How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought you Think | Page 8

areas of work or thought. You'll take them off when they cease to be important, or when you fulfill them. The same goes for the subject maps within each subject.
That's basically it. Small idea, but EXTREMELY useful. I'll write more about it when it comes time to talk abou it.
* tab dividers
You will use these to keep your subjects apart, and a few other things.
* pockets!
Now I REALLY don't know what these things are called. My girlfriend got them for me by stealing a few from work. When I saw them, I understood why.
These are little pockets, that you can stick ANYWHERE. They have a plastic white back, and a transparent front. The back and front form the pocket, which opens from above, and is sealed around the edge. But the back ALSO has a sticky thing. You peel off a layer, and you can stick the whole pocket ANYWHERE. This is VERY useful.
I use the pocket to store the following things:
* my donut holes * my stickies * stamps (as in, postal stamps)
It has worked like a charm.
So in recap, your shopping list is:
* paper - get about 8 reams, college rule, 8.5x11", to start with. * pen - 3 four-color pens. * x3 hole punch - get it at a thrift store if you want it cheap. * donut holes - get 1-2 packages of many sheets. * stickies - get 1-2 packages of many sheets. * tab dividers - get about... 50 tabs. To start with. * pockets - if you can find 'em, get at least 4 or 5.
Now we talk about transport issues:
* Storage * Carrying * Archival * Handling Optimizations
Storage, Carrying, and Archival will be one big topic here. It's all intermingled.
SO.
You are keeping notes. You have papers. Here is a sort of scale of your papers:
1) scrawled notes on fortune cookie papers, backs of napkins, etc.,. 2) scrawled notes on blank paper. 3) notes collected onto pan-subject speed lists. 4) notes collected in your carry-about binder. 5) notes collected in your common-store binder. 6) notes in the archive.
There is another category, hovering around 5.5: special purpose collections. For example, I have a binder for "Computers". In it, it has subjects such as "Networking", "Debian", "Programming", "Software", "XSLT", etc., etc.,.
I should mention there is also item ZERO:
0) stored in your mind on a peg list.
I'll talk about that later. If I forget to, mail me, and let me know that I forgot: [email protected]. Yes, I know that I could keep a list of promises to keep here in my emacs buffer. But to be frank, after having been keeping so many lists for so many months, that I really just don't feel like making one. Pardon my rudeness, but if you actually DO what I am describing here, you'll understand what I'm talking about. Back to the subject at hand.
So let me describe each of these sources.
SCRAWLED NOTES ON FORTUNE COOKIE PAPERS
Some times, you just flat out DON'T have your carry-about binder with you. And you don't have your pan-subject speeds paper. And you don't even have a blank paper. And your peg list is full, or you don't feel like cycling it.
So you just have to make do with what you have.
You put a note on the back of the envelope and stuff it in your pocket. Or you take that fortune cookie slip out and write on it. Or whatever.
GREAT!
I mean, it sucks. But at least you got that thought! Good for you.
SCRAWLED NOTES ON BLANK PAPER
Or maybe you have a blank piece of paper in reach. Write the thought of it, and put it in your pocket.
PAN-SUBJECT SPEEDS
But if you can, be prepared in the morning, and put a pan-subject speeds page in your pocket.
I'll talk much more about speeds in my exposition on "Intra-Subject Architecture", but a little bit should appear here.
The Pan-subjects speeds page is optimized to have graduate-student rule. This is beyond College rule. You want 40+ lines on a pan-subjects speed page to cram thoughts into. Again: DENSITY is the name of the game.
Furthermore, the pan-subject speeds is partitioned. It has:
* Transcription Checkoff * Subject * Hint * Content
You can put whatever you want in there. Mine also has a place for a "Psi" marker. That's where you list what type of thought it is, in terms of "Principle" or "Observation" or "Warning" or "Possible Action" or "Goal" or "Problem" or "Starting Point" or a host of other glyphs. I'm not going to talk about these because they are beyond the scope of Notebooks. They go more into mental techniques; Has to do with mental structure and the anatomy of thought. While related and quite fascinating, I'm just not going to go there. Whole 'nother discussion for a whole 'nother day.
The point is, the format is maleable.