- Oct 2024
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Fleeting notes
I've never like the phrase fleeting notes, though it does serve a purpose. It's really a conflation (or portmanteau) of two separate ideas: fleeting ideas and writing them down/capturing them quickly so that they're no longer fleeting. Sort of a noun/verb in form.
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At first it is a mistake to think of anything elseexcept the mere jotting down of Ideas. The Ideas shouldbe jotted down, each on its own Card, and the Sub-Headings should be jotted down on their own Cards,a little way 'inland5. Afterwards there will be timeenough to subdivide the topics, and to re-arrange them ;but at the beginning you must concentrate your atten-tion on the Collection of Ideas, and must not think atall about the Arrangement.
For Miles, getting the ideas down is paramount and they can later be sub-divided or re-arranged.
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www.remastery.net www.remastery.net
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Beyond the cards mentioned above, you should also capture any hard-to-classify thoughts, questions, and areas for further inquiry on separate cards. Regularly go through these to make sure that you are covering everything and that you don’t forget something.I consider these insurance cards because they won’t get lost in some notebook or scrap of paper, or email to oneself.
Julius Reizen in reviewing over Umberto Eco's index card system in How to Write a Thesis, defines his own "insurance card" as one which contains "hard-to-classify thoughts, questions, and areas for further inquiry". These he would keep together so that they don't otherwise get lost in the variety of other locations one might keep them
These might be akin to Ahrens' "fleeting notes" but are ones which may not easily or even immediately be converted in to "permanent notes" for one's zettelkasten. However, given their mission critical importance, they may be some of the most important cards in one's repository.
link this to - idea of centralizing one's note taking practice to a single location
Is this idea in Eco's book and Reizen is the one that gives it a name since some of the other categories have names? (examples: bibliographic index cards, reading index cards (aka literature notes), cards for themes, author index cards, quote index cards, idea index cards, connection cards). Were these "officially" named and categorized by Eco?
May be worthwhile to create a grid of these naming systems and uses amongst some of the broader note taking methods. Where are they similar, where do they differ?
Multi-search tools that have full access to multiple trusted data stores (ostensibly personal ones across notebooks, hard drives, social media services, etc.) could potentially solve the problem of needing to remember where you noted something.
Currently, in the social media space especially, this is not a realized service.
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- Aug 2024
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Michael: Pam, I have ideas on a daily basis. I know I do. I have a clear memory of telling people my ideas. Um, is there any chance you wrote any of my ideas down? In a folder? A "Michael-idea" folder?Pam: Sorry.Michael: That's unfortunate. How 'bout the suggestion box? There's tons of ideas in there.
via Season 2 Episode 8: “Performance Review” - The Office<br /> https://genius.com/The-office-usa-season-2-episode-8-performance-review-annotated
Here we see in Michael Scott's incompetence the potential value of writing down our ideas as we go. Had he written down his ideas, his upcoming meeting with his boss would have gone better.
Isn't it telling that he hits on the idea of leveraging a commonly used communal zettelkasten structure (the suggestion box) to dig himself out?
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