Of index cards and double-braining

A ramble on my failing-forwards PKM system

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Percolations #130.

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PKM systems. Oh boy.

One of you asked me about my note-taking and index cards system some months ago. A moment has passed since. (Ouch.) I kept telling myself to write the email…then thoughts cascaded into a mini-blog post…which, still unwritten, has been lurking in the back of my thoughts gaining both momentum and size.

If I don’t riff off the following spiel now, I’m afraid one, two, or all of these three things would happen:

• I’d forget ever been asked that question as I drown in said notes.

• I’d continue to critique my use and notes because it’s ain’t perfect enough.

• I’d take an indeterminate hiatus from the whole thing because it’s insane.

On my Tims date with a sister earlier this week, I became quite embarrassed by the fistful of notepaper I pulled out of my tote (along with my paper planner) as I was about to explain how the first level of my life works.

First, I felt embarrassed. Then, frustrated. Finally, curious.

Do I need this? Like, actually?

Along the path from realizing my life needs organization to discovering “second brain gardening” through paper and pen, my schedule and mind have become run by my scribbles.

And woe to my peace of mind if bit-of-paper #34 for today was lost for five hours…

I’ve mentioned this cool notecard sleeve a friend made and gave me some years ago. I bring it everywhere with me. I write everything on the index cards — poetry, random thoughts, grocery lists, sketches of landscapes and random bus people. I wish I could say there is some logic to when and where and how I write all the different things, but there really isn’t. Poetry and sketches usually end up on the blank side; everything else on the lined sides. But that’s about all the organization my IRL system has.

Sometimes I rip cards in half to leave notes behind for people. Once, my professor ripped up two of them to demonstrate the structural logic behind the number 12. Sometimes I shuffle them just to look and feel busy when I’m bored out of my mind.

I carry this notecard sleeve along with a cigarette case (which serves as my wallet), keys, and phone — it’s that essential to my every-day carry. More than once my pen and cards have served as a distraction from my phone. Evidence of its prevalence in my life:

And once upon a time, it was a lifesaver.

Life made more sense, became more mentally quiet, was more peaceful to move through having a fluid notebook at my side. Even if the notes weren’t legible 100% of the time. Even if they were just journal entries interspersed with books to read, what brand of shampoo to pick up on my way home, an “ARGGG!!!!” outburst due to that random emotion I’d deliberately suppressed for two months.

But sometime last year, the notetaking spilled over the confines of the notesleeve and onto every scrap of paper in sight in the form of to-do lists for to-do lists for to-do lists.

Yeah. Three levels down.

I realized I had created a part-time job for myself when managing the notes took an hour a day to wade through and organize…even if the one goal of my doing so was to create a list of key tasks for the next day, make life smoother, and make me an efficient machine of human doing.

Somehow, my noting began costing way more time than I could afford to give it.

For a time though, that was fine. It was fun, a destressor of sorts rummaging through my scattered notes and trying to sculpt some sense out of the scribbles - anything cool I could act on or write about. And there were almost always something for the searching…

But then things got more weird. The notes became redundant. Three-levels-deep to-do lists are insane enough. Worse still is that same list being rewritten by hand, shuffled from the front of the notecard sleeve to the back, and resurfacing a week later just to go through the same process.

So…there’s “taking notes on index cards.”

Then there’s “living and breathing index cards.”

The former is beautiful and lovely. The latter is death by a million papercuts. And I think that’s the point I’ve reached now.

“Repeat why it works, not what works,” the sages say. I am only beginning to understand why index cards work for me after learning how they do and don’t.

My brain demands to be externalized once it makes up its mind about something. If I cannot talk to someone, I must write it down. If I cannot make that thing or do that thing right now, I must write it down. If you shared an idea with me that grabs my fancy by the horns, I will not hear another word you say until I write it down. If I don’t write it down, my brain gets jittery and nervous; I would spend ten minutes before bed later that night wracking my brain cells for the slightest trail of what that thing could have been…

Sometimes it sounds amazing — “Wow, an externalized brain allows my actual brain to think and flourish with other important things without being overwhelmed!” And that is still true for me some of the time.

But other times I’m worrying about the notes themselves, of whether I wrote things down in such a way that I could actually understand and remember two months later, of whether I do have all my notes, of whether I’m just wasting my time building an unnecessary layer of complexity into my thinking through things.

“Come on,” I tsk tsk myself. “A note to write a note for this thing. Really.” How much redundancy could my poor mind put up with before it cracks under the weight of a thing that’s supposed to make life lighter?

Photo by Daniel Forsman on Unsplash

But there are some good things from my notes obsession — three uses and habits I want to take with me before burning down the house of cards:

• Having good-quality paper to write poetry and sketch ideas on wherever, whenever. I now have a growing collection of poems and sketches — often with dates and locations noted — all because I do carry a notesystem with me. If anything, this might make the above frustrations worth it…

• Having a month outlined in a convenient, at-a-glance (and mobile and phone-free) format. I need some kind of to-do list, given my schedules and commitments: a month is neat, but multiple lists a day throughout the same day is a bit much…

• Keeping cool ideas from dying within the conversations and moments they were birthed within. I like this a lot, but it also creates a backlog I never quite get to the bottom of and feel vaguely guilty to my past and future selves for never catching up. I’d rather have them than not, though.

Also — may I be vain for a moment here? — how much cooler is it to pull out, instead of a phone, a beautiful pen and a leather notecard sleeve when sitting down to chat with someone who you know also cares about quality of time, materials, and attention?

That’s a good feeling, I tell ya, one that goes deeper than any aura-farming attempt.

(I do have a bit of an Obsidian Vault on my phone, yes. I have an eclectic collection of things there — the kind of notes I refer to when I’m sick of disrespecting myself, or when I’ve lost my direction or drive or curiosity. Here I have my “12 Favorite Problems” (as per Feynman’s recommendation), a list of books to write, notes for my future wedding, my current organ repertoire, ideas for Percolations. Then the cool ones: Dollhouses, Random Thots, Social, Leo Da Vinci, Medic, DREAMS. And the odd one where I save insults I’ve been given — ones that actually hurt. I’m keeping that one until I’ve both become nothing like what they described and until there is no frustration and resentment when I reread those words. :)

One more thought on this: The more I’ve been reflecting on my notes system, the more I realize how urgent some things are. Not urgent in the sense of do it right now, but in the sense of you might never get to do it again. It’s making me rethink just what notes are actually worth writing down, and what is worth a smile, a shrug, and a “I may remember that, maybe not.”

I also think that, just maybe, I wouldn’t be able to handle working in six different fields, studying three different subjects, and keeping a social life at the same time for that much longer. I would like to make ramen, explore trails, get my car’s cough doctored, read comics before bed, and have tiramisu for breakfast instead of copying to-do lists and sighing over dreams half-baked and dying.

I’m getting there slowly, though, one messy index card at a time…

Odelia

P.S. Fellow PKM practitioners would note this isn’t really a system, nor is it exactly “personal knowledge management” under formal definitions and approaches. Well, they’re right. It’s how I manage the moving pieces of life, though — perhaps “personal management system” rings more accurately? Anyways, you’re welcome. Your turn. Do tell me how you manage yours, pretty please?

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Quote of the week

“What if time is a melody, not a series of notes? We treat life like a checklist of moments to hit, but felt time doesn’t work that way. You don’t reach the future; you’re already part of it.”

— a cool thought from this newsletter issue

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