How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought you Think | Page 2

comparing notes, talking about such things. I would think that something like intelligence augmentation through notebook study would be one of the first things that people talk about on the Internet..! I would think that one of the first things we would be greeted with on the Internet would be, "Did you know how to use Notebooks to be smarter?" At the very least, it would be accessible.
Instead, there is a vast desert.
(Ted Nelson in a very special case and deserves particular comment. Sadly, he seems a bit unhinged, and doesn't write much about the topic of keeping notes openly on the web.)
(Note added Later: David Allen's "Getting Things Done" system is actually pretty cool. Sadly, it does not appear on the Internet. But it's a cheap book. If you are interested in contributing to a study of notebook systems, this is a must read.)
My solution to understanding this lack is my faith in what I call "The Anarchist Principle": If there is something *really cool*, and you can't understand why somebody hasn't don eit before, it's because *you haven't done it yourself.* That's DIY for those in the know: Do It Yourself.
Now I have a third thing I want to talk about, before getting on with the text.
(First, I wrote about the things that my notebook system will do to you, then I wrote about the darth of notebook study on the Web, and now I'm writing about this third thing:)
I am just SPITTING THIS TEXT OUT. I know that my understanding of personal projects and getting them completed is low. I know my weaknesses- that I am bad at getting huge projects done. So what I'm doing is just SPITTING THIS TEXT OUT.
I figure that if you are reading this, you'd much rather have this than nothing at all. And that's what's out there, if you aren't reading this- NOTHING AT ALL. I mean, you can always keep a diary or a bunch of category bins, if you like. That's a real no brainer. But besides those two, and treatises on Ted Nelson's madness, you won't find a whole lot.
So please excuse the poor formatting of this. It's raw, coersive, straight text. It's unorganized. It's terrible.
Maybe one day I will improve this. But that day is not today. Today is a day for spitting text out. With God's mercy, I will learn how to finish big projects. I pray for that ability frequently. If you can mentor me in the subject, I will happily hear you out. But I have not learned it yet.
Side Note: I actually believe that we should all communicating with what Robert Horn calls "Visual Verbal Language". The problem is that we don't have good tools to do so. Damn. It's a shame. When the tools come, there will be a revolution in communication just as big, if not bigger, than the revolutionary introduction of the Internet. So: Double Apologies for swabbing a mass of text at you.
Let's see: We've talked about: 1) The Terrible Things this notebook system will Do to you. 2) The Nonexistence of an Internet field of Notebook study. 3) How I am just spitting this text out into the world.
Lastly, I want to briefly introduce some of the unique features of my notebook system. Things that my notebook system does that NO OTHER NOTEBOOK SYSTEM that I have ever seen does. These are the results of years of keeping different types of notebook systems, and taking the best ideas from each.
1) Strategy.
This notebook system allows you to STRATEGIZE. Very few notebooks do that. I mean, sure, you can start some pages on, "what will my strategy be now?", but then you have to figure out what all your options are. The notebook system I describe has built in strategy management. You will always know what your options and priorities are in notebook management.
It does this with the aid of maps...
2) Maps.
Tables of Contents (TOCs) are TERRIBLE. TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE. Their main utility is in providing you the next number to number something.
You want MAPS of Contents, or what I call "MOCs". This is like a table of contents, but far more dynamic. Is an entry really important? Make it's MOC entry really big. Unimportant? Make it small. Or even pull out the name, and just surround the page number in parenthesis. If you are ever investigating that area, you can look it up to see what it is.
You can put related concepts close to each other, REGARDLESS of the actual physical position of the pages.
You can move things around. Trace paths of connection through. Make non-ordinal order apparent. All with Maps.
So don't keep a TOC, unless the material is intrinsicly linear (a chronology, without episode tracking.) Keep a MOC!
More in the text on this subject. This is just a