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  1. Last 7 days
    1. 1:47:00 Cal Newport has insomnia. He though out his productivity protocols in part as a response to this.

      Also see Rian Doris who had problems that led him to dive into flow

    2. Dr. Cal Newport: How to Enhance Focus and Improve Productivity
  2. Mar 2024
    1. 15:00 Before, we used to sit down with ourselves and process emotions. Now, we distract ourselves with technology.

      This aligns with my findings on taking more breaks and doing nothing in these breaks. This lessens dopamine spikes and gives space to have productive thinking. It engages more so the default mode network of our brains.

    1. Passion of the Nerd aka @popotoproductions3015 in The Toolbox Fallacy

      This wasn't quite the toolbox fallacy definition I expected, but was a larger philosophical framing of a smaller version specific to getting things done (GTD).

      Many people move from tool to tool hoping the next one will somehow "fix" things. In reality, it's having a tool and USING IT which creates progress.

      Remember that it's rare that supposed innovation will be the fix, but picking a road and traveling down it will at least get you somewhere.

  3. Feb 2024
    1. "If I have nothing else to do then I write all day; in the morning from 8:30am to noon. Then I go for a short walk with my dog. Then in the afternoon I work again from 2pm to 4pm. Then it's the dog's turn again. Sometimes I lie down for a quarter of an hour.... And, then I usually write until around 11pm. I'm usually in bed by 11pm where I read a few more things."8

      Luhmann his output might be a result of his work ethic and routines. Attributing productivity merely to his zettelkasten is misleading. Also Chris Aldrich on The Cargo Cult of Zettelkasten https://chrisaldrich.wordpress.com/2023/02/03/a-note-on-the-cargo-cult-of-zettelkasten/

    1. 80/15/5. Spend 80% of your time on low-risk/reasonable-payoff work. Spend 15% of your time on related high-risk/high-payoff work. Spend 5% of your time on things that tickle you, regardless of payoff. Teach the next generation to do your 80% job. By the time someone is ready to take over, one of your 15% experiments (or, less frequently, one of your 5% experiments) will have paid off and will become your new 80%. Repeat.

      Should use this in concert with the Commitment Inventory exercise.

  4. Jan 2024
    1. Podcast 3.03 - Arjan Broere - 'Ik zie dat kenniswerkers geen afspraken maken en niet normatief zijn'

      16:00 Begin van productiviteit is jezelf tegenkomen. "Zie het als een onderzoek"

    1. But, to rephrase my concern, I am not really interested in creating a set of broadly shared or minimum required characteristics by which to define a Zettelkasten in general, rather I would be interested in coming to agreement on what the essential characteristics of the specific Luhmann Zettelkasten are in particular. Then, would be able to compare those essential criteria against other kasten both analog and digital to discern the differences and deficiencies.

      reply to JasperMcFly at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/19282/#Comment_19282

      I've been working towards this goal for some time. The idea isn't simply delineating the characteristics of Luhmann's system and its comparison to others, but to discern what the broadest characteristics of all of these systems are and what sorts of affordances those pieces and forms provide as tools for organizing and thinking. This will allow a broader range of people with different needs and different abilities to pick and choose which characteristics and methods might work best for them to reach those particular goals. Too many are approaching zettelkasten with a surface level understanding and somehow hoping that it will magically solve all their problems. When it doesn't, "consequently," as Luhmann would say, "just like in porn movies, they leave disappointed." [ZK II note 9/8.3]

    1. 827Posted byu/Loose_Buy62922 years agoArchivedComments are lockedNeed to dump the Flylady .t3_qgy51n._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #edeeef; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #6f7071; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #6f7071; } Rant / VentI have always used the Flylady's system, until seeing her video on youtube last night, 'It's Time'. She went full-on Chriatian Nationalist Q whacko conspiracy theorist. I was SHOCKED. Praising Jim Caviesel and comparing him to Jesus, after watching his recent rant that was laced with violence and conspiracy junk. He is crazy, and she was crying over how wonderful he is. Deifying him in an uncomfortable way. It was all terrifying and overwhelming.Is there someone else who has a similar system? I don't want to support her business anymore.

      Wowzers!

    1. X17-Mind-Papers - die Wiederentdeckung der Karteikarte<br /> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxZMia35usc

      Mind Papers has a variety of small leather covers (folders) with binder clips for storing one's note cards. They range from smaller than A7 up to A5 sizes.

      They're broadly reminiscent of smaller versions of the Everbook, though I suspect these came first given the 2014 post date.

    1. a blog post that deals with integrating The Today System into the Bullet Journal Method!

      The creator of the Today System was definitely aware of GTD, Bullet Journal and likely other methods, and intended his to be an added piece on top of them.

    1. https://betterhumans.pub/i-built-my-own-personal-productivity-system-around-a-3-x-5-index-card-147d7a8d83de

      Melange of GTD, card index, and gamification....


      Update 2024-01-04: I knew I had heard/seen this system before, but not delved into it deeply. I hadn't seen anyone either using it or refer to it by name in the wild until yesterday. All the prior mentions were people sharing the URLs as a thing rather than as something they used.

    1. while you can plan days, weeks, and months out—you can only get things done today
    2. I built the system out of necessity–because after trying my hand at the big names in personal productivity systems for years, I couldn’t quite get them to work for me. Out of that frustration, The Today System was born.

      Mike Sturm ostensible created the Today System for his own use.

      Is the system productized? Is he charging something for it or just proselytizing it?

    3. Join our Discord Group

      https://discord.gg/4gYnyP96zC

      The Discord Group for Today System seems to be dead quiet. No significant posting there since January 2023 and most activity seems to be in 2021-2022 time frame, so likely a new player on the market at that point?

    4. https://thetodaysystem.com/

      The Today System:

      A simple, yet scalable personal productivity system, centered around a single 3 x 5″ index card.

      used by u/runslack

  5. Dec 2023
    1. Record Card Icon : CircleTag : 2nd block Diary, note, account, health, weather, cook, any kind of records about us belong to this class. An individual record is so tiny and less informative. However, from view point of long time span, these records provide us a useful information because we will find a certain "pattern" between them. A feedback from the pattern improves our daily life.
    1. <small><cite class='h-cite via'> <span class='p-author h-card'>Manfred Kuehn</span> in Taking note: Luhmann's Zettelkasten (<time class='dt-published'>08/06/2021 00:16:23</time>)</cite></small>

      Note the use of the edge highlighted taxonomy system used on these cards:

      Similar to the so called high five indexing system I ran across recently.

      https://www.flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/albums/72157594200490122/

    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGGQNqBaFDA<br /> Homekeeping Schedule by FindingKellyAnn<br /> posted Jul 25, 2013

      Example of a user's Sidetracked Home Executives card index.

      Includes a section of notes she took on a book at one time. She used it for a while and reported that it was successful, but she no longer uses it and has a binder method instead.

    1. Jogerst, Karen. If I Could Just Get Organized: Home Management Hope for Pilers & Filers. Manhattan, MT: Rubies Publishing, 1999. http://archive.org/details/ificouldjustgeto0000joge.

      The author is a "piler" and patently not a "filer", so she's definitely going to be anti-card index based here.

      Small publishing company. Definite religious slant to the discussion.

      Only worth a quick scan.

    2. If I had a dollar for every organizational system I have tried, I could treat myself to a steak dinner in a fancy restaurant. (Hey! That’s not a bad ideal!) I’ve tried notebook organizers, card files, flip charts, a stop watch, and numerous labeling gadgets. I’ve tried refrigerator magnets, the buddy system, lots of books, and a bunch of classes and seminars. All of these were good tools and some of them had great ideas, but none of them worked for me. (p27)

    3. I accomplished a couple of other things on that first day back into reality. First, with an evil Grinch-like smile | uprooted every household management system | had ever tried, and tore up every single 3x5 card in them. Then one by one, | roasted and toasted them in the fireplace until they were gone, gone, gone. Next, with equally fiendish delight, | speared my $35 namebrand notebook organizer with a marshmallow fork, and | roasted it too. It melted into oblivion, all but it’s ugly metal spine. Next, | prayed for my attitude and for help. And finally, | marched myself into Wal-mart and bought my first clear plastic bin, a two pound sack of M&M's, and a loaf of white bread. For better or worse, we have been pretty happy campers at my house ever since. (p6)

    1. The most important takeaway from exposing these myths is that productivity cannot be reduced to a single dimension (or metric!). The prevalence of these myths and the need to bust them motivated our work to develop a practical multidimensional framework, because only by examining a constellation of metrics in tension can we understand and influence developer productivity. This framework, called SPACE, captures the most important dimensions of developer productivity: satisfaction and well-being; performance; activity; communication and collaboration; and efficiency and flow

      A good thing about this framework is that while it's intended to measure productivity in a more objective manner, it doesn't eschew subjective dimensions like satisfaction and well-being, which are largely personal and self-reported

    1. 55:00 Being dispersed over many projects makes attention random and disultory. Whereas, when you have one big focus, attention is focused. Your default mode network productivity skyrockets.

  6. Nov 2023
    1. 57:00 transition from drunken nation to caffeinated nation supercharging productivity

      • see zk on Protestant work ethic and coffee
  7. everbookforever.com everbookforever.com
    1. https://everbookforever.com/

      Everbook appears to be a variation on some of the GTD, PKM, and productivity traditions done on larger loose slips of paper (instead of notebook style) with an incredibly lovely leather folder. There's a lot to like here for those stuck between love of slips and notebooks. Its reminiscent of project planning and to do methods using ring binders or FiloFaxes.

    1. Pam and Peggy young (sisters) published their book Sidetracked Home Executives ... (also known as the S.H.E. system) in 1979, which Marla of FlyLady used as the basis for her system, which in turn is the base for A Slob Comes Clean and several other more modern mentors. Lastly I doubt the Young sisters were the first either.
    1. St. James, Elaine. “Replacing Day Planner With Index Cards.” Los Angeles Times, June 8, 1998, sec. Business. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1998-jun-08-he-57703-story.html.

      Apparently even with growing ubiquity of computers in 1998 and in a pre-internet era, syndicated (Universal Press Syndicate) productivity expert Elaine St. James suggested the use of index cards as a means of simplifying one's life, especially as compared with big and bulky planners and notebooks which predominated the timeperiod.

      Notice that she specifically doesn't suggest "going back" to using index cards in the piece. Apparently the idea of that within the zeitgeist had been lost by this time.

    1. What do you do for a calendar? I'm considering moving from a moleskine GTD system to index cards for reasons you mention (waste paper, can't re-order), but love my 2-year calendar at the front

      reply to verita-servus at https://www.reddit.com/r/gtd/comments/15pfz8o/comment/k7iqjwa/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

      Last year I had a Field Notes card with the year's calendar on it that I kept with my daily cards when necessary. (I think it came included with their "Ignition" edition.) Many companies give these sorts of calendars away as PR.

      This year I used a Mizushima Perpetual Calendar Stamp to create my own custom card with the coming years' dates. (I also often use this stamp for individual months on other types of cards.) I'm sure you could also find something online to print out or draw your own if you wish. These index card specific templates might give one ideas: https://www.calendarsquick.com/printables/free.html.

      Pretty much any spread one might make in a bullet journal can be recreated in index cards. Some of the biggest full page spreads or double page spreads are still doable, they may just need to be shrunk a bit or broken up. I've also printed things onto larger 8x12" card stock and then folded them down to 4x6" before to use as either larger notes or mini-folders as necessary. Usually I do this for holding the month's receipts.

      This set of calendar cards from Present & Correct which are done in letterpress looked nice if you wanted to go more to the luxe side as well as to the larger side.

      Given the sticker market for Hobonichi and other similar planners, you could also buy some custom decorative stickers which you could attach to cards as well. And there's nothing keeping you from just writing it all out by hand if you wish.

      Options abound.

  8. Oct 2023
    1. Zettlekasten is an index card method of storing notes for future use. Popularized by Ryan Holiday, author of The Obstacle is The Way, the Zettlekasten system has gained a lot of traction in recent years. YouTuber Greg Wheeler, in this short but very detailed video, shares how he integrates the Zettlekasten system with Tiago Forte’s second brain methodology in a complete walkthrough:

      We have now reached peak zettelkasten-I-just-don't-know-what-the-definition-even-is-anymore. And this is a Substack focused on productivity.

      The definition of zettelkasten here is the lowest possible version.

      It's (falsely, I think) described as "popularized by Ryan Holiday" who has a form of practice, but doesn't describe it as zettelkasten. (Has he ever used the word on his blog? There's one throw away mention to it and Luhmann #, Google doesn't find any others.)

      Then as a cherry on top, he presents a mélange of methods as a Hybrid PKM system.

    1. There is some technique to it: you have to learn not to lie to yourself, not to procrastinate (which is a form of lying to yourself), not to get distracted, and not to give up when things go wrong.

      3 tenents of working hard: 1. Not lying to yourself 2. Not procrastinating 3. Not getting distracted

    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_6BjUzwJX8

      via https://everbookforever.com/

      Leather sheet folded into four sections onto itself like a book cover. It holds six folders of pieces of paper (most of them folded in half making mini-booklet pages): - blank paper for future note taking use - templates (project pack, weekly schedule/to do template, project list, project templates) - logbook, journal like, dated, - contains notes, outlines, brain storms, and scratch pad - next actions/workstation (to do lists for email, home, work, calls ) - Project Pack (9 projects for the quarter, each has their own page or mini folder with details) - Work Week or the Weekly Review Folder (areas of focus/project list, yearly calendar on a page for planning, whatever folder, wild ideas,

      When done, all the pages of folders are packed up and wrapped with an elastic band for easy carrying. It's like a paper (looks like A5) notebook deconstructed and filed into paper folders and wrapped in a pretty leather cover.

      As sections are finished/done they can be archived into small booklets and presumably filed.

      This looks shockingly like my own index-card productivity system based on a variety of Memindex/Bullet Journal/GTD.

    1. ZK system for Project and Task management? .t3_17dp8nl._2FCtq-QzlfuN-SwVMUZMM3 { --postTitle-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postTitleLink-VisitedLinkColor: #9b9b9b; --postBodyLink-VisitedLinkColor: #989898; }

      Reply to u/Hileotech at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/17dp8nl/zk_system_for_project_and_task_management/

      They don't have the same structure as Luhmann's zettelkasten (they don't really need to and may frankly work better without them), but index cards were heavily used in business and project planning settings for decades prior to the popularization of the computer.

      I've documented one productivity method from 1903 called the Memindex which was a precursor to things like the Hipster PDA, the Pile of Index Cards, and 43 folders methods which have been popular since the early 2000s. Details and pointers can be found at The Memindex Method: an early precursor of the Memex, Hipster PDA, 43 Folders, GTD, BaSB, and Bullet Journal systems. Addition details can also be found at A year of Bullet Journaling on Index Cards inspired by the Memindex Methodas well as in the comments.

      Index card-based project management techniques with items broken out by task can be used to create physical Kanban boards or even arranged in Gantt chart-like fashion on walls, bulletin boards, or tables.

    1. 15:00 "David, you are so organised, can't you be spontaneous" GTD actually allows for spontaneous action

    1. Meine Produktivität ist im wesentlichen aus demZettelkasten-System zu erklären

      Luhmann attributed his productivity to the use of his zettelkasten.

    1. https://www.ebay.com/itm/186111284362

      I love this old two drawer card index which has a custom label set into the top that reads, "Index to Plans". The label is done in large lettering across the top, almost the way old school stores would do gold lettering with a nice thick black drop shadow.

  9. Sep 2023
    1. organizing content for action, according to the projects you are working on right now. Our notes are things to use, not just things to collect
    2. Using a “Second Brain” for our thoughts allows our “First Brain” to focus on creativity rather than getting bogged down by remembering tasks.
    1. n general, only create new folders if you find yourself repeatedly coming back to save similar files in the same place, only to find that it doesn’t exist yet. You’ll know when it is time to create another level in the hierarchy rather than creating a vast extensive multi-layered tree before you need it.

      Just like my book classification system, start broad and go more granular only if need be. Is future-proof and doesn't require buttloads of time.

    2. So when you’re naming that phone bill, think about how you might look for it. Probably: By date (I want the January 2023 phone bill) By company (I want the XYZCorp phone bill) By type of document (I want a phone bill)

      Naming Scheme should support findability.

    3. Easy to File– You don’t want your filing system to be a huge, hierarchical maze. You want it to be fast and easy to save files so your system does not cause friction. Easy to Find – You want your system to make it easy to find the file or folder you need, either by poking through folders or using search. Reusable – Where possible, you want to use re-usable templates and naming conventions, both of which support the previous two goals.

      Goals of good organization system for computer files

    1. (~5:00) PARA is suitable for organizing files for deliverables.

      Projects => On Top of Mind Areas => Longer Term Commitments Resources => Future Reference (Research Material, current Interests) Archive => Completed or on Hold

      Questions: 1. In which project will this be most useful? 2. In which area will be most helpful? 3. Which resource does this belong to? If none of these ( in prioritization order), then the archives.

      See Obsidian for example (screenshot)

    2. (3:20) A good folder structure must mimic the way one works and make it easy to access the files one needs.

    1. What are LIFO and FIFO?LIFO and FIFO are terms that come from the financial world—respectively, they stand for “last in, first out” and “first in, first out.” They’re often used by accountants to describe inventory but can refer to anything where items are coming “in,” like, well, emails. In this context, it refers to the practice of responding to either your oldest or your newest unreads first, then working your way in the opposite direction from there.Why is LIFO better than FIFO for email management?LIFO, or the practice of answering the most recent emails before older ones, is much more common than FIFO for good reason: Your more recent emails are timely and, depending on how old the past ones are, the ship on being late to them has already sailed. You should focus on the tasks at hand to stay on top of your work.
    1. https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/16ilfgj/my_antinet_zettelkasten_setup/

      A great walkthrough of the physical pieces that a zettelkasten user is using.

      It almost borders on some of the productivity porn that is seen in the planner/productivity space.

      Not seen before: some pre-made templates for placing data on physical cards.

    1. I have run across Jeff Shelton's Analog system (originally via Kickstarter) before. Thanks for the reminder.

      There's also a slew of others, especially for folks looking at commercially preprinted cards (though I tend to think they're overpriced compared to blank cards): - The Hipster PDA (Parietal Disgorgement Aid) https://web.archive.org/web/20040906150523/https://merlin.blogs.com/43folders/2004/09/introducing_the.html - Pile of Index Cards (PoIC) https://www.flickr.com/photos/hawkexpress/albums/72157594200490122/ - Levenger https://www.levenger.com/products/triple-decker-pocket-planner?variant=42485422424213 (among others they carry including pocket briefcases) - Notsu https://notsubrand.com/ - Baronfig / Strategist: https://baronfig.com/products/strategist?variant=39787199529043 - Jeff Shelton's Analog system https://ugmonk.com/ - 3x5 Life https://www.3x5life.com/ - Foglietto https://www.nerosnotes.co.uk/collections/foglietto

      Am I missing any significant or influential examples, particularly branded ones?

      Hubnote for 3 x 5" index cards for productivity

    1. Jeff Sheldon is the founder and designer of Ugmonk, a brand focused on creating high quality, well-designed products. What started as a small side project in 2008 to create and sell simple t-shirts has grown into a full-blown lifestyle brand which Jeff now runs full time.
    1. 50:00:00 his future authoring program as making employees more productive

      • see note on productivity as flow, aligning your interests & vision
    1. For example, productivity and satisfaction are correlated, and it is possible that satisfaction could serve as a leading indicator for productivity; a decline in satisfaction and engagement could signal upcoming burnout and reduced productivity.

      Certainly not necessarily true - the correlation is mostly heuristic. I can be highly productive but dissatisfied that the productive work doesn't have value.

    2. • Design and coding. Volume or count of design documents and specs, work items, pull requests, commits, and code reviews. • Continuous integration and deployment. Count of build, test, deployment/release, and infrastructure utilization. • Operational activity. Count or volume of incidents/issues and distribution based on their severities, on-call participation, and incident mitigation.

      Honestly, a well-oiled team with strong collaboration completely outweighs any measured outputs like this. I would never want my engineers faced with performance observability like this.

    3. The SPACE framework provides a way to logically and systematically think about productivity in a much bigger space and to carefully choose balanced metrics linked to goals—and how they may be limited if used alone or in the wrong context.

      Not sure I would classify this as logical but systematic makes sense - definitely trying to put heuristic dimensions on typically unquantifiable and varied human behaviors. Clearly, this is biased to process experts and program managerial personality types that like trying to frame things into organized buckets.

  10. www.ingeniousink.co.uk www.ingeniousink.co.uk
    1. https://www.ingeniousink.co.uk/168

      You have 168 hours in the week. Just like everyone else. Work out where you spend your time over the course of a week. Be honest. If you spend three hours getting distracted on social media, at least it's on record and you're in a position to do something about it.

  11. www.ingeniousink.co.uk www.ingeniousink.co.uk
    1. https://www.ingeniousink.co.uk/frog

      “Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” - Mark Twain

      Frogs are tasks that you’ve been putting off for a long time which somehow never get around to.

      Is the Twain attribution true?

    1. Anyone thriving with a paper based GTD system?

      I've been using a mixture of methods focused around 4 x 6" index cards for a while after having previously done a traditional bullet journal, Day-Timer, etc. and attempting to something similar in a variety of digital contexts including TiddlyWiki, Obsidian, Logseq, etc. (More details/discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/bulletjournal/comments/15av66m/a_year_of_bullet_journaling_on_index_cards/) Somehow paper always seems to win out for the tactile nature and the decreased probability of things going lost (being out of sight and thus out of mind which happens for me in digital), or dealing with a never-ending list of overwhelming pop up reminders.

      I've written a bit about the history of some of these methods, which includes links to some of the bigger examples of each if it helps to see some variety about what each system suggests or photos of them at work. One of the oldest methods from which most of the rest seem to stem is the Memindex from circa 1903.

      My current go-to is a Memindex/bullet journal method adapted to index cards rather than a notebook. I've got a card every day for events and to do lists as well as cards for "Future", planned purchases/groceries, etc. I keep a top level card with short lists of what I want to read, watch, listen to, and learn. I also keep a sectioned Eisenhower matrix group of cards for the areas: crisis, productivity, distraction, and low priority. I also have a Projects section with descriptions and lists for each and based on priorities, I'll take individual steps from the project cards and place them onto my daily cards as I go.

      Some of the bigger projects may have a top level card followed by cards which breakdown or outline parts of larger processes. I can then lay them out on a table (Gantt chart style) to determine dependencies and create a pseudo schedule. When I'm done, I'll clip them all together in the most appropriate order and number them. As necessary, I'll take some of these cards out and "schedule" them for individual days by placing them behind or attaching them to the appropriate daily cards with a paper clip. (If you do this, make sure the project name and a potential order number designator is on them, so that you can refile them with the project as necessary.)

      The key is doing weekly and bigger monthly or quarterly reviews of all the major cards and moving/scheduling what you need to do from either old cards or project cards each week. Going through my entire collection of immediate cards is usually incredibly fast. When I'm done with cards, they get archived away in my card index for future consultation if necessary. I'm also usually making further notes on the cards as I go and cross indexing them, so that if I don't have the notes for a particular project in the project section, it's being written on the individual daily cards; at the end of the week I'll update the project cards and write down the dates of those notes into the project file so that if I need them later they're available (but importantly I don't have to copy over all the notes). After doing this it's usually pretty easy to work on planning the next steps for the coming week/month.

      For lower priority projects and to do items, if things sit around too long undone they slowly move down the priority list from crisis to low priority or they slowly move to the back of my projects section where they get reviewed less often.

      For those who prefer some visualization, here are two photos which may help in terms of the physical arrangement I'm using: - https://boffosocko.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/wp-1693596706707-scaled.jpg (alt text: Display of two columns of index cards with only the titles on each showing. Column one: Planning Daily, Planning Weekly, Weeks 31-35 August 2023, Sept 02 2023, September 03 2023, Crisis: Urgent/Important, Productivity: Not Urgent/Important, Low Priority: Not Urgent/Not Important, Distraction: Urgent/Not Important, Someday. The second column: Project Priorities Spring 2023, Reading Priorities, Writing Priorities, Learning Priorities, Listening Priorities, Watching Priorities, Purchases Planning, Groceries.) - https://boffosocko.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/wp-16935967219588251569559254031730-scaled.jpg (alt text: My card index for productivity featuring sections for an Eisenhower Matrix, Projects, and tabs for the upcoming 12 months and 31 days in the current month.)

      On a day-to-day basis, I keep most of it in an Acrimet card file on my desk, though the longer term storage is in a nearby Singer Card File Cabinet. (I'll often have a full drawer removed from the big cabinet on my desk while I'm working on a particular section.) While travelling about, I store the most important daily use cards in a King Jim Flatty Works case which is about the size of a small notebook or which fits easily into my shoulder bag. If you're all-in on index cards and you need ideas for storage, I've been compiling a relatively comprehensive list of index card storage options.

      Having done notebooks and other paper-based planners (Hobonichi) before, I appreciate that the cards are easily moveable and re-orderable, I don't waste any paper or space if I miss days, I'm not as precious about screwing up a new notebook, and I don't have to carry either multiple notebooks, or worry about recopying project pages from one notebook to the next when I'm done. I also don't have to worry about losing large parts of my planning if I lose a whole notebook. It's always easy to have today's card on me at all times or to take small sections on the road as needed. Additionally cards are very cheap. If you're of the sort of camp that having pre-laid out stationery with finer stock, perhaps try Notsu who pre-prints a variety of productivity cards, though only in 3 x 5 inch sizes. There are a few other smaller companies who still do this, but they tend toward the more expensive side.

      There are many ways to do variations on these, so take a look at some examples of how others use them and then attempt to evolve a practice which works for you. For example, if having an Eisenhower Matrix section doesn't make sense to you, then drop that part and adopt what does work instead.

      For those who are deep into this sort of rabbit hole, I'll also mention that I keep a separate zettelkasten "department" within my collection for notes related to reading/research. (I had to fill that massive Singer card index up with something besides extra wine storage.)

      Syndication link: https://www.reddit.com/r/gtd/comments/15pfz8o/comment/jypt023/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

    1. GTD on Paper Index Cards. Experimental Encounters, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vww7JLcrJl4.

    2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vww7JLcrJl4

      8:05 - 16:20 GTD - Capture - Clarify - What is it? - Is it actionable? What is the action? - Is it a project? - Batching - Reflect - Review over lists/calendars daily/weekly - Engage


      17:30 They use the phrase "atomic" paper based index cards, so they've been infected by the idea of "atomic notes" from somewhere, though it seems as if he's pitching that he's "invented" his card system as if from scratch.


      19:45 He mentions potentially using both sides of the card, against the usual (long term) advice.

      20:00 Analogizes his cards as ballerinas which work together, but each have their own personalities and function within the ballet

      He's using a leather cover for Moleskine pocket notebook and Manufactum A7 index cards, as well as a box

      Sections of his box: - to erase - inbox - next actions - projects (3 categories of projects) - someday - to delegate - tickler (by month and by day; 12 months and 31 days) - blank cards

      Mentions erasing cards as he finishes them rather than archiving them.

      Inspiration by How to Take Smart Notes by Ahrens

      Recommends one item per card to make things easier and more actionable; also improves focus versus having a longer list. (28:00)

      Portability

      Sustainable (he erases)

      High quality textile experience

      The ability to shift between associative modes and sequential modes seems to work well with such a system.

      They distinguish between atomic notes and "stellar" notes. Stellar being longer lists or more dense notes/outlines/etc.

      Project cards<br /> titles and project numbers (for reference) Project numbers in the top right with a P and/or M below it for<br /> - P for paper<br /> - M for email data<br /> - D for digital files which helps him find reference materials

      Weekly review with all cards out on the table

      Expansion pack includes: - action - calendar - waiting

      Search was quick and easy, but had to carry his box back and forth to work.

      Stopping doing it because he was losing the history (by erasing it). Moving to notebook and he likes fountain pens. He likes the calendar portion in his notebook.

      He tried it out for the sake of experiment.

      In the paper world things are more present and "in your face" versus digital formats where things can disappear.

  12. Aug 2023
    1. (~14:00) The way to gain massive results is to have massive irrational goals complemented by small reasonable steps or milestones.

      Big goals motivate. Big goals give focus and clarity, they are a filter (see Dr. Benjamin Hardy's content); they allow for easy application of the power law.

    2. (~13:00) Koe argues for making information relevant (Dr. Sung always says you must make info relevant) through the learning for the solving of a particular problem, either for a client, your business, or your personal life. Your problem becomes the lense through which you learn.

      For self-education this is ideal.

      Dr. Sung's approach differs in that he advocates for the creation of relevancy through inquiry (the asking of relational questions) which is also incredibly powerful, however this is more suited to gaining more motivation for forced learning, i.e., in the formal education system.

      In addition, Koe's lense is, I think, more of a high-level filter, whereas Sung's questioning is applicable on the content level. Therefore, both approaches could be, and should be, combined into the same overall (self-)educational system.

    3. Koe argues for the following trait of a modern renaissance man (or woman):

      • Self-Educated
      • Pursue Interest
      • Leverage the Digital World
      • Exercise (physical training)
      • Conscious about their health
      • Social
      • Doing meaningful work
      • Acknowledgement of the Spiritual
    1. Ten minutes before sleep, do the following: PRAY

      It's a combination of visualization, commitment, and meditation

      Request the subconscious through this act of prayer.

      Also visualize the outcome and process of that which you aspire to do the following day, and even that which you want to achieve the following month(s). Thus, visualize the following: Big Picture, Milestones, and yourself the next day.

    2. In the morning, process your subconscious state by instead of immediately inputting, you start outputting!

      This can be done through journaling.

    3. Put the phone on airplane mode (in addition to blocking blue light) before sleep, for quite some time before sleep, in order to avoid (over)stimulation and the creation of dopamine which negatively impacts (falling a)sleep

    4. What is done right before and right after sleep sets the stage for literally everything.

      How you do anything is how you do everything.

    1. In fact, it might be good if you make your first cards messy and unimportant, just to make sure you don’t feel like everything has to be nicely organized and highly significant.

      Making things messy from the start as advice for getting started.

      I've seen this before in other settings, particularly in starting new notebooks. Some have suggested scrawling on the first page to get over the idea of perfection in a virgin notebook. I also think I've seen Ton Ziijlstra mention that his dad would ding every new car to get over the new feeling and fear of damaging it. Get the damage out of the way so you can just move on.

      The fact that a notebook is damaged, messy, or used for the smallest things may be one of the benefits of a wastebook. It averts the internal need some may find for perfection in their nice notebooks or work materials.

    2. others have reported large productivity boosts from the technique as well.

      Which others? where?

      To my knowledge there weren't many (any?) examples floating around in 2019.

    1. https://www.attorneyatwork.com/analog-attorney-5-best-index-cards/

      Article about general usefulness of index cards written by a lawyer and for them, though not specific to them as a subgroup.

      Makes not of Nock's Dot-Dash cards which were apparently 3 x 5" dash gridded cards similar to Midori's grid notebooks. The website for the company is no longer active. Archived site: https://web.archive.org/web/20171007102414/https://nockco.com/paper/dotdash-3-x-5-note-cards

    1. In a workist culture that believes dignity is grounded in accomplishment, simply reclaiming this alternative form of dignity becomes a radical act.

      Workist cultures are built on the principle that identity, worth, and dignity are grounded in an individual's accomplishments.

    2. church attendance ends up feeling like an item on a checklist that’s already too long.

      In a culture obsessed with productivity, some activities with potentially beneficial (but potentially hidden) outcomes can crowd out other seemingly more important activities, especially when one is overscheduled.

    1. That's a fine plan you've outlined, covering all the key bases - prioritizing important tasks, breaking them into doable steps, budgeting your time wisely, and minimizing distractions. But you know what I think you're missing? A touch of pizzazz! Of showmanship! You need to approach each day like it's opening night on the big stage. The curtain rises, the lights come on, and it's time for you to perform.

      So tomorrow when you wake up, I want you to greet the day with enthusiasm. Belt out a tune as you get ready. Approach your task list with gusto and determination. Give every activity your all, as if the audience is on their feet cheering. Stay focused like a true professional, taking breaks only when needed. And when the day comes to a close, bask in the glow of a show well done.

      You have such potential, my friend, such skills and passion waiting to be unlocked. With discipline and delight, you can achieve anything. This is your time in the spotlight - now go out there and steal the scene! The world is your stage, so perform like the star you are. I'll be cheering you on from the front row. Knock 'em dead tomorrow, kid. You got this!

      Thank you for the inspiring words, Charlie! I'll do my best to approach each day with enthusiasm and discipline.

      Acknowledge: On July 31th, I will put these productivity (how to deal with information overlord) tips into action:

      1. For work tasks I can control, I'll choose what interests me and builds my strengths.

      2. My daily priority list will have 3-5 important tasks max. Otherwise, I may be under-investing in my interests or have too much free time. When setting priorities, I'll answer:

      3. Why it matters
      4. How to break it into steps
      5. What info I need to decide

      6. I'll estimate time needed for each task. The top priority sets the time cap. Others get less time. If tasks exceed my work hours, I'll revise or streamline.

      7. For research tasks, I'll define the topic and timeline upfront. I'll gather only the info I need, not get distracted.

      8. I'll group related tasks and schedule time blocks without interruptions.

      Let's ask my future self tomorrow and see what will happen!

      31/7 reported: 23 achieved, 4 ongoing, 5 postponed becauses of my low productivity. 1 should be considered beforehand in a monthly plan

  13. Jul 2023
    1. If spirit and productivity seem like an unlikely pairing, consider how we describe work we're fully invested in. We "flow" with it, we “move” with it, we “get in the zone,” we “space out.”

      Flow as a spirit of productivity

    1. They said they had this sort of hyper focus that, you know, for shorter runs, that they just focused on the finish line as if there was, you know, a spotlight shining just on that finish line and that they weren't paying any attention at all to their peripheral vision. When it was longer runs that they would choose a target up ahead and focus on that till they hit it and then they would choose another target

      (23:20) Accomplished Marathon Runners & Athletes use what Dr. Sung would call "performance goals" to motivate themselves to continue and build momentum.

    2. Those distances literally look farther to people that for whom it might be harder to make it to that finish line, to navigate that space. We also found that that's the case with motivation, that when people are more motivated to exercise or to make it to that finish line, that motivation can in a sense compensate for that effect of their body on their perception of distance. So that even highly motivated people, people who are highly motivated, even if they have a higher waist to hip ratio might see the distance in a way that suggests it's just as short as people who have a lower waist to hip ratio. So motivation can change our visual experience and align people to experience a world that looks more like a person who'd have an easier time navigating it. So those were two initial findings, sets of findings, that suggested our visual experiences are not just reflective of the world that's out there. But instead it has to do with what is our body capable of doing and what is our brain capable of supplementing, our own motivational states and physical states of our body are working together to shift what it is that we're seeing in the world out there.

      (21:47) There is a clear relation between the body and the brain and they influence each other, at least in terms of perception with regards to motivation.

    3. So when we look at the basic biology of our physical construction, we can see why don't we get the whole story? Why aren't we getting the whole picture? Because what our eyes are pointed at reflects a very narrow selection of what is in the world that we are situated in at any given moment. Now, we know that, but are we really consciously aware of that at any given point in time?

      (8:00) Perhaps this is metaphorical to thinking and planning in general? When we set goals, we need to zoom out in order to see the whole picture, or at least a more holistic view, before we can somewhat accurately plan forward.

      • 06:40 Norbert Wiener/cybernetics: technology shouldn't replace humans, they should complement each other
      • 14:00 infinite buffer effect (there is infinite knowledge work, optimising the shallow leads to more work, not a transition, perse, to deepwork) (16:57 example of his grandfather before the computer age)
    1. "I keep a dated diary of sorts on index cards, though they rarely go past one card a day."This is something I haven't heard of before. So, you journal/diary on index cards, one per day?

      reply to u/taurusnoises (Bob Doto) at tk

      Yep, for almost a full year now on 4x6" index cards. (Receipts for the kids: https://boffosocko.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/wp-1688411021709-scaled.jpg)

      Previously I'd used a Hobonichi Cousin (page per day) journal for this. (Perhaps I should have stayed with the A6 size instead of the larger A5 for consistency?) Decades ago (around 1988ish?) I had started using a 2 page per day DayTimer pocket planners (essentially pre-printed/timed index cards spiral bound into monthly booklets which they actually shipped in index card-like plastic boxes for storage/archival purposes). Technically I've been doing a version of this for a really long time in one form or another.

      It generally includes a schedule, to do lists (bullet journal style), and various fleeting notes/journaling similar to the older Memindex format, just done on larger cards for extra space. I generally either fold them in half for pocket storage for the day or carry about in groups for the coming week(s) when I'm away from my desk for extended periods (also with custom blank index card notebooks/pads).

      I won't go into the fact that in the 90's I had a 5,000+ person rolodex... or an index card (in the entertainment they called them buck slips) with the phone numbers and names of \~100 people I dealt with regularly when early brick cell phones didn't have great (or any) storage/functionality.

    1. For any action, habit, and belief you have, ask yourself: "Does this help toward my goals and future self or not?", if the answer is no, it is a distraction and part of the 80% you need to let go in order to reach 10X

      Your future self and 10X (or 100X) vision and goals serve as a massive filter for action and belief.

      Note: You should not 10X everything! Just 3 priorities.

    2. Counterintuitively, the 10X mindset and goal setting is not about goals. It is about identifying the essential PROCESSES that lead to significant progress.

    3. What is the game you want to play? What is the game you could play? What is a game you could go all in on and succeed at and be really good at?

      This defines your pathways and strategies within your 20%

      The path can change and adjust over time.

    4. Hope = 1. Clear and Committed Goal 2. Agency Thinking 3. Pathways Thinking

      This turns into definite optimism.

    5. To achieve goals, raise the floor, FOCUS on removing bottlenecks. Also create constraints by Schwerpunkt (primary objective), contrary to common wisdom, constraint actually gives freedom, it prevents analysis paralysis.

    1. In their article, Scientist Spotlight Homework Assignments Shift Students’ Stereotypes of Scientists and Enhance Science Identity in a Diverse Introductory Science Class,” Jeffrey Schinske, Heather Perkins, Amanda Snyder, and Mary Wyer created a “scientist spotlight” weekly homework assignment to introduce counter stereotypical examples of scientists and provide a diverse representation of contributions to science. Each week, students reviewed a resource regarding these scientists’ research and personal history in lieu of other textbook readings. Through their analysis, the scholars were able to study and detect shifts in both scientist stereotypes and the students’ ability to see their possible selves in science.

      This same sort of structure could be useful for introducing students to fellow college students and also professionals who eschew a hyper-connected, frenetic, algorithmic, hustle mindset.

      A way to normalize digital minimalism and slow productivity

    1. The four primary questions to ask yourself for a 100x 10-year vision:

      1. What is the commitment I desire to have?
      2. What are my hindrances (goal-conflicting actions or inactions)? -- Past-Based Actions/Behaviors
      3. What are my hidden commitments of my former self? (things that might've helped my past self but are not as helpful right now.) -- Past-Based Commitments/Identities
      4. What are my limiting beliefs or assumptions toward achieving this goal? -- Past-based Beliefs

      Step 1 is to fill out these questions. Step 2 is to go backwards, and start identifying what is necessary, so what are the necessary beliefs to achieve this goal, what commitments must I make and thus what actions must I take?

    2. The power of a 10-year vision is that you can go 100x. A bigger goal (vision) motivates way better than a small vision. Even if you fail, which you will, it's better to fail at a big goal than at a small goal... In addition, such a ginormous goal will act as a massive filter for action. It literally FORCES you to do only that which is ESSENTIAL.

  14. Jun 2023
      • reduce perceived exertion (change positions) & reduce perceived effort (change places)
      • main environment for (1) sitting (2) standing (3) walking
      • standing set-up: motion board (& budget standing desk with books etc.)
      • changing walking set-ups
      • change working environments that are different from each other (for novelty)
      • (1) three main environments to change positions (dip in energy/work is getting hard) (2) three additional environments to change places (when fatigue kicks in)
      • take breaks that are "boring" (do nothing, stare at wall, break activities: stretching, breathing, meditating)
  15. May 2023
    1. - Set of 52 weekly 3 x 5 accordion tri-folded cards - Undated planner with ruled lines and shaded blank areas for writing appointments, notes or lists on each day of the week - Thick and substantial 250-gsm card stock - Friendly to all types of ink - Unfolded, 9W x 5H

      A 9 x 5" card that folds in three to make a 3 x 5" card for planning out one's entire week.

      This is quite clever with respect the space of cards like Analog and 3x5 Life.

    1. https://www.3x5life.com/collections/frontpage/products/3x5-life-system-with-mini-course

      Cost of items purchased separately on Amazon: - Index cards (total of 6*31+13+12+52=263, so round up to 300 at $0.02 each) = $6.99 - storage box $16.49 - dividers $5.79 - phone sleeve: $2.32 - stainless steel stand: $2.33

      Buying these in bulk for additional profit margin/branding could certainly lower the cost.

      Their retail is $97.79 versus commercially at $33.92. Their actual cost at bulk is probably significantly less and likely closer to $15 all in for the system, so this is a nice little profit.

    2. What's included in the 3x5 Life System: 6 months of Daily cards **Schedule version** (186 cards) Monthly/Year Goal Cards (1 year of cards) Habit Tracker Cards (1 year of cards) Weekly Review Cards (1 year of cards) Storage Box with 3x5 logo on lid Monthly dividers to keep your storage box organized Mobile Phone Sleeve Stainless Steel Stand MINI COURSE: Outlining how best to utilize the system

      via: https://www.3x5life.com/collections/frontpage/products/3x5-life-system-with-mini-course

      They apparently offer a mini course outlining the system.

      One wonders how much "why" they offer?

    1. Every evening fill out 3 wins for the day.  Sleep scientists have discovered that when you reflect on the positive things that happened during your day before you go to bed, you fall asleep faster and have a more restful sleep.

      via: https://www.3x5life.com/pages/about

      Where is the specific research reference to back up this claim?

  16. www.3x5life.com www.3x5life.com
    1. BJ Fogg is one of the leading authorities on habit change.  In his best selling book Tiny Habits he says: “Celebration will one day be ranked alongside mindfulness and gratitude as daily practices that contribute most to our overall happiness and well-being. If you learn just one thing from my entire book, I hope it’s this: Celebrate your tiny successes. This one small shift in your life can have a massive impact even when you feel there is no way up or out of your situation. Celebration can be your lifeline.”
    1. Just like the imagery from the Analog System's promotion, this video features someone fed up with lots of notebooks pushing them off their desk in frustration—naturally to turn to index cards.

      timestamp: 0:00:25

    1. hybrid journal by James Gowans

    2. I recommend the large, squared-grid Moleskine to serve as the journal. I like the quality, aesthetic and the history of a Moleskine. The back pocket serves as a wallet and holds a few Frictionless Capture Cards in case I need to pass on a note to someone.

      https://web.archive.org/web/20210725221408/https://squareup.com/market/frictionless/capture-cards

      Link is dead. What were these exactly? Sounds a tool in a waste book setting.

    1. Frictionless Tools Capture Cards – Red — These are my index cards of choice. More sturdy than the standard variety. I like the grid design. Takes fountain pen ink better too. Unfortunately, they are no longer available. I purchased several packages before they stopped being sold.

      Frictionless Tools' Capture Cards were custom 3 x 5" index cards, printed in vertical orientation with a square grid pattern on most of the card. The top was usually split in half between equal grey and red rectangles for titles/dates/headings and a slightly thinner single long rectangle as a footer at the bottom.

      Patrick Rhone indicates on 2018-01-24 that they had quit manufacturing them by that date.

    1. I would recommend ruling a line under the 6th point and having the rest as ‘if you get time’ tasks. Nothing else is allowed to get done until those first 6 tasks are complete: This is known as the Ivy Lee method.

      The "Ivy Lee method" for productivity involves making a to do list with a line underneath the first six most important tasks and doing nothing else until the top six items are finished.

      Jason Chatfield credits http://katiefarnan.com/blogs/the-form/lauren-layne for the idea.

    2. Use David Allen’s GTD method and put your MIT (Most Important Task) at the top, and don’t attempt anything below it until that one task is done.

      sometimes known as eating the frog first...

    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvLkVimqv8E

      Review of the Analog productivity system. Quick overview with generally positive tenor.

      The creator mentions that he collects productivity systems like Pokémon! A sort of affliction of shiny object syndrome in the productivity space.

      Passing mention of Patrick Rhone's dash/plus system

    1. The Analog system has a thin metal divider that separates two sections in the base. The broad suggestion is to use this space as storage and the divider for separating the blank stock of cards from used cards. One could also separate the next/someday cards from the today cards (new and finished).

      The divider serves as a tabbed divider in many systems, but here there are only a total of three slots for differentiation: one slot for one card with today's list, and two other spaces for other cards that the user can determine their uses for. This definitely makes the system incredibly simple and minimal.

      It's only slightly different from the old common Park Sherman Co. desk note pad systems which sometimes had a universal calendar and one tray space for notes.

    2. Throughout the day, mark each task as completed, in-progress, or delegated. Feel free to create your own symbols.

      Similar to the sorts of to do list task key in many bullet journals, the Analog system has "task signals" : - black filled circle means "complete task" - half filled circle means task is in progress - a right arrow in the circle means the task was delegated - a cross in the circle means that the task is an appointment, potentially with the appointment time added to the to do item

      The system suggests that you can "create your own" task signals, though in true minimalist fashion, it doesn't give other suggestions. Presumably one could do other pattern fills of the circle or symbols within it to mean other things (example: bullet journal key symbols).

      Interestingly, the to do circles start out not blank, but with a single thin line splitting the circle in half vertically. This is apparently a design choice, perhaps to make it easier to fill in half of the circle?

    3. Though the Analog system clearly delineates cards of to do lists as "Today", "Next", "Someday", I've definitely seen this sort of delineation well before this system.

      What other systems explicitly use this framing or similar framings?

    4. While the today / next / someday cards are labeled, they're also color coded (white, light tan, tan) to help distinguish them.

      Though not defined in the Analog system, these differently colored cards could also be used to indicate different sorts of data, though one would need to potentially ignore the pre-printed labels of "Today", "Next", "Someday".

    5. The Analog system utilizes a simplified version of an Eisenhower matrix which we'll call "today / next / someday" as a means of prioritizing to do list items on a temporal basis.

    6. Following a pattern seen in many modern wooden recipe card boxes to hold the current recipe one is working on, Jeff Sheldon has cut a long thin slot into his card holder to allow one to stand up today's card in the front as a means of displaying and featuring what needs to get done.

    7. https://ugmonk.com/pages/analog

      Jeff Sheldon describes how the Analog system works, generally following most of the outline of the Memindex method, but with some hints of the Bullet Journal method's notation.

    1. The someday card is described as being not only for individual to do items, but "big picture" goals.

    2. The video shows the productivity books which Sheldon used to help design his system including 99u's Manage Your Day-To-Day, Unsubscribe by Jocelyn K. Glei, The One Thing by Gary Keller, Getting Things Done by David Allen, Deep Work by Cal Newport, and Atomic Habits by James Clear.

    3. I started making lists on index cards—you know the ones we used back in school.

      Note the total lack of any referent to why we used to use index cards in school.

    1. Use the 3 dots in the upper right hand corner to link cards together. Another way to link cards is by adding a title on the line in the upper right hand corner.

      In addition to using the three dots on the Analog system's cards to indicate how much one accomplished (modest value), Jeff Sheldon suggests using them to "link cards together", though he doesn't suggest how one could or should do this. Presumably he means to use the possible dot patterns as a code, but then one only has 2^3 or 8 ways of doing this, so the number of possible links is incredibly low. Some of this seems related to edge notched cards, though here, there's no suggestion of punching holes in these cards, so sorting or finding these cards isn't necessarily easy unless one otherwise indexes them, a functionality which falls outside of the minimalist scope of the product.

      To expand on this method he also, more profitably, suggests adding titles to cards in the blank line at the top which is also frequently used for dating cards.

    1. https://ugmonk.com/

      Developed in a Kickstarter, ugmonk.com is where Jeff Sheldon now sells his Analog productivity system and refills as well as other related lifestyle brand products.

    1. Zettelkasten is just a variant of index-card based commonplace books that got super hyped online thanks to Ahren's book and the productivity industrial complex.

      productivity industrial complex!

      quote from u/Powerful-Finger-4376

    1. My magic trick (having faced a similar dilemma with many lovely notebooks over the years) is to turn to the first double page and write in large lettersDON'T BE AFRAID TO MAKE YOUR MARK UPON LIFE'S PAGE.And just like that the new notebook spell is broken and the pen is free to write again.
    2. I somehow made myself write in it and started with a sentence that I think would make for an excellent essay title some day: "Cheap paper is the perfectionist's salvation."
    1. ’ve been studying notebooks for over a decade and I still haven’t landed on a perfect organization method. I have, however, found the perfect pen: uni-ball signo, .38mm. I discovered them while teaching in Korea in 2008 and haven’t looked back.

      It can't be a good sign that an academic who has spent over a decade studying notebooks and note taking still hasn't found the "perfect" organization method.

    1. Within the pantheon of types of notes there are: - paraphrasing notes, which one can use to summarize ideas for later recall and review as well as to check one's own knowledge and understanding of what an author has said. - commentary notes, which take the text and create a commentary on them, often as part of having a conversation with the text. These can be seen historically in the Midrashim tradition of commenting on Torah.

      [23:12 - 24:47]


      separately also: - productivity notes - to do lists, reminders of work to be done, often within or as part of a larger complex project

    1. Why are folks so obsessed with notes per day? Perhaps a proxy for toxic capitalism and productivity issues? Is the number of notes the best measure or the things they allow one to do after having made them? What is the best measure? Especially when there are those who use them for other purposes like lecturing, general growth, knowledge acquisition, or even happiness?

  17. Apr 2023
    1. As I see it, there are two hard things about getting into flow: loading the state of the system / problem / abstractions into your head (i.e. filling your L1 and L2 cache with everything you need to know to work on the problem) and building momentum and confidence for yourself.

      Hard things for entering the flow

    1. To return to information overload: this means treating your "to read" pile like a river (a stream that flows past you, and from which you pluck a few choice items, here and there) instead of a bucket (which demands that you empty it). After all, you presumably don't feel overwhelmed by all the unread books in the British Library – and not because there aren't an overwhelming number of them, but because it never occurred to you that it might be your job to get through them all.

      Lesson on how to treat one's to-read list

    1. You should only write on the front side of the paper slips, so it is possible to read the note during searches without the need to take it out.

      Luhmann mentions that he only wrote on one side so that he didn't need to physically remove notes from the box when searching it. There is a level of lost productivity if one needs to physically remove a card to read it and then replace it; this lost productivity is magnified if one uses their slip box regularly over the span of many years.

  18. Mar 2023
    1. https://www.3m.co.uk/3M/en_GB/post-it-notes/ideas/articles/make-the-leap-from-to-do-to-done-with-the-scrum-methodology/

      "The Scrum method" described here, similar to the Kanban method, the Memindex method, tickler systems, or other card index as productivity systems, seems to be a productized name for selling Post-it Notes.

      Scrum method consists of a project broken down into "story" rows with "to do" items in columns which progress along to "in process", "to verify", and finally "done".

      Other productized names (particular to the note taking space): Antinet zettelkasten, Linking Your Thinking, Second Brain, etc.

    1. General instructions for using a Memindex

      HOW IT IS USED <br /> Things to be done today, jot on face card. Things to be done tomorrow or next Friday, jot on card for that day. Things to keep before you until done, jot on opposite front card. A matter for January 10th jot on a short card put under the band till you return to your desk, then file next to card for January 10th when it will come out and refresh your memory.

      Things to be done when in New York or Chicago jot on card "N" or "C." The new address of Mr. Jones, under "J." Ideas on advertising jot on card tabbed "adv." Things for your clerk to do, on his card , etc., etc. Retire today's card tonight, carrying forward things not completed and put next card in the file in has proved that almost back of pocket case. The alphabet enables one to index all jottings for instant reference. This system is very comprehensive yet perfectly simple. You soon the learn to depend on it every hour of every day.

      Within the general instructions in a 1904 Memindex advertisement (next to an ad for "Genuine Edison Incandescent Lamps") we see the general ideas of indexing things into the future and carrying undone tasks forward, just as is done in the bullet journal method.

  19. inst-fs-iad-prod.inscloudgate.net inst-fs-iad-prod.inscloudgate.net
    1. mindex.THIS is the name Howard L. Wilson, of Rochester, N.Y.,hasgivenhisvestpocket cardsystem.Itisa

      Geyers Stationer. “Memindex Advertisement.” Geyer’s Stationer: Devoted to the Interests of the Stationery, Fancy Goods and Notion Trades, September 15, 1904. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Geyer_s_Stationer/L507AQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

      Howard L. Wilson of Rochester, NY named his vest pocket card index system the Memindex.

    1. Poem from the inside back cover of a 1913 Memindex Catalog:

      JUST JOT IT DOWN.

      If you’re going to meet a man<br /> Jot it down<br /> If you’ve got a little plan<br /> Jot it down<br /> If you never can remember<br /> Your requirements for September<br /> ’Till October or November<br /> Jot ’em down.

      If you’ve got a note to pay<br /> Jot it down<br /> If its due the first of May<br /> Jot it down<br /> If collections are so slow<br /> That to meet the note you know<br /> You must dun old Richard Roe<br /> Jot it down

      If you have a happy thought<br /> Jot it down<br /> If there’s something to be bought<br /> Jot it down<br /> Whether duty calls or pleasure<br /> If you’re busy or at leisure<br /> It will help you beyond measure<br /> Jot it down

      If there’re facts that you’d retain<br /> Jot ’em down<br /> If you’ve got to meet a train<br /> Jot it down<br /> If at work or only play<br /> If at home or far away<br /> In the night or in the day<br /> Jot it down

    2. Plan Your Work and Work your Plan An Infallible Rule for Success

      was there a prior source for this aphorism?

    3. c.1913 Wilson Memindex Desk Organzier Catalog Price List Booklet Rolodex Prequel

      In a 1913 catalog for the Wilson Memindex, the company suggested putting to do items and one's schedule on one side of the card and potentially keeping one's accounts or a diary on the reverse side.

    1. 1930s Wilson Memindex Co Index Card Organizer Pre Rolodex Ad Price List Brochure

      archived page: https://web.archive.org/web/20230310010450/https://www.ebay.com/itm/165910049390

      Includes price lists

      List of cards includes: - Dated tab cards for a year from any desired. - Blank tab cards for jottings arranged by subject. - These were sold in 1/2 or 1/3 cut formats - Pocket Alphabets for jottings arranged by letter. - Cash Account Cards [without tabs]. - Extra Record Cards for permanent memoranda. - Monthly Guides for quick reference to future dates. - Blank Guides for filing records by subject.. - Alphabet Guides for filing alphabetically.

      Memindex sales brochures recommended the 3 x 5" cards (which had apparently been standardized by 1930 compared to the 5 1/2" width from earlier versions around 1906) because they could be used with other 3 x 5" index card systems.

      In the 1930s Wilson Memindex Company sold more of their vest pocket sized 2 1/4 x 4 1/2" systems than 3 x 5" systems.

      Some of the difference between the vest sized and regular sized systems choice was based on the size of the particular user's handwriting. It was recommended that those with larger handwriting use the larger cards.

      By the 1930's at least the Memindex tag line "An Automatic Memory" was being used, which also gave an indication of the ubiquity of automatization of industrialized life.

      The Memindex has proved its success in more than one hundred kinds of business. Highly recommended by men in executive positions, merchants, manufacturers, managers, .... etc.

      Notice the gendering of users specifically as men here.

      Features: - Sunday cards were sold separately and by my reading were full length tabs rather than 1/6 tabs like the other six days of the week - Lids were custom fit to the bases and needed to be ordered together - The Memindex Jr. held 400 cards versus the larger 9 inch standard trays which had space for 800 cards and block (presumably a block to hold them up or at an angle when partially empty).

      The Memindex Jr., according to a price sheet in the 1930s, was used "extensively as an advertising gift".

      The Memindex system had cards available in bundles of 100 that were labeled with the heading "Things to Keep in Sight".

    1. AndMr.H. BeebeofChicago,using butonedrawer,says:"IthasmademekeepappointmentsandlayoutmyworktoincreasethethingsIcandoinaday."

      And Mr. H. Beebe of Chicago, using but one drawer, says: "It has made me keep appointments and lay out my work to increase the things I can do in a day. "

    2. Also saves balf the time in filing correspondence , enabling one girlto do the work of two. This saving alone will quickly pay installationexpense.

      Example of sales touting productivity in a filing system.

      Note also the specific gendering of the clerk here in 1906.

    1. For instance, we used to think that the main cause of obesity was a poor diet at an individual level, leading to treatments focused on the individual. However, taking a networked thinking approach in a 32-year-long study with over 12,000 people led researchers to discover that the participants’ personal network had a great impact on their likelihood to be obese. “Discernible clusters of obese persons were present in the network at all time points,” write the researchers.

      Another social factor influencing human behaviour. Beware of such factors when it comes to self-improvement and learning.

  20. Feb 2023
    1. Stop Procrastinating With Note-Taking Apps Like Obsidian, Roam, Logseq https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baKCC2uTbRc by Sam Matla

      sophisticated procrastination - tweaking one's system(s) or workflow with the anticipation it will help them in the long run when it is generally almost always make-work which helps them feel smart and/or productive. Having measurable results which can be used against specific goals will help weed this problem out.

    1. I find it very tiring haha. As I said in another comment, processing a single chapter can take me a full day or two. However, I keep reminding myself that I would rather spend a day processing a chapter well, and have literature notes to serve me a lifetime (potentially, at least), rather than reading a chapter in two hours and not remember a single thing the next day. When I REALLY need a reminder of this, I just look at my "Backlog" folder which contains old "notes" that are now pretty much useless: I didn't use a reference manager consistently during my first two years of PhD so there are a lot of citations which are unreliable; I didn't really summarise texts, I only read them and highlighted; I didn't use the cloud for a long time, so I lost a lot of notes; and I didn't have Obsidian, so a lot of my notes are just contained within the context of the place I read them, rather than being connected. Seeing three years worth of useless materials, and knowing that I read a couple hundred of articles/chapters but I have nothing to show for it, that makes me more patient when writing my literature notes now. However I also find it very exciting that I can future-proof some of my notes. I feel like I'm working for my future self.

      A partial answer to note taking why.

    2. sometimes I’m afraid I’m more fighting the tools than doing research. Sometimes it seems to me there’s too much friction, and not the productive kind.

      relation to Note taking problem and proposed solution?

      This seems to be a common reality and/or fear.

    1. reply to Share the ideas dancing in your ZK with us. February 17, 2023

      Congratulations @Will on the milestone! @ctietze's analogy with smithwork is fantastic. I might also liken it to the point in acquiring a new language when one begins dreaming in their new target language. So many talk about the idea of increased productivity associated with having a zk, but most spend an inordinate amount of time on shiny object syndrome or over complicating it and never get to the point of quickly writing things out, filing them, and being able to trust that their system will just work™. When you no longer notice it anymore and it has become second nature is when the real fun (and magic) begins to happen. It also seems easier and more natural to break the "rules" once you've internalized the basics. We should spend more time talking about the value of 'zettelkasten fluency'.

      I'm excited this week to be doing some work in areas of the history of misinformation, cultural myths, and 'American exceptionalism' in preparation for Dan Allosso's upcoming book club on Kruse and Zelizer's new edited book. I suspect he'll announce it shortly at https://danallosso.substack.com/ if folks are interested in joining in the discussion/sensemaking.

      Kruse, Kevin M., and Julian E. Zelizer. Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past. Basic Books, 2023.

    1. The fact that Deutsch’s students saw their teacher’sindex as a monument to his historical genius
    2. At once intended as a foundationfor a systematic history of the Jews, it was deeply unsystematic; meant to be a means ofproductivity, in the end Deutsch was essentially unproductive.

      An example of a zettelkasten, meant for productivity in most settings, being called unproductive in Gotthard Deutsch's case.

      Of course this calls to mind the definition of productivity and from who's perspective. From Deutsch's written output perspective it may have been exceptionally low in comparison to the outputs of others like Niklas Luhmann, S.D. Goitein, or Roland Barthes. But when viewed from the perspective of a teaching instrument and influence on his students, perhaps it was monumentally productive?

    1. Get The Best Clipping Path Service Provider with 7000+ Satisfied Clients

      There was an effort made to emphasize the facts. It should help people looking for the best clipping path service provider or product photo editing studio and those who are already in the business or getting ready to start.

    1. „Und?“, fragt Schmidt und macht eine Kunstpause, „enttäuscht?“

      Coincidence that Schmidt shows a journalist Luhmann's zettelkasten in 2015 and asks if they're disappointed?

      It's reasonably likely that he'd already read ZKII 9/8,3.

      see: https://hypothes.is/a/GFj15IcbEe21OIMwT2TOJA

      in the article which follows below, there's an explicit mention of this specific zettel, so the question on priority here is closed.

    1. Even after making positive changes through the LYT framework I’m still fighting my instincts to fiddle with all the things™ and not actually engage in the content. It’s totally a way I procrastinate or get hit with productivity paralysis, like @Erisred mentioned because everything has to be perfect before I can engage with it.
    2. Realistically, I view this as the same problem students who “highlight everything” have. It’s not a problem with the nature of highlighters — it’s a problem of metacognition.
    3. It’s a big problem with the bullet journal community too, unfortunately.

      I'm definitely not the only one to notice this pattern of productivity porn in the bullet journal space.

    1. According to Shulman, "Cargo-cult is a belief that mock airplanes made of manure and straw-bale may summon the real airplanes who bring canned beef. Reverse cargo-cult is used by the political elites in countries lagging behind who proclaim that, in the developed world, airplanes are also made of manure and straw-bale, and there is also a shortage of canned beef."[29]

      "Екатерина Шульман: Практический Нострадамус, или 12 умственных привычек, которые мешают нам предвидеть будущее". vedomosti/ (in Russian). Retrieved 24 June 2021.


      A Note on the Cargo Cult of Zettelkasten

      Modern cargo cults can be seen in many technology and productivity spaces where people are pulled in by exaggerated (or sometimes even real claims) of productivity or the general "magic" of a technology or method.

      An example is Niklas Luhmann's use of his zettelkasten which has created a cargo cult of zettelkasten aspirants and users who read one or more of the short one page blog posts about his unreasonable productivity and try to mimic it without understanding the system, how it works, or how to make it work for them. They often spend several months collecting notes, and following the motions, but don't realize the promised gains and may eventually give up, sometimes in shame (or as so-called "rubbish men") while watching others still touting its use.

      To prevent one's indoctrination into the zettelkasten cult, I'll make a few recommendations:

      Distance yourself from the one or two page blog posts or the breathless YouTube delineations. Ask yourself very pointedly: what you hope to get out of such a process? What's your goal? Does that goal align with others' prior uses and their outcomes?

      Be careful of the productivity gurus who are selling expensive courses and whose focus may not necessarily be on your particular goals. Some are selling very pointed courses, which is good, while others are selling products which may be so broad that they'll be sure to have some success stories, but their hodge-podge mixture of methods won't suit your particular purpose, or worse, you'll have to experiment with pieces of their courses to discover what may suit your modes of working and hope they'll suffice in the long run. Some are selling other productivity solutions for task management like getting things done (GTD) or bullet journals, which can be a whole other cargo cults in and of themselves. Don't conflate these![^1] The only thing worse than being in a cargo cult is being in multiple at the same time.

      If you go the digital route, be extremely wary of shiny object syndrome. Everyone has a favorite tool and will advocate that it's the one you should be using. (Often their method of use will dictate how much they love it potentially over and above the affordances of the tool itself.) All of these tools can be endlessly configured, tweaked, or extended with plugins or third party services. Everyone wants to show you their workflow and set up, lots of which is based on large amounts of work and experimentation. Ignore 99.999% of this. Most tools are converging to a similar feature set, so pick a reasonable one that seems like it'll be around in 5 years (and which has export, just in case). Try out the very basic features for several months before you change anything. Don't add endless plugins and widgets. You're ultimately using a digital tool to recreate the functionality of index cards, a pencil, and a box. How complicated should this really be? Do you need to spend hundreds of hours tweaking your system to save yourself a few minutes a year? Be aware that far too many people touting the system and marketers talking about the tools are missing several thousands of years of uses of some of these basic literacy-based technologies. Don't join their island cult, but instead figure out how the visiting culture has been doing this for ages.[^2] Recall Will Hunting's admonition against cargo cults in education: “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.”[^3]

      Most people ultimately realize that the output of their own thinking is only as good as the inputs they're consuming. Leverage this from the moment you begin and ignore the short bite-sized advice for longer form or older advice from those with experience. You're much more likely to get more long term value out of reading Umberto Eco or Mortimer J. Adler & Charles van Doren[^4] than you are an equivalent amount of time reading blog posts, watching YouTube videos, or trolling social media like Reddit and Twitter.

      Realize that reaching your goal is going to take honest-to-goodness actual work, though there is potential for fun. No matter how shiny or optimized your system, you've still got to do the daily work of reading, watching, listening and using it to create anything. Focus on this daily work and don't get sidetracked by the minutiae of trying to shave off just a few more seconds.[^5] In short, don't get caught up in the "productivity porn" of it all. Even the high priest at whose altar they worship once wrote on a slip he filed:

      "A ghost in the note card index? Spectators visit [my office to see my notes] and they get to see everything and nothing all at once. Ultimately, like having watched a porn movie, their disappointment is correspondingly high." —Niklas Luhmann. <small>“Geist im Kasten?” ZKII 9/8,3. Niklas Luhmann-Archiv. Accessed December 10, 2021. https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/zettelkasten/zettel/ZK_2_NB_9-8-3_V. (Personal translation from German with context added.)</small>


      [^1] Aldrich, Chris. “Zettelkasten Overreach.” BoffoSocko (blog), February 5, 2022. https://boffosocko.com/2022/02/05/zettelkasten-overreach/.

      [^2]: Blair, Ann M. Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age. Yale University Press, 2010. https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300165395/too-much-know.

      [^3]: Good Will Hunting. Miramax, Lawrence Bender Productions, 1998.

      [^4]: Adler, Mortimer J., and Charles Van Doren. How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading. Revised and Updated edition. 1940. Reprint, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972.

      [^5]: Munroe, Randall. “Is It Worth the Time?” Web comic. xkcd, April 29, 2013. https://xkcd.com/1205/.


      Recommended resources

      Choose only one of the following and remember you may not need to read the entire work:

      Ahrens, Sönke. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. Create Space, 2017.

      Allosso, Dan, and S. F. Allosso. How to Make Notes and Write. Minnesota State Pressbooks, 2022. https://minnstate.pressbooks.pub/write/.

      Bernstein, Mark. Tinderbox: The Tinderbox Way. 3rd ed. Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems, Inc., 2017. http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/TinderboxWay/index.html.

      Dow, Earle Wilbur. Principles of a Note-System for Historical Studies. New York: Century Company, 1924.

      Eco, Umberto. How to Write a Thesis. Translated by Caterina Mongiat Farina and Geoff Farina. 1977. Reprint, Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2015. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/how-write-thesis.

      Gessner, Konrad. Pandectarum Sive Partitionum Universalium. 1st Edition. Zurich: Christoph Froschauer, 1548.

      Goutor, Jacques. The Card-File System of Note-Taking. Approaching Ontario’s Past 3. Toronto: Ontario Historical Society, 1980. http://archive.org/details/cardfilesystemof0000gout.

      Sertillanges, Antonin Gilbert, and Mary Ryan. The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. First English Edition, Fifth printing. 1921. Reprint, Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1960. http://archive.org/details/a.d.sertillangestheintellectuallife.

      Webb, Sidney, and Beatrice Webb. Methods of Social Study. London; New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1932. http://archive.org/details/b31357891.

      Weinberg, Gerald M. Weinberg on Writing: The Fieldstone Method. New York, N.Y: Dorset House, 2005.

    1. If you don't like Zettlekasten (I have my "own" version of Zettlekasten that I use so it's not 100% the original, but it's very heavily based on it - if you hate Zettlekasten this really isn't going to work). 

      https://elizabethfilips.podia.com/validation-cohort-muse

      Elizabeth Filips is running a validation cohort for a course (presumably called MUSE, the marketing name for her "system" as well) on how to take notes and build a zettelkasten (or a second brain—there's evidence that she's taken Tiago Forte's course). She's got some indications that she's using a zettelkasten-like method for creation, but her burgeoning empire also appears to be firmly centered in the productivity porn space. I'm curious how she views her Muse system being different from a zettelkasten?

      She's got an incredibly focused sales funnel web presence here.

    1. Tagging for personal knowledge management is a subject unto itself. Whilenot necessary to get started, I’ve written a free bonus chapter on tags you candownload at Buildingasecondbrain.com/bonuschapter.

      Forte's book is a pathway that acts as just another part of his sophisticated sales funnel.

    1. This process has as much todo with taking ownership of ideas as it does with apps.

      Too many in the productivity porn space focus on the apps and the potential workflows without looking at the question "why" at all. It's rare that any focus on understanding or actual output.

    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuzRkac2n-c

      Beginning to realize that some of the pattern that I describe as productivity porn is more likely done as a means of creativity, art, or even therapeutic use.

      In this one (at the end), she's got a notebook specifically for putting washi tape into because it's calming and therapeutic.