I made sure that I continued to do that by only using one side of the page and then the other thing that I did I I don't

think you mentioned this but that I found um as I was moving through this because because only using one side of the page um and you're trying to keep each sort of note somewhat discreet um you move through these Pages really quickly right so I've only been using this for a week or so probably you know almost a third of the way through the notebook and as a result of that it's kind of hard to figure out where you are because you you tend to it's not like you open a couple pages and then you're

ready to write so I inserted kind of this additional feature um just a simple sticky note where I put on the back side of the last page that I worked on so um as I pick this up and I want to grab a quick note because that's the intent of this is to sort of quickly put down um a single discreete note um and if you've got more or you're working through a book or something do multiple of these um when I pick this up I want to be uh super quick and efficient here so

um like I said I think this is some something that I I'm really enjoying so even if I don't keep with this form factor cuz I'm still kind of a big fan uh of this uh pocket journal the the whole system so to speak you know I may result to this the only thing about this is these are much smaller notebooks so I'll literally go through this in a week so I don't know if that's uh effective so I'm going to have to figure out how to kind of blend these together but I can tell

you that I'm really enjoying this process and I can see how Sam Alman came to this refined process because um it's very tuned in to someone who either their job or just the way their mind works and I've talked about this before is just sort of constantly full of ideas uh that you want to make sure you capture this is definitely the way to do it and um it's much more efficient or effective at taking everything you capture here being comfortable ripping out those pages and getting into a more um comprehensive or kind of the

master second brain which in my case um is that is that database uh or series of databases inside of notion so um definitely encourage you to to try this out um in the description I'll have links to um to this notebook that I use uh a couple of the pens that I found work you know really well um inside of this system and then of course uh I'll also link to my lock b because if you haven't tried this uh I encourage you uh to do this um and if you've never done any sort of

Park pocket journaling um before um I would encourage you um to either get this locky system uh which comes with one of these notebooks um you see I'm a big fan of the dot Grid or grab some field notes or kind of the the cheaper alternative to that field book again I'll I'll link to all these in the description but I would encourage you to potentially start here um for a couple different reasons one it's kind of fun to have a system like this and maybe you don't make the investment in the lock be cover

yet but but starting here versus here um could be interesting because I think one of the um sort of most important things in starting a uh a pocket notebook or journaling habit um is to sort of quickly and uh well quickly move through and complete one of these notebooks and get that sort of feeling of traction and understanding of uh how to make sure that you get this into uh your daily flow so you're really capturing um those ideas and seeing the value of this versus let's say using your phone and so um there's a

lot of advantages uh to doing this not only because it just kind of uh Works in a different way um but just being able to get off your phone um and think in an analog uh way is is super powerful so anyway whichever of these you try uh I would encourage you to try the Sam alment bet uh approach to this and take a look at that video again or uh scrub it back through and and rewatch kind of how he explains it and then take a look at how I applied it and see what

you think would work for you but definitely encourage you uh to give it a try all right I hope you enjoyed uh kind of the top down view as I went through this um like I said I'm still super conflicted because this is is is my favorite my go-to you can even see uh here on the desk that I use the larger journal and this is where I kind of took the notes on on the video so um I'm not abandoning uh my lock bees um and it's still part of my three notebook system but

uh there's something really compelling about just being comfortable kind of ripping things out of here and you can kind of do this um you know with field notes um as well and you can see I've kind of dog eared some things that uh and have R some pages out of here I tend to throw these away anyway um so there's a good possibility that um you know I just continue to combine this with my my lockb so I can capture some pages and put them in the side uh before I index them and uh continue

to use the lock and have all the opportunity to use the kind of um instruments that I I like to use there um but this was kind of fun um to go through and like I said I've been using this for two or 3 weeks I'll continue uh kind of uh working through this the other thing that I like uh I haven't done a lot of but this this paper inside of this notebook um you know works really good if you want to do some sketches and watercolors as well which I I like to to

do so that's another option for this so hope you enjoyed this video hope you learned something from Sam Alman I would encourage you um like anything um give these little ideas a test and see how it works in your own uh productivity system uh you know if you're like me uh for B2B marketing um or what ever your particular job is hey folks um I hope you enjoyed uh this video a little bit different uh exploring uh Sam alman's uh approach to pocket uh pocket notebooks pocket journaling and uh kind of his system of ideating

and capturing and then ultimately um documenting or moving those ideas into something more substantive whether it be content or the database like I do in notion uh kind of explored my system um an adaptation of it and so would encourage you uh to take a look at this and try it if you enjoyed this video uh I'd love for you to like it um and potentially subscribe to it every time you like a video gives me a better idea kind of what you're looking for from me as um I grow this Channel and then also

down in the description everything that we talked about today uh is linked up those are affiliate links so every time um something uh looks interesting or compelling to you uh if you buy through that link uh it helps uh feedback um some funds to the channel so we can help it grow and continue to offer you uh a great experience so hope you enjoyed this again like And subscribe we'll see you next time