![]() ![]() There are also whole chunks pre-written, as I often consider ideas in my notes, putting concepts into my own words and making links with other thoughts or resources on the same subject. When I’m ready to develop one of these further, there’s a growing library of quotes, approaches and ideas read in books or gleaned from podcasts, talks and courses for me to draw on, instantly. Writing my weekly blog posts has become much easier as I’ve got into the habit of saving even the vaguest ideas as they come to me. I’m now using my mind to develop ideas, not to remember information. ![]() No longer having to keep track of everything has freed up my creativity. I’ve always told myself that I thrived on chaosĪnd I think that many of us – me included – express our resistance to creative work by planning and organising, making mind maps and charts and colour-coding our books or materials.īut I now have a better way of storing all of this, and assessing what actually supports me, and what was busywork. And why would we put it all in one place, when we can have it stored and backed up in the cloud, and retrieve what we need from anywhere?įorte’s system expands on the Zettelkasten concept of taking smart notes, and adapts it more fully for the digital era. Paper seems an inefficient and wasteful way of keeping our notes. We also have a bewildering number of places in which to store our data. We read books but also listen to audiobooks, or read them digitally. We have information coming at us from all kinds of devices, apps and messaging services. Photo from the Niklas Luhmann archive But we now live in the 21st century (If you’re interested in knowing more, Sonke Ahrens’ 2016 book How To Take Smart Notes is aimed at academic writers, but it lays out the system clearly.) Luhmann’s slip-boxes. These contained his notes on everything he read and studied, but also his own thoughts and the connections between it all. Luhmann’s secret was the paper notes he kept in a series of slip-boxes – or Zettelkasten. He also raised his three children alone after his wife died, so no one could accuse the man of shirking. It builds on the Z ettelkasten system invented by Niklas Luhmann, an extraordinarily productive and eclectic 20th-century German academic who published 58 books and hundreds of articles over a 30-year time period, advancing innovative thought across several academic disciplines. This is a system created by Tiago Forte, who explains it clearly in his excellent new book, Building A Second Brain. In fact, it will often resurface, even if I’ve forgotten I have it. When I need stuff I can easily fish it out. I feel like I’m surfing it, able to navigate my way through it. Most of all, I no longer feel like I’m overwhelmed and drowning in a sea of information. Interesting newsletters or online articles I want to read are all stored in my read-later app, Instapaper, which I open whenever I have a few minutes. I just look up how I did it last time, and find either a quick map with keyboard shortcuts, or a step-by-step checklist if it was a more complicated task. With tech, I rarely have to learn to do the same thing twice. Or recall what was said in a meeting, and what my next action steps are. I can quickly find my notes on podcasts, courses or talks. Key ideas from every book I read are neatly summarised now, and easy to find. I no longer spend hours looking for a quote I remember. If any of this feels familiar, I’ve found a solution And when I did want to use or refer back to something, there were often long, frustrating searches to find it again. I had a constant feeling of being behind, or of losing or forgetting something important. Then there were the podcasts, the YouTube clips, the TED talks and masterclasses, the online courses… Books had turned-down corners, highlighted passages, sticky tabs marking bits that I’d thought I’d want to go back to. My web browser bristled with tabs marking useful stuff to read. And in an incomprehensible mess of nested folders on my computer. In articles, papers and web-pages scanned or stored into Evernote. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |