https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Innis

I am wholly unsurprised that Harold Innis maintained a card index (zettelkasten) through his research life, but I am pleased to have found that his literary estate has done some work on it and published it. The introduction seems to have some fascinating material on the form and structure as well as decisions on how they decided to present and publish it.

https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Harold-Adams-Innis-Heritage/dp/0802063829/

https://amzn.to/45xxFXH

via: Georg Henrik von Wright, “The Wittgenstein Papers,” The Philosophical Review 78:4 (1969), 483–563, here: 487.

von Wright seems to indicate that Wittgenstein created typescripts which he cut up into zettel and then was able to rearrange them into final forms.

via: Didier Eribon, Conversations with Claude Lévi-Strauss (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), vii–viii; Claude Lévi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1963), 129f.

via Nora Barlow ed., The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809–1882 vol. 1 (London: Collins, 1958), 137.

source apparently from: “Apparition de la fiche et constitution des sciences humaines: encore une invention que les historiens célèbrent peu.” Michel Foucault, Surveillir et punir. Naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), 287, referring to A. Bonneville, De la recidive (Paris, 1844), 92–93.

Peter Krapp's notes

How can Linnaeus (1707-1778) be said to have invented the card index or the index card when there are systems that predate him including Vincent Placcius and Leibnitz?

Linnaeus' version were all of a standard size at least. Would this have been a shift in the definition or did others have and recommend "cards of equal size" before this?

The 1993 game Myst, available on CD-ROM, had a card index like format.

Hipster here with respect to the card catalog as furniture without mention of the "hipster PDA".

Krapp, Peter. “Paper Slips: The Long Reign of the Index Card and Card Catalog.” In The Routledge Companion to Media Technology and Obsolescence, edited by Mark J. P. Wolf. Routledge, 2019.

Wolf, Mark, ed. The Routledge Companion to Media Technology and Obsolescence. 1st ed. 63 vols. Routledge Media and Cultural Studies Companions. New York: Routledge, 2019.

Enlightened Academia: Harnessing AI & PKM for Stress-Free Publishing

via https://www.linkingyourthinking.com/lytcon-2023/dr-jeremy-nguyen

chat transcript: https://download.filekitcdn.com/d/dv87Nny89souiCFyZqnEgh/3ehgF6TjsNGBWm18LYm7E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9ftjfhvIDA

Nice mixture of loglines as a tool in academic research, but overall, nothing new and exciting here for me.

https://substack.com/profile/12107345-chris-aldrich/note/c-16545574

https://substack.com/profile/12107345-chris-aldrich/note/c-16545418

first post

Domestic Extremists? by Dan Allosso

https://www.3x5life.com/collections/frontpage/products/3x5-life-system-with-mini-course

Cost of items purchased separately on Amazon: - Index cards (total of 6*31+13+12+52=263, so round up to 300 at $0.02 each) = $6.99 - storage box $16.49 - dividers $5.79 - phone sleeve: $2.32 - stainless steel stand: $2.33

Buying these in bulk for additional profit margin/branding could certainly lower the cost.

Their retail is $97.79 versus commercially at $33.92. Their actual cost at bulk is probably significantly less and likely closer to $15 all in for the system, so this is a nice little profit.

via: https://www.3x5life.com/collections/frontpage/products/3x5-life-system-with-mini-course

They apparently offer a mini course outlining the system.

One wonders how much "why" they offer?

Much like its predecessors (Park Sherman Co.) 3x5 Life offers co-branded products to corporations.

Did Memindex do this sort of co-branding? I feel like I've seen something to indicate it.

Bryan McFarland and Jessie McFarland are the owners and frontpeople for 3x5 Life.

via: https://www.3x5life.com/pages/about

Where is the specific research reference to back up this claim?

https://www.3x5life.com/pages/faq

Just like the imagery from the Analog System's promotion, this video features someone fed up with lots of notebooks pushing them off their desk in frustration—naturally to turn to index cards.

timestamp: 0:00:25

3x5 Life - The Story

Short advertising video from the company's home page.

https://www.3x5life.com/

Compare with other products in this category: - Analog (Jeff Sheldon productivity system) - Memindex - Bullet Journal - Frictionless Capture Cards - Pile of Index Cards

3x5 Life productivity cards have the usual to do lists on one side, but have a split AM:Gratitude and PM:Wins section on the back for tracking general progress.

Connecting a Zettelkasten to a Commonplace Book

Interesting to see Scott trying this... I'm sure I've seen it before in a setting like this, but its obviously been done in the commonplace space by itself.

hybrid journal by James Gowans

https://web.archive.org/web/20210725221408/https://squareup.com/market/frictionless/capture-cards

Link is dead. What were these exactly? Sounds a tool in a waste book setting.

https://www.penaddict.com/blog/2013/12/27/frictionless-tools-capture-cards-and-planning-pad

https://brettterpstra.com/2012/05/29/frictionless-capture-cards/

Brett Terpstra was a Frictionless Capture Card fan, especially for quick capture and he used them in a waste book-like fashion. He indicated that he usually transferred the data to a digital location, but kept the cards as backups filed by alphabetical subject line in a Vaultz card index.

https://www.thecramped.com/what-we-use/

Frictionless Tools' Capture Cards were custom 3 x 5" index cards, printed in vertical orientation with a square grid pattern on most of the card. The top was usually split in half between equal grey and red rectangles for titles/dates/headings and a slightly thinner single long rectangle as a footer at the bottom.

Patrick Rhone indicates on 2018-01-24 that they had quit manufacturing them by that date.

My 3 Criticisms of Using UgMonk’s new ‘Analog’ Productivity System. by Jason Chatfield

The "Ivy Lee method" for productivity involves making a to do list with a line underneath the first six most important tasks and doing nothing else until the top six items are finished.

Jason Chatfield credits http://katiefarnan.com/blogs/the-form/lauren-layne for the idea.

sometimes known as eating the frog first...

https://search.crossref.org/

Search the metadata of journal articles, books, standards, datasets & more

Wellisch, Hans H. The PRECIS Index System: Principles, Applications, and Prospects : Proceedings of the International PRECIS Workshop, October 15-17, 1976. Illustrated edition. New York: Wilson, 1977.

https://www.amazon.com/PRECIS-index-system-applications-International/dp/0824206118

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2004/02/12/obituaries/359ea8ea-60b0-4d32-b337-af9c3778aee3/

Hans H. Wellisch died on 2004-02-06.

https://pressbooks.pub/illuminated/

A booklet prepared for teachers that introduces key concepts from the Science of Learning (i.e. cognitive neuroscience). The digital booklet is the result of a European project. Its content have been compiled from continuing professional development workshops for teachers and features evidence-based teaching practices that align with our knowledge of the Science of Learning.

https://box464.com/posts/mastodon-preview-cards/

https://www.zotero.org/clhendricksbc/collections/Y39HVMEF

https://discursive.adamprocter.co.uk/2023/04/25/wrexham-is-not.html

https://garyvaynerchuk.com/content-is-king-but-context-is-god/

https://mem.ai/

I've had this on a list for ages, but never put into my digital notes...

https://aboard.com/

In beta May 2023, via:

All right. @Aboard is in Beta. @richziade and I are to blame, and everyone else deserves true credit. Here's an animated GIF that explains the entire product. Check out https://t.co/i9RXiJLvyA, sign up, and we're waving in tons of folks every day. pic.twitter.com/7WS1OPgsHV

— Paul Ford (@ftrain) May 17, 2023

https://nostr.com/

Peter Kominski likes this generally.

https://spatialwebfoundation.org/

https://spatialwebfoundation.org/protocols/contracts/

https://docs.dxos.org/guide/platform/

https://docs.dxos.org/

https://www.ribbonsunlimited.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ellen_Pleasant

Reply to Dan Allosso at https://danallosso.substack.com/p/what-value-do-i-add-to-the-substack/comment/16463063

I just saw this morning that Jillian Hess, a professor/researcher/writer at a community college in New York, is also contemplating some of the same territory and trying to balance out the necessaries: https://jillianhess.substack.com/p/introducing-ps-a-new-paid-subscriber

I see that she's using both Amazon and Bookshop affiliate accounts and links in her stream. Have you delved into this for supplementation (albeit probably small)? I've done it for years and it never nets enough to even cover my hosting costs, though it makes the hobbyist portion of the outlay a bit more comfortable.

Beyond this, you might appreciate her particular Substack on note books and note taking or her new book: Hess, Jillian M. How Romantics and Victorians Organized Information: Commonplace Books, Scrapbooks, and Albums. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022. https://amzn.to/3VY4RU7

You're probably beyond needing them, but Substack has been building their writer resources and tips for helping to build paid audience. Details at https://on.substack.com/s/resources and https://on.substack.com/s/office-hours

6-7 contractual courses at a public community college in New York is roughly equivalent to 5-10% of Hess' Substack subscribing at $50/year.

Rough estimates of the variables could fill in the holes here to get a current estimate of subscribers.

P.S. How Guillermo del Toro Created a Monster: the Pale Man by Jillian Hess

Marcin Wichary Typewriting, Type, and Keyboard Collection<br /> https://archive.org/details/wicharytypewriter

https://kleinbottle.com/

It's got some serious Austin Powers 60s/70s swagger, but obviously will need some TLC and a new ribbon. Is it worth hundreds, even in good shape? Probably not, but I'll bet it could be cleaned up/repaired and bring someone lots of joy (either fixing it or using it regularly). YouTube has lots of starter videos of people cleaning/fixing older machines that will give you some ideas. If it's not your sort of hobby, pass it along to someone who might enjoy it, or sell it to your local repair shop or maybe on eBay for a few dollars. Someone could bring it back to life.

https://archive.org/details/wicharytypewriter?&sort=-week&page=2

The replacement typewriter ribbon for my Smith-Corona Clipper is 1/2" nylon ribbon with eyelets on 2" diameter spools.

https://www.ribbonsunlimited.com/category-s/5415.htm

Some cheap typewriter ribbon spools don't have grommets on them to force auto-reverse of the spool. Without grommets, some machines may sense ribbon tension for reversal, otherwise one needs to switch direction manually.

There are grommet installation tools that one can use, but this often requires getting one's hands dirty to install them.

Ribbons Unlimited has a good reputation in the r/typewriters community for providing good sales and service.

I don't have any affiliation with the book (other than ordering a copy for myself), but thought I'd share the pre-order details for the forthcoming book Shift Happens: A book about keyboards by Marcin Wichary: https://shifthappens.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders The book, shipping in October 2023, was originally funded on Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mwichary/shift-happens. Even more details available at https://shifthappens.site/. The author Marcin Wichary compiled a huge list of typewriter/keyboard resources, books, and manuals at https://archive.org/details/wicharytypewriter which the hard core historians and type enthusiasts many may also appreciate. (h/t u/amidfallenleaves @ r/typewriters/#)

https://jetpack.com/blog/wordpress-block-editor/#more-212502

Perhaps you're conflating too many things? Ask first, what value do I add to the world? (Arguably loads.) Then ask: How do I (best) distribute this value? To this perhaps one of your answers is Substack, which may or may not be one of many tools you use for this purpose. Then the follow on question is what value do you get back from it?

Given HCR's numbers (especially in comparison with Twitter) and her time on the platform, I suspect she may have (or at this point had) some sort of special platform deal with Substack which isn't publicly known beyond the basics of what the typical person could get. It's probably the modern digital equivalent of the sort of deal a highly visible academic might get from a magazine like The Atlantic. The pay scale may be different but we can obviously see that the daily output is wildly different too. If you're not aware, when Substack started they reached out to a wide variety of famous/semi-famous people and helped them to build a quick audience that would have taken them far more time and effort than they would otherwise have ever invested. Part of this was providing initial payment/seed money which was really their early investment for getting lots of quality content on the platform as a means of drawing the masses to come to the platform to both read and create as well. Unless you're a massive name working with them directly, you're unlikely to get this sort of deal today, and this means a tougher up hill slog for the "rest of us" as the platform doesn't need to pay for this sort of scaling/network effect now. If nothing else, knowing these early economies of Substack (and really lots of other social platforms, Medium certainly followed this script as an example) will help you to have a broader perspective and better compare your apples to others' oranges.

https://share-on-mastodon.social/

A really neat customizable "Share on Mastodon" button for your pages or posts.

unemployed diaries - ep. 01 - book haul, my commonplace notebook system

found via Richard Carter

Really nice example of someone using colour-coding and marginal notes/cross-references in a (paper) commonplace book. (My link skips the first 09:20 of the video, which comprises a book unboxing and notebook description.) #PKM<br /> cc. @chrisaldrich https://youtu.be/90gb7Eo8uMk?t=560

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden; or, Life in the Woods. First. Boston, MA: Ticknor and Fields, 1854. http://archive.org/details/waldenorlifei00thor.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoteTaking/comments/13otrq9/ploter_the_allinone_reader/

https://www.ploter.io/

reply to u/edumanos at https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/13p0myn/academic_using_of_zettelkasten/

The Luhmann's method was very specific to him, but the broader slip box method has been in wide use in academic settings for centuries, particularly in the humanities. I most often recommend Umberto Eco's book in conjunction with Adler/Van Doren's How to Read a Book, but below are a small selection of manuals on very closely related note taking methods. These can be found in a handful of languages and some even more specific to particular areas of study, though broadly they're all useful to almost any area. You'll note that some are available for free on archive.org as they're out of copyright, have been scanned, or are open educational resources. I've tried to link most of these for convenience.

If this list isn't enough, or you're looking for something written for a specific subfield (sociology, for example), let me know as I'm sure there are a plethora of others, or even some fun short pieces like: - Thomas, Keith. “Diary: Working Methods.” London Review of Books, June 10, 2010. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n11/keith-thomas/diary. - Mills, C. Wright. “On Intellectual Craftsmanship (1952).” Society 17, no. 2 (January 1, 1980): 63–70. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02700062.

My favorite short/overview video is that of Victor Margolin's process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxyy0THLfuI.

As for self-plagiarism, some have used a red pencil or other means to mark cards (notes) they've used in specific works as they write so that they know they've been used and can then self-cite their prior works to avoid self-plagiarism or to up their citation count.

• Ahrens, Sönke. How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. Create Space, 2017.
• Allosso, Dan, and S. F. Allosso. How to Make Notes and Write. Minnesota State Pressbooks, 2022. https://minnstate.pressbooks.pub/write/.
• Barzun, Jacques. The Modern Researcher. Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1992. http://archive.org/details/modernresearcher00barz_1.
• Bernstein, Mark. Tinderbox: The Tinderbox Way. 3rd ed. Watertown, MA: Eastgate Systems, Inc., 2017. http://www.eastgate.com/Tinderbox/TinderboxWay/index.html.
• Blair, Ann M. “Manuals on Note-Taking (Ars Excerpendi).” In Brill’s Encyclopaedia of the Neo-Latin World. Brill, May 7, 2014. https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-neo-latin-world/manuals-on-note-taking-ars-excerpendi-B9789004271029_0058.
• Chavigny, Paul Marie Victor. Organisation du travail intellectuel, recettes pratiques à l’usage des étudiants de toutes les facultés et de tous les travailleurs. Paris: Delagrave, 1918. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/011209555.
• DeCarlo, Matthew, Cory Cummings, and Kate Agnelli. Graduate Research Methods in Social Work. Open Social Work, 2021. https://doi.org/10.21061/msw-research.
• Dow, Earle Wilbur. Principles of a Note-System for Historical Studies. New York: Century Company, 1924.
• Eco, Umberto. How to Write a Thesis. Translated by Caterina Mongiat Farina and Geoff Farina. 1977. Reprint, Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2015. https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/how-write-thesis.
• Gessner, Konrad. Pandectarum Sive Partitionum Universalium. 1st Edition. Zurich: Christoph Froschauer, 1548.
• Goutor, Jacques. The Card-File System of Note-Taking. Approaching Ontario’s Past 3. Toronto: Ontario Historical Society, 1980. http://archive.org/details/cardfilesystemof0000gout.
• Heyde, Johannes Erich, and Heinz Siegel. Technik des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens. 10th ed. 1931. Reprint, Berlin: Kiepert, 1970. https://www.worldcat.org/title/TECHNIK-DES-WISSENSCHAFTLICHEN-ARBEITENS.-MIT-E.-ERG.BEITR.-DOKUMENTATION-VON-HEINZ-SIEGEL.-10.DURCHGES.AUFL/oclc/1075391218.
• Kuntze, Friedrich. Die Technik der geistigen Arbeit (The technique of mental work). Carl Winter’s Universitätsbuchhandlung, 1923.
• Langlois, Charles Victor, and Charles Seignobos. Introduction to the Study of History. Translated by George Godfrey Berry. First. New York: Henry Holt and company, 1898. http://archive.org/details/cu31924027810286.
• ———. Introduction to the study of history. London, Cass, 1966. http://archive.org/details/introductiontos00langgoog.
• Leicester, Mal, and Denise Taylor. Take Great Notes. 1st edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2019.
• Maxfield, Ezra Kempton. “Suggestions for Note Taking.” Delaware College Bulletin 6, no. 4 (December 1910).
• Mei, Jennifer. Refining, Reading, Writing : Includes 2009 Mla Update Card. Nelson Canada, 2007. http://archive.org/details/refiningreadingw0000meij.
• Range, Ellen. Take Note! Taking and Organizing Notes. Ann Arbor, Michigan: Cherry Lake Publishing, 2014.
• Schrag, Zachary M. The Princeton Guide to Historical Research. Princeton University Press, 2021. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1pdrrc9.
• Sertillanges, Antonin Gilbert. La vie intellectuelle; son esprit, ses conditions, ses méthodes. Paris, Éditions de la Revue des jeunes, 1921. http://archive.org/details/lavieintellectue00sert.
• Sertillanges, Antonin Gilbert, and Mary Ryan. The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. First English Edition, Fifth printing. 1921. Reprint, Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1960. http://archive.org/details/a.d.sertillangestheintellectuallife.
• Seward, Samuel Swayze. Note-Taking. Boston, Allyn and Bacon, 1910. http://archive.org/details/cu31924012997627.
• Webb, Sidney, and Beatrice Webb. Methods of Social Study. London; New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1932. http://archive.org/details/b31357891.
• Weinberg, Gerald M. Weinberg on Writing: The Fieldstone Method. New York, N.Y: Dorset House, 2005.

Good luck!

Physical vs Digital Note Systems

There's a lot of useful detail hiding in this 15 minutes as an overview, but nothing new/interesting for me.

I will say that he completely misses a lot of the subtleties of indexing and multiple storage within the analog space, but it's likely because he's not done it personally or doesn't have enough experience there.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEmb0zMfRdvmSH2bO9UA95DSaHHSapZl2

YouTube playlist of five lessons of music theory using Dean Vaughn's so-called "Vaughn Cube".

https://www.amazon.com/Vaughn-Cube-Multiplication-Petersons/dp/0768941776

Dean Vaughn has apparently renamed the method of loci as a commodity to be able to market a method for memorizing the multiplication tables.

https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/anyone-here-who-has-experience-with-the-vaughn-cube/41484

Dean Vaughn has a series of music theory videos from 2007 that utilizes what he calls a Vaughn cube which on first blush appears to be a standard numbered room as used in the method of loci.

From late 2022

https://trakt.tv/dashboard

https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/combinatorics-imagery-systems/83315

Efficiency and effectiveness measures for specific mnemonic systems may vary from person to person, so one should consider them with respect to their own practices. There may not be a single "right" or "correct" practice universally, but there could be one for everyone individually based on their own choices or preferences.

https://fromthe.study/analog-review/

Ostensibly the text of the review in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvLkVimqv8E

https://bulletjournal.com/blogs/bulletjournalist/the-commonplace-book-as-a-thinker-s-journal

very meh... barely scratches the surface.

Has your prior system not been working for you? What do you want to gain from making the change? What list are you looking at that you don't see a category? Isn't the category "writing", "fiction writing", "nonfiction writing", etc.?

This is great. I'll put it into my collection along with Shawn Graham who has some prior work for teaching with Obsidian (https://shawngraham.github.io/hist1900/#the-big-idea) as does u/danallosso who has also used it quite bit for both classes as well as Open Education Resources. If you search for Dan's YouTube & Substack, you're likely to find some of his writing/resources there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/13khuxs/obsidian_for_teachers/

see also: https://github.com/biscotty666/OBSPKMEssentials

https://www.ebay.com/itm/404291953051

HH West Co. was a stationer in Milwaukee that sold Shaw Walker card indexes in the early 1900s.

Patrick Rhone's use of the dash plus system dates back to at least 2006.

(See original post at http://patrickrhone.com/2006/05/12/org-fu-uberpost-productivity-whitepaper/)

https://patrickrhone.com/dashplus/

referenced via Simon Woods at micro.camp https://hypothes.is/a/_GvLrPczEe2T-tfEqnLNhw

https://www.reddit.com/user/Paddy48ob/

• signed a post as "Pat (OBC)" obstensibly for Obsidian Book Club via https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/13m2j5b/comment/jkzhedk/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

• also mentions being a 20 year user of TheBrain at https://www.reddit.com/r/antinet/comments/101st9c/comment/j2qfh5d/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

https://patrickrhone.com/2014/03/28/extending-dashplus/

Read archived version at https://web.archive.org/web/20230128105827/https://patrickrhone.com/2014/03/28/extending-dashplus/ Rhone's website was down today??

https://letterboxd.com/bitdepth/lists/

bitdepth has some interesting lists, including films directed by women.

https://teuxdeux.com/blog/swissmiss-tina-roth-eisenberg-interview

Tina Roth Eisenberg is a co-creator of TeuxDeux.

source?

https://teuxdeux.com/

https://www.businessinsider.com/ivy-lee-method-productivity-2018-9

Lauren Layne mentions that she uses the Ivy Lee productivity method.

https://www.katiefarnan.com/blogs/the-form/lauren-layne

Is the paper really that great? I've got my own self-printed stationery cards that I've used for ages, but lust after that lovely designed wood. Would standard index cards work in that base or would the rounded corners get in the way? I totally commiserate with the collecting productivity systems like Pokémon! I'm still looking for someone to recreate the original 1903 Memindex system...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvLkVimqv8E

Review of the Analog productivity system. Quick overview with generally positive tenor.

The creator mentions that he collects productivity systems like Pokémon! A sort of affliction of shiny object syndrome in the productivity space.

Passing mention of Patrick Rhone's dash/plus system

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czfHE6CN41c

• https://micro.blog/bitdepth
• https://letterboxd.com/bitdepth

https://kimberlyhirsh.com/uploads/2023/5976538a38.jpg

Putting a list of one's core values in the front of their notebook can be a useful reminder within their journaling or bullet journal practice.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=complexity+exonomics+textbook&crid=2SZP0E6DIIR6J&sprefix=complexity+exonomics+text%2Caps%2C630&ref=nb_sb_noss

While I'm reading Doughnut Economics, it's interesting to contemplate the images on common economics textbooks as an indicator of how the authors/publishers think about the models of the information inside them.

Some broad ideas represented here: - bustling people (consumers) walking over curvy 3D graph grids - greenish abstract cover (representing the green idea of money) - a compass rose (indicating finding one's direction; on a book about managerial economics and business strategy) - a globe of the world with a colorful infographic heat map - a bunch of blue and silver metal balls connected in a network-like configuration - a montage of images of numbers (credit card numbers, numbers on money, a ticker with stock prices, etc.) - a solar panel with blue sky and clouds in the background - blue sky with white fluffy clouds (indicating what, exactly?) - an ipad with an image of a busy street in the 1800s held up as if taking a photo of the same street today - puzzle pieces being put together with an image of people exchanging money at a farmer's market - abstract grid of a map outline of the Americas

https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/accessories-and-software/stylus-pens-and-supplies/stylus-pens-&-supplies_pens/gx80k32882

https://pcsupport.lenovo.com/us/en/products/laptops-and-netbooks/flex-series/flex-15iwl/81sr

The Analog system has a thin metal divider that separates two sections in the base. The broad suggestion is to use this space as storage and the divider for separating the blank stock of cards from used cards. One could also separate the next/someday cards from the today cards (new and finished).

The divider serves as a tabbed divider in many systems, but here there are only a total of three slots for differentiation: one slot for one card with today's list, and two other spaces for other cards that the user can determine their uses for. This definitely makes the system incredibly simple and minimal.

It's only slightly different from the old common Park Sherman Co. desk note pad systems which sometimes had a universal calendar and one tray space for notes.

Similar to the sorts of to do list task key in many bullet journals, the Analog system has "task signals" : - black filled circle means "complete task" - half filled circle means task is in progress - a right arrow in the circle means the task was delegated - a cross in the circle means that the task is an appointment, potentially with the appointment time added to the to do item

The system suggests that you can "create your own" task signals, though in true minimalist fashion, it doesn't give other suggestions. Presumably one could do other pattern fills of the circle or symbols within it to mean other things (example: bullet journal key symbols).

Interestingly, the to do circles start out not blank, but with a single thin line splitting the circle in half vertically. This is apparently a design choice, perhaps to make it easier to fill in half of the circle?

Though the Analog system clearly delineates cards of to do lists as "Today", "Next", "Someday", I've definitely seen this sort of delineation well before this system.

What other systems explicitly use this framing or similar framings?

While the today / next / someday cards are labeled, they're also color coded (white, light tan, tan) to help distinguish them.

Though not defined in the Analog system, these differently colored cards could also be used to indicate different sorts of data, though one would need to potentially ignore the pre-printed labels of "Today", "Next", "Someday".

The Analog system utilizes a simplified version of an Eisenhower matrix which we'll call "today / next / someday" as a means of prioritizing to do list items on a temporal basis.

Following a pattern seen in many modern wooden recipe card boxes to hold the current recipe one is working on, Jeff Sheldon has cut a long thin slot into his card holder to allow one to stand up today's card in the front as a means of displaying and featuring what needs to get done.

https://ugmonk.com/pages/analog

Jeff Sheldon describes how the Analog system works, generally following most of the outline of the Memindex method, but with some hints of the Bullet Journal method's notation.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ugmonk/analog-the-simplest-productivity-system/posts

Analog Kickstarter dates: - wrapped on 2021-05-07 - funded on 2020-08-07 - launched on 2020-06-23

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ugmonk/analog-the-simplest-productivity-system

Jeff Sheldon's Analog productivity system is a physical product consisting of a wooden tray, metal divider, 3 x 5" custom printed index cards (and refills), a felt carrier, and other accessories which functions as a minimalistic version of the old Memindex.

The someday card is described as being not only for individual to do items, but "big picture" goals.

The video shows the productivity books which Sheldon used to help design his system including 99u's Manage Your Day-To-Day, Unsubscribe by Jocelyn K. Glei, The One Thing by Gary Keller, Getting Things Done by David Allen, Deep Work by Cal Newport, and Atomic Habits by James Clear.

I started making lists on index cards—you know the ones we used back in school.

Note the total lack of any referent to why we used to use index cards in school.

https://vimeo.com/420319231?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=8885398

https://ugmonk.com/collections/analog/products/analog-cards-3-pack?variant=36903475150998&selling_plan=937066646

In addition to using the three dots on the Analog system's cards to indicate how much one accomplished (modest value), Jeff Sheldon suggests using them to "link cards together", though he doesn't suggest how one could or should do this. Presumably he means to use the possible dot patterns as a code, but then one only has 2^3 or 8 ways of doing this, so the number of possible links is incredibly low. Some of this seems related to edge notched cards, though here, there's no suggestion of punching holes in these cards, so sorting or finding these cards isn't necessarily easy unless one otherwise indexes them, a functionality which falls outside of the minimalist scope of the product.

To expand on this method he also, more profitably, suggests adding titles to cards in the blank line at the top which is also frequently used for dating cards.

https://ugmonk.com/

Developed in a Kickstarter, ugmonk.com is where Jeff Sheldon now sells his Analog productivity system and refills as well as other related lifestyle brand products.

https://www.annahavron.com/handouts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Great_Silence