I have similar question - just starting my PhD and I tend to take copious notes and mark quotations in a notebook when I'm reading texts. I have set up a spreadsheet to track the titles/books/papers etc I read and can cross ref them by theme/topic, but what do people do with the notes themselves so they can find them again? If I note a good quote in a book on a particular theme, what's the most efficient way to find it again in say 3 years time. I can think of two ways - first, in my books record note key topics I found in it, so I can then at least narrow down which books quotes or notes on that topic will be in, but if I've read 20 books that all contain elements of that theme, it's a lot of notes to read through again. Alternatively, I can type up my notes and categorise them by topic, so at a later date I can simply filter them. The first approach seems to involve lots of time later, while the first lots of time at the start. Any thoughts on which approach is best? (my thesis is historical/theoretical, so I'll be doing a lot of reading!)

Many thanks,

David