Goal of the day: 1329 words. Written: 1074.
If you have the occasional thought that you would like to be a creative and successful person (like countless other creators I've missed to name), there's one simple thing you need to do as soon as possible to get your career off the ground, like a rocket into space.
You must from now on collect your thoughts in one place.
Why keep all your notes in one place?
If, as you read the introduction to this text, you're asking yourself why it's a good idea to keep all your notes in one place, here are 3 reasons:
1. That way you'll always know where to find what you've written down.
"Elementary, Watson", you say? Well, it wasn't so simple for me until recently. I had a different notebook, or at least part of a notebook, for each of my notes, and I would write wherever I could, and I would add endless chapters in my notes...
No wonder that with such habits of note-taking, I would forget half of the things forever, and simply not find the other half.
2. This gives all thoughts an additional context.
Do you know what's better than a short but useless note? Yes, it's a note you can use.
Imagine you have a message for yourself: "Chocolate trees with caramel decorations". What would it say to you? And what would it say when combined with other thoughts about sweets?
Every thought you write down in your thought repository becomes linked to the thoughts you wrote down earlier. And that link helps you better remember what you originally had in mind when you wrote it down. This is important for you as a creative person.
3. You save your precious time.
Every moment you spend looking for a place to write down your brilliant idea reduces the chances of remembering it. Most of the time, if you don't write down (or however obsessively allow yourself to forget) a thought within a minute, you can be sure you will forget it.
That's why having one place to store your thoughts is important. It's like [responsibilities] - every moment you spend thinking about how to do something, you lose a moment to create.
A practical way to put your thoughts in one place:
Well, but without further ado, here's my tried-and-tested practical way of getting all my thoughts together and freeing up my life for the one-notebook method.
Step 1: Gather ALL your notes in one place.
In Japanese, this is called Seiri - purification. You may still have all sorts of notebooks, notes on your phone, books, reminder slips on your desk, etc. You will need to remove all of these and put them all in one place.
For one notebook, I found all the notebooks I had and printed out the notes I had on my computers. Before I started organizing, I didn't even know I had so many notes!
Step 2: Select the notes themselves from their containers (e.g. notebooks).
What I mean is, rip the pages with the things you've written in them out of the notebooks. Completely, without any remorse. You're not going to use those notebooks anymore (or at least with the existing notes), so you won't miss the pages.
Step 3: Get rid of old containers.
Remove the places where you used to store information from your life. If it's a notebook, throw it away or give it to a family member; if it's a computer file or program, delete it or abandon it.
If you have old caches of ideas lying around, it will be much harder to write everything down in one place than if you start from scratch.
Step 4: Collect all your old records into one big archive.
It doesn't make much difference what kind of archive it is - a folder on your computer, or one you'd find in a stationery shop. It's simple: put everything old in a separate place.
...And when you put it together, forget it. Well, okay, you can put it on the shelf, you can open it up and read the old thoughts again, you can read them and flip through them. What you shouldn't do is put new knowledge in the archive (on one condition - if you forgot something on the first go). Old knowledge is old knowledge.
Step 5: Understand that the new archive is your first archive.
The new means of recording thoughts will be a second archive. But what you already have - well, that's a good start. Half the work. 😉
My advice is to quickly flick through the whole folder and see what good stuff you have. Don't change or organize anything, just see what you can find in it if you ever need it.
Step 6: Find one new place to write your thoughts and use it.
The most important thing is not to catch the dreaded disease of inscription. Just find any clean place where you can fill in everything you need.
Well, that's it! Your thoughts are respected! 🙂
* * *
The Cloudspotting method.
I also interviewed a lady in Cloud City about how she keeps her notes. Here's what she had to say.
* * *
"For a long time, I saved links to articles I read and liked online in my browser or copied them into Word. Over time, the number of links to these articles grew so large that it was difficult to find anything. Also, after long searches, the urge to read was gone."
A confusing maze of articles in Word.
"That's why I decided to start publishing articles in September. Sometimes I want to read something interesting before going to bed, which is often a book or one of the articles in my binder. For me, reading the paper version is much more comfortable than on the computer and less tiring on the eyes. Plus, I can find it quickly whenever I need it, without having to switch on my computer.
However, I don't publish all articles, but only those that I like, find useful and will read more than once. I choose them very simply - useful, informative, with all sorts of tips and so on. The articles are on topics that are relevant to me, such as motivation, confidence building, etc. Of course, I always read the article before I publish it, and others even several times. I do not print an unread article. What is the point of printing it if I don't like it or if the information is not relevant to me? It would only be a waste of paper.
Printing is quite simple. Usually there is a printer badge under the article, so just click on it and the article will be printed. This is a very convenient and good way to do it. If there is no such thing, then "copy" and "paste" into word. Then I can format the text by reducing the line spacing and font size. You can also print using ctrl + p, but this way it happens that not only the text of the article is printed, but also other information on the page. I therefore rarely use this option. I remove the illustrations in the article, as I understand that they are also part of the article, but I do not print them anyway. I print only the text itself, in black and white.
I staple printed articles in a plain binder with a tag. I'm looking forward to putting more articles in a large binder in the future, when there are more articles, and sorting them by subject."
She then adds:
"In printed articles, I use coloured highlighters to highlight information that is important to me. I choose it so that when I open the article, I can immediately see the most important parts. It's much nicer than just black and white, and it's useful.
It's really not difficult to make your own binder. You just have to choose the articles that you think are interesting, relevant and will be useful for you in the future. And then you print them out and put them in a binder after marking the most important ones for you. If you want, you can decorate it or give it some other kind of decoration. The most important thing is that it is close to you. After all, this is where you keep information that is interesting and important to you, and that will be useful in the future."
Thank you, cloud lady, and that's the method of outlining!
Best wishes for the preservation of your notes! :')
smiling,
Daniel