How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought you Think | Page 5

dramaticly increase our intelligence, provided that we can solve the versioning problem as well. (Note: Ted Nelson & Company went pretty batty wrt the versioning problem. Did they solve it? I don't know. I have heard rumors that some of Ted's protege's work for the CIA now, though.)
Speaking of the CIA- I want to include in this book somewhere (right here I guess) a comparison between this notebook system, and an Intelligence Agency. INTELLIGENCE is having Good Information available at the Right Time at the Right Place. Notebooks help with that by moving information to a place where it will be seen at the right time- when you access the notebook. There are a lot of similarities there with an Intelligence Agency. Okay. I'm done. Interlude out. (Yes, I do recognize the irony. I'm just spitting this out with poor organization. But dammit, I'm not a skilled writer, and I have SO MUCH I want to express, so you'll just have to make do for now. Sorry.)
Where were we.
1) Materials 2) General Principles 3) Intra-subj 4) Extra-subj 5) Theory of Notebooks 6) The Question of Computers
(NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: I've added a 7th section: "Getting Started". It is number 7.)
Okay. And be aware I'll probably need to skip back and forth a little bit. Sorry, just one of the problems of having a straight linear text, rather than a fully mapped out domain.
---------------------------------------- I. Materials ----------------------------------------
Some topics for "Materials":
* Paper * Pen * Binders * 3-hole punch * donut rings * stickies (NOT yellow sticky tabs!) * tab dividers * pockets
And associated issues:
* Storage * Carrying * Archival * Handling Optimizations
So lets start with the materials- what you need to have with you.
PEN.
You need a pen. Actually, you need three. And they need to have little four color clippies- Red, Green, Blue, and Black.
Theoretically, you can do this all with a black pen, but TRUST ME, you don't want it. Your ability to very rapidly switch colors will way more than make up for the nicer line that the G2 gel pens give you. Really.
You need one to carry with you, you need one for backup, placed in a trusted place, and you need one to be a backup to the backup. YES, you really need this. If you are wasting time looking for a pen that you lost, you are just wasting time. The pen will come back. In the mean time, you need to write, so you've got to fetch your backup. You have a backup to the backup. If you have ready access to a store, you need to buy another pen, should you not find your first pen by then.
These 4-color pens are expensive. Remember: Buy 3. YOUR PEN IS YOUR LIFE. DON'T LOSE IT. But when you do, don't hesitate to start in with the backup.
Next: You want to have a list in your notes of the locations to search for your pen. Mine looked like this:
* Jacket Pockets Pants Pockets Buried Inside Notebooks.
Re: the last: "Buried Inside Notebooks." IF YOU DO THIS SYSTEM, that will actually be a VERY common occurance. Because you'll have 2-3 inches of paper. Those 4-color pens are BIIIIG and FAT. But they aren't so big that they can't get completely lost amidst a big fat chunk of paper. Trust me. So actually open up the book and flip through sections,looking for your pen.
I'm not going to talk about this much; This is just something you'll find with experience.
So that's the deal with the pen. I'll talk more about what the colors are for in the "General Principles" section.
Next.
PAPER.
You want lots of it. Always have at least 2 reams unopened, of about 150 sheets each.
Get COLLEGE RULE. You want as many lines on these as you can, because information density is the name of the game. 3 holes, of course, so it'll go in your binder.
8 1/2" x 11", or the new 8" x 10 1/2" ?
Don't laugh- it's a serious question.
There are tradeoffs to both.
I used 8"x10 1/2" for most of my notes. It was good because they fit within the larger tab dividers. Yah. 8x10.5 is also a lot cheaper. With the volume of paper that you will purchase, price can become an issue.
But if I were to do this again (and I intend to- I intend to do this once, for three months, once every 3-5 years, to gain a "situation awareness"), I would use full 8.5x11".
Why? It's not really the "extra bit of page" that is important (it isn't- having a better rule is far more important), but rather that your paper conforms to the global standard for paper.
You are invariably going to want to include leafs from outside your notebook system. And you should eventually make your own templated papers: You'll make standard form sheets,