📚 Book Info

• Author: [[ S. Ahrens ]]
• Related: Read [[ Note-taking ]]

💬 Summary

📒 Highlights

1.1 Good Solutions are Simple – and Unexpected

the fastest car won’t help you much if you don’t have proper roads to drive it on.

Allen calls a “mind like water” - the state where we can focus on the work right in front of us without getting distracted by competing thoughts.

Only if you can trust your system, only if you really know that everything will be taken care of, will your brain let go and let you focus on the task at hand.

1.2 The Slip-box

He regularly mentioned the slip-box as the reason for his productivity.

“I only do what is easy. I only write when I immediately know how to do it. If I falter for a moment, I put the matter aside and do something else.”

Studies on highly successful people have proven again and again that success is not the result of strong willpower and the ability to overcome resistance, but rather the result of smart working environments that avoid resistance in the first place

It is about having the right tools and knowing how to use them– and very few understand that you need both.

1.3 The slip-box manual

1.3 The slip-box manual

Luhmann had two slip-boxes: a bibliographical one, which contained the references and brief notes on the content of the literature, and the main one in which he collected and generated his ideas, mainly in response to what he read. The notes were written on index cards and stored in wooden boxes.

Whenever he read something, he would write the bibliographic information on one side of a card and make brief notes about the content on the other side (Schmidt 2013, 170). These notes would end up in the bibliographic slip-box.

In a second step, shortly after, he would look at his brief notes and think about their relevance for his own thinking and writing. He then would turn to the main slip-box and write his ideas, comments and thoughts on new pieces of paper, using only one for each idea and restricting himself to one side of the paper, to make it easier to read them later without having to take them out of the box. He kept them usually brief enough to make one idea fit on a single sheet, but would sometimes add another note to extend a thought.

He usually wrote his notes with an eye towards already existing notes in the slip-box. And while the notes on the literature were brief, he wrote them with great care, not much different from his style in the final manuscript: in full sentences and with explicit references to the literature from which he drew his material. More often than not, a new note would directly follow up on another note and would become part of a longer chain of notes. He then would add references to notes somewhere else in the slip-box, some of them which were located nearby, others in completely different areas and contexts. Some were directly related and read more like comments, others contained not-so-obvious connections. Rarely would a note stay in isolation. He did not just copy ideas or quotes from the texts he read, but made a transition from one context to another.

The trick is that he did not organise his notes by topic, but in the rather abstract way of giving them fixed numbers. The numbers bore no meaning and were only there to identify each note permanently. If a new note was relevant or directly referred to an already existing note, such as a comment, correction or addition, he added it directly behind the previous note.

If the existing note had the number 22, the new note would become note number 23. If 23 already existed, he named the new note 22a. By alternating numbers and letters, with some slashes and commas in between, he was able to branch out into as many strings of thought as he liked. For example, a note about causality and systems theory carried the number 21/3d7a7 following a note with the number 21/3d7a6.

Whenever he added a note, he checked his slip-box for other relevant notes to make possible connections between them. Adding a note directly behind another note is only one way of doing this. Another way is by adding a link on this and/or the other note, which could be anywhere in the system.

By adding these links between notes, Luhmann was able to add the same note to different contexts. While other systems start with a preconceived order of topics, Luhmann developed topics bottom up, then added another note to his slip-box, on which he would sort a topic by sorting the links of the relevant other notes.

The last element in his file system was an index, from which he would refer to one or two notes that would serve as a kind of entry point into a line of thought or topic. Notes with a sorted collection of links are, of course, good entry points.

2.1 Writing a paper step by step

Thinking, reading, learning, understanding and generating ideas is the main work of everyone who studies, does research or writes. If you write to improve all of these activities, you have a strong tailwind going for you.

Writing a paper step by step

Make fleeting notes. Always have something at hand to write with to capture every idea that pops into your mind. Don’t worry too much about how you write it down or what you write it on. These are fleeting notes, mere reminders of what is in your head.

Make literature notes. Whenever you read something, make notes about the content. Write down what you don’t want to forget or think you might use in your own thinking or writing. Keep it very short, be extremely selective, and use your own words. Be extra selective with quotes– don’t copy them to skip the step of really understanding what they mean. Keep these notes together with the bibliographic details in one place– your reference system.

Make permanent notes. Now turn to your slip-box. Go through the notes you made in step one or two (ideally once a day and before you forget what you meant) and think about how they relate to what is relevant for your own research, thinking or interests. This can soon be done by looking into the slip-box– it only contains what interests you anyway. The idea is not to collect, but to develop ideas, arguments and discussions. Does the new information contradict, correct, support or add to what you already have (in the slip-box or on your mind)? Can you combine ideas to generate something new? What questions are triggered by them? Write exactly one note for each idea and write as if you were writing for someone else: Use full sentences, disclose your sources, make references and try to be as precise, clear and brief as possible. Throw away the fleeting notes from step one and put the literature notes from step two into your reference system. You can forget about them now. All that matters is going into the slip-box.

Now add your new permanent notes to the slip-box by: a) Filing each one behind one or more related notes (with a program, you can put one note “behind” multiple notes; if you use pen and paper like Luhmann, you have to decide where it fits best and add manual links to the other notes). Look to which note the new one directly relates or, if it does not relate directly to any other note yet, just file it behind the last one. b) Adding links to related notes. c) Making sure you will be able to find this note later by either linking to it from your index or by making a link to it on a note that you use as an entry point to a discussion or topic and is itself linked to the index.

Develop your topics, questions and research projects bottom up from within the system. See what is there, what is missing and what questions arise. Read more to challenge and strengthen your arguments and change and develop your arguments according to the new information you are learning about. Take more notes, develop ideas further and see where things will take you.

Just follow your interest and always take the path that promises the most insight. Build upon what you have. Even if you don’t have anything in your slip-box yet, you never start from scratch– you already have ideas on your mind to be tested, opinions to be challenged and questions to be answered. Do not brainstorm for a topic. Look into the slip-box instead to see where chains of notes have developed and ideas have been built up to clusters. Don’t cling to an idea if another, more promising one gains momentum. The more you become interested in something, the more you will read and think about it, the more notes you will collect and the more likely it is that you will generate questions from it. It might be exactly what you were interested in from the beginning, but it is more likely that your interests will have changed– that is what insight does.

After a while, you will have developed ideas far enough to decide on a topic to write about. Your topic is now based on what you have, not based on an unfounded idea about what the literature you are about to read might provide. Look through the connections and collect all the relevant notes on this topic (most of the relevant notes will already be in partial order), copy them onto your “desktop”[6] and bring them in order. Look for what is missing and what is redundant. Don’t wait until you have everything together. Rather, try ideas out and give yourself enough time to go back to reading and note-taking to improve your ideas, arguments and their structure.

Turn your notes into a rough draft. Don’t simply copy your notes into a manuscript. Translate them into something coherent and embed them into the context of your argument while you build your argument out of the notes at the same time. Detect holes in your argument, fill them or change your argument.

Edit and proofread your manuscript. Give yourself a pat on the shoulder and turn to the next manuscript.

How focused you want to read depends on your priorities. You don’t have to read anything you don’t consider an absolute necessity for finishing your most urgent paper, but you will still encounter a lot of other ideas and information along the way.

Spending the little extra time to add them to your system will make all the difference, because the accidental encounters make up the majority of what we learn.

3. Everything you need to have

Focus on the essentials, don’t complicate things unnecessarily.

Good tools do not add features and more options to what we already have, but help to reduce distractions from the main work, which here is thinking.

3.1 The Tool Box

To have an undistracted brain to think with and a reliable collection of notes to think in is pretty much all we need. Everything else is just clutter.

The Tool Box We need four tools: · Something to write with and something to write on (pen and paper will do) · A reference management system (the best programs are free) · The slip-box (the best program is free) · An editor (whatever works best for you: very good ones are free)

1. You need something to capture ideas whenever and wherever they pop into your head. Whatever you use, it should not require any thoughts, attention or multiple steps to write it down.

These notes are not meant to be stored permanently. They will be deleted or chucked soon anyway.

If you use other tools, make sure everything ends up in one place, a central inbox or something like that, where you can process it soon, ideally within a day.

The reference system has two purposes: To collect the references (duh) and the notes you take during your reading.

The slip-box. Some prefer the old-fashioned pen and paper version in a wooden box. That’s fine– computers can only speed up a relatively minor part of the work anyway, like adding links and formatting references. They can’t speed up the main part of the work, which is thinking, reading and understanding.

Finally, the editor:

The Four Underlying Principles

4. A Few Things to Keep in Mind

THE FOUR UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES

5. Writing Is the Only Thing That Matters

knowing that you cannot write down everything. You will read in a more engaged way, because you cannot rephrase anything in your own words if you don’t understand what it is about.

6. Simplicity Is Paramount

We tend to think that big transformations have to start with an equally big idea. But more often than not, it is the simplicity of an idea that makes it so powerful

1. Fleeting notes, which are only reminders of information, can be written in any kind of way and will end up in the trash within a day or two. 2. Permanent notes, which will never be thrown away and contain the necessary information in themselves in a permanently understandable way. They are always stored in the same way in the same place, either in the reference system or, written as if for print, in the slip-box. 3. Project notes, which are only relevant to one particular project. They are kept within a project-specific folder and can be discarded or archived after the project is finished.

A typical mistake is made by many diligent students who are adhering to the advice to keep a scientific journal. A friend of mine does not let any idea, interesting finding or quote he stumbles upon dwindle away and writes everything down. He always carries a notebook with him and often makes a few quick notes during a conversation. The advantage is obvious: No idea ever gets lost. The disadvantages are serious, though: As he treats every note as if it belongs to the “permanent” category, the notes will never build up a critical mass. The collection of good ideas is diluted to insignificance by all the other notes, which are only relevant for a specific project or actually not that good on second sight.

The second typical mistake is to collect notes only related to specific projects. On first sight, it makes much more sense. You decide on what you are going to write about and then collect everything that helps you to do that. The disadvantage is that you have to start all over after each project and cut off all other promising lines of thought. That means that everything you found, thought or encountered during the time of a project will be lost. If you try to mitigate the effect by opening a new folder for every potential new project whenever you stumble upon something that might be interesting for that, you will soon end up with an overwhelming amount of unfinished projects.

The third typical mistake is, of course, to treat all notes as fleeting ones. You can easily spot this approach by the mess that comes with it, or rather by the cycle of slowly growing piles of material followed by the impulse for major clean-ps. Just collecting unprocessed fleeting notes inevitably leads to chaos.

Fleeting notes are only useful if you review them within a day or so and turn them into proper notes you can use later. Fleeting literature notes can make sense if you need an extra step to understand or grasp an idea, but they will not help you in the later stages of the writing process, as no underlined sentence will ever present itself when you need it in the development of an argument.

Permanent notes, on the other hand, are written in a way that can still be understood even when you have forgotten the context they are taken from.

A good indication that a note has been left unprocessed too long is when you no longer understand what you meant or it appears banal. In the first case, you forgot what it was supposed to remind you of. In the second case, you forgot the context that gave it its meaning.

The only permanently stored notes are the literature notes in the reference system and the main notes in the slip-box.

Luhmann never underlined sentences in the text he read or wrote comments in the margins. All he did was take brief notes about the ideas that caught his attention in a text on a separate piece of paper: “I make a note with the bibliographic details. On the backside I would write ‘on page x is this, on page y is that,’ and then it goes into the bibliographic slip-box where I collect everything I read.”

But before he stored them away, he would read what he noted down during the day, think about its relevance for his own lines of thought and write about it, filling his main slip-box with permanent notes. Nothing in this box would ever get thrown away.

Project-related notes can be: · comments in the manuscript · collections of project-related literature · outlines · snippets of drafts · reminders · to-do lists · and of course the draft itself.

7. Nobody Ever Starts From Scratch

The advice to think about what to write about before you write comes both too early and too late. Too late, as you already have passed up the chance to build up written resources when you face the white sheet of paper or the blank screen, but also too early, if you try to postpone every serious content-related work until you have made a decision on the topic. If something comes too early and too late at the same time, it is not possible to fix it by rearranging the order as the fictional linearity is the problem in itself. Taking smart notes is the precondition to break with the linear order.

writing is not a linear process, but a circular one:

8 Let the World Carry You Forward

Nothing motivates us more than the experience of becoming better at what we do.

THE SIX STEPS TO SUCCESSFUL WRITING

9.1 Give Each Task Your Undivided Attention

Give Each Task Your Undivided Attention

9.2 Multitasking is not a good idea

Multitasking is not a good idea

If more than one thing tries to catch your attention, the temptation is great to look at more than one thing at the same time– to multitask. Many people claim to be quite good at multitasking.

Trying to multitask fatigues us and decreases our ability to deal with more than one task.

Writing a paper involves much more than just typing on the keyboard. It also means reading, understanding, reflecting, getting ideas, making connections, distinguishing terms, finding the right words, structuring, organizing, editing, correcting and rewriting. All these are not just different tasks, but tasks requiring a different kind of attention. It is not only impossible to focus on more than one thing at a time, but also to have a different kind of attention on more than one thing at a time.

9.3 Give Each Task the Right Kind of Attention

Give Each Task the Right Kind of Attention

While proofreading requires more focused attention, finding the right words during writing requires much more floating attention.

Working with the slip-box means playing with ideas and looking out for interesting connections and comparisons. It means building clusters, combining them with other clusters and preparing the order of notes for a project.

Reading in itself can require very different kinds of attention, depending on the text. Some texts need to be read slowly and carefully, while others are only worth skimming. It would be ridiculous to adhere to a general formula and read every text in the same way, even though that is what many study guides or speed-reading courses try to convince us of.

9.4 Become an Expert Instead of a Planner

Become an Expert Instead of a Planner

The moment we stop making plans is the moment we start to learn. It is a matter of practice to become good at generating insight and write good texts by choosing and moving flexibly between the most important and promising tasks, judged by nothing else than the circumstances of the given situation.

The widespread praise for planning rests on the misconception that a process like writing an academic text, which is highly dependent on cognition and thinking, can rely on conscious decision-making alone. But academic writing is an art, as well, which means it is something we can become better at with experience and deliberate practice. Experts rely on embodied experience, which enables them to reach the state of virtuosity.

9.5 Get Closure

Our short-term memory is also limited. We need strategies not to waste its capacity with thoughts we can better delegate to an external system.

psychologists used to tend to agree on a very specific number when it came to short-term memory: We can hold a maximum of seven things in our head at the same time, plus/minus two

Zeigarnik effect: Open tasks tend to occupy our short-term memory– until they are done. That is why we get so easily distracted by thoughts of unfinished tasks, regardless of their importance.

All we have to do is to write them down in a way that convinces us that it will be taken care of. That’s right: The brain doesn’t distinguish between an actual finished task and one that is postponed by taking a note.

To be able to focus on the task at hand, we have to make sure other, unfinished tasks are not lingering in our head and wasting precious mental resources.

The first step is to break down the amorphous task of “writing” into smaller pieces of different tasks that can be finished in one go. The second step is to make sure we always write down the outcome of our thinking, including possible connections to further inquiries. As the outcome of each task is written down and possible connections become visible, it is easy to pick up the work any time where we left it without having to keep it in mind all the time.

Possible subsequent tasks are open questions or connections to other notes, which we could elaborate on further or not. It also comes up in explicit reminders like “review this chapter and check for redundancies,” which belong into the project folder.

9.6 Reduce the Number of Decisions

Reduce the Number of Decisions

In the way we organise our research and writing, we too can significantly reduce the amount of decisions we have to make. While content-related decisions have to be made (on what is more and what is less important in an article, on the connections between notes, the structure of a text, etc.), most organisational decisions can be made up front, once and for all, by deciding on one system. By always using the same notebook for making quick notes, always extracting the main ideas from a text in the same way and always turning them into the same kind of permanent notes, which are always dealt with in the same manner, the number of decisions during a work session can be greatly reduced.

10.1 Read With a Pen in Hand

“I always have a slip of paper at hand, on which I note down the ideas of certain pages. On the backside I write down the bibliographic details. After finishing the book I go through my notes and think how these notes might be relevant for already written notes in the slip-box. It means that I always read with an eye towards possible connections in the slip-box.”

10.2 Keep an Open Mind

Raymond Nickerson puts it: “If one were to attempt to identify a single problematic aspect of human reasoning that deserves attention above all others, the confirmation bias would have to be among the candidates for consideration”

Confirm that we have separated tasks and focus on understanding the text we read, · Make sure we have given a true account of its content · Find the relevance of it and make connections.

10.3 Get the Gist

‘Have the courage to use your own understanding,’ is therefore the motto of the Enlightenment.”

10.4 Learn to Read

“If you can’t say it clearly, you don’t understand it yourself.”

we shouldn’t underestimate the advantages of writing. In oral presentations, we easily get away with unfounded claims. We can distract from argumentative gaps with confident gestures or drop a casual “you know what I mean” irrespective of whether we know what we meant. In writing, these manoeuvres are a little too obvious.

The most important advantage of writing is that it helps us to confront ourselves when we do not understand something as well as we would like to believe.

The attempt to rephrase an argument in our own words confronts us without mercy with all the gaps in our understanding. It certainly feels less good, but this struggle is the only chance we have to improve our understanding, to learn and move forward (cf. below). This, again, is deliberate practice. Now we are faced with a clear choice: We have to choose between feeling smarter or becoming smarter.

10.5 Learn by Reading

Pure re-viewing just doesn’t make any sense, neither for understanding nor for learning.

that the best-researched and most successful learning method is elaboration. It is very similar to what we do when we take smart notes and combine them with others, which is the opposite of mere re-viewing

Elaboration means nothing other than really thinking about the meaning of what we read, how it could inform different questions and topics and how it could be combined with other knowledge.

Working with the slip-box, therefore, doesn’t mean storing information in there instead of in your head, i.e. not learning. On the contrary, it facilitates real, long-term learning. It just means not cramming isolated facts into your brain– something you probably wouldn’t want to do anyway.

Writing, taking notes and thinking about how ideas connect is exactly the kind of elaboration that is needed to learn. Not learning from what we read because we don’t take the time to elaborate on it is the real waste of time.

There is a clear division of labour between the brain and the slip-box: The slip-box takes care of details and references and is a long-term memory resource that keeps information objectively unaltered. That allows the brain to focus on the gist, the deeper understanding and the bigger picture, and frees it up to be creative. Both the brain and the slip-box can focus on what they are best at.

Experienced academic readers usually read a text with questions in mind and try to relate it to other possible approaches, while inexperienced readers tend to adopt the question of a text and the frames of the argument and take it as a given. What good readers can do is spot the limitations of a particular approach and see what is not mentioned in the text.

11.1 Make a Career One Note at a Time

We think about what they mean for other lines of thoughts, then we write this explicitly on paper and connect them literally with the other notes.

Make a Career One Note at a Time

The technique of writing a certain amount every day was perfected by Anthony Trollope, one of the most popular and productive authors of the 19th century: He would start every morning at 5:30 a.m. with a cup of coffee and a clock in front of him. Then he would write at least 250 words every 15 minutes.

Academic and nonfiction writing is not as predictable as a Trollope novel and the work it involves certainly can’t be broken down to something like “one page a day.”

slip-box, which compares to Trollope’s technique as investing with compounded interest compares to a piggy-bank. Trollope is like a diligent saver who puts a little sum to the side every day, which adds up over time toward something impressive. Three dollars put aside each day (say, one takeout coffee) add up over the year to a small vacation ($1,000) and over a working life to a deposit on a flat as a permanent holiday retreat.[31] Putting notes into the slip-box, however, is like investing and reaping the rewards of compounded interest (which would in this example almost pay for the whole flat).[32]

And likewise, the sum of the slip-box content is worth much more than the sum of the notes. More notes mean more possible connections, more ideas, more synergy between different projects and therefore a much higher degree of productivity.

11.2 Think Outside the Brain

Think Outside the Brain

Taking literature notes is a form of deliberate practice as it gives us feedback on our understanding or lack of it, while the effort to put into our own words the gist of something is at the same time the best approach to understanding what we read.

Taking permanent notes of our own thoughts is a form of self-testing as well: do they still make sense in writing? Are we even able to get the thought on paper? Do we have the references, facts and supporting sources at hand? And at the same time, writing it is the best way to get our thoughts in order. Writing here, too, is not copying, but translating (from one context and from one medium into another). No written piece is ever a copy of a thought in our mind.

When we take permanent notes, it is much more a form of thinking within the medium of writing and in dialogue with the already existing notes within the slip-box than a protocol of preconceived ideas. Any thought of a certain complexity requires writing. Coherent arguments require the language to be fixed, and only if something is written down is it fixed enough to be discussed independently from the author. The brain alone is too eager to make us feel good– even if it is by politely ignoring inconsistencies in our thinking.

The brain, as Kahneman writes, is “a machine for jumping to conclusions” (Kahneman, 2013, 79). And a machine that is designed for jumping to conclusions is not the kind of machine you want to rely on when it comes to facts and rationality– at least, you would want to counterbalance it. Luhmann states as clearly as possible: it is not possible to think systematically without writing

“They aren’t a record of my thinking process. They are my thinking process. I actually did the work on the paper.”

“Notes on paper, or on a computer screen […] do not make contemporary physics or other kinds of intellectual endeavour easier, they make it possible”

The more notes the slip-box contains, the more interesting and prolific this step will become and the more research questions will be triggered.

11.3 Learn by not Trying

Just by writing down these questions and making possible connections explicit in writing are the concepts and theories being investigated.

Learn by not Trying

To be able to remember everything and not having to resort to any external memory sounds great initially. But you might think differently if you are familiar with the story of a man who was really able to remember almost everything.

Although he was very good at remembering facts, Shereshevsky was almost incapable of getting the gist of something, the concepts behind the particulars and distinguishing the relevant facts from minor details. He had great trouble relating to literature or poetry. He could repeat a novel word by word, but the greater meaning would be lost on him.

The ability to forget systematically– to inhibit most irrelevant information from being remembered.

distinguishing between two different measurements when it comes to memory: Storage strength and retrieval strength

Learning would be not so much about saving information, like on a hard disk, but about building connections and bridges between pieces of information to circumvent the inhibition mechanism in the right moment. It is about making sure that the right “cues” trigger the right memory, about how we can think strategically to remember the most useful information when we need it. This is far from self-evident. If we look at the current state of education, especially the learning strategies most students employ, we see that the vast majority of all learning still aims to improve “storage strength,” even though it cannot be improved. It is still mostly about remembering isolated facts and not so much about building connections. This is what learning psychologists have rightfully given the derogative term “cramming:” the attempt to reinforce and solidify information in the brain by repetition. It is basically hammering facts into the brain as if they were carvings on an ancient stone tablet. Using fancy words and describing it as a “strengthening of the connections between neurons” does not change the fact that this attempt is futile.

by banging the information into our heads. Memory artists instead attach meaning to information and connect it to already known networks of connections in a meaningful way. One piece of information can become the cue for another and strings or networks of cues can be built.

elaboration is nothing more than connecting information to other information in a meaningful way. The first step of elaboration is to think enough about a piece of information so we are able to write about it. The second step is to think about what it means for other contexts as well.

Learned right, which means understanding, which means connecting in a meaningful way to previous knowledge, information almost cannot be forgotten anymore and will be reliably retrieved if triggered by the right cues.

If you focus your time and energy on understanding, you cannot help but learn. But if you focus your time and energy on learning without trying to understand, you will not only not understand, but also probably not learn.

11.4 Adding Permanent Notes to the Slip-Box

Adding Permanent Notes to the Slip-Box

1. Add a note to the slip-box either behind the note you directly refer to or, if you do not follow up on a specific note, just behind the last note in the slip-box.

2. Add links to other notes or links on other notes to your new note.

Make sure it can be found from the index; add an entry in the index if necessary or refer to it from a note that is connected to the index.

Build a Latticework of Mental Models

Develop Ideas

A pure topic-related order would have to be organised top down and requires a hierarchical order up front. A pure abstract order would not allow idea clusters and topics to be built bottom up. The individual notes would stay mostly independent and isolated with only one-dimensional references– pretty much like a one-person Wikipedia stripped of the knowledge and fact-checking abilities of the community.

Because the slip-box is not intended to be an encyclopaedia, but a tool to think with, we don’t need to worry about completeness. We don’t need to write anything down just to bridge a gap in a note sequence. We only write if it helps us with our own thinking. The gaps we do need to concern ourselves with are the gaps in the arguments in the final manuscript– but these gaps will only become obvious in the next step, when we take the relevant notes for an argument out of the network of the slip-box and sort them into the linear order for the rough draft.

extension of our own memory, the slip-box is the medium we think in, not something we think about.

12.1 Develop Topics

We extract information from different linear sources and mix it all up and shake it until new patterns emerge. Then, we form these patterns into new linear texts.

Develop Topics After adding a note to the slip-box, we need to make sure it can be found again. This is what the index is for. Luhmann wrote an index with a typewriter on index cards. In the Zettelkasten, keywords can easily be added to a note like tags and will then show up in the index. They should be chosen carefully and sparsely. Luhmann would add the number of one or two (rarely more) notes next to a keyword in the index (Schmidt 2013, 171). The reason he was so economical with notes per keyword and why we too should be very selective lies in the way the slip-box is used. Because it should not be used as an archive, where we just take out what we put in, but as a system to think with, the references between the notes are much more important than the references from the index to a single note. Focusing exclusively on the index would basically mean that we always know upfront what we are looking for– we would have to have a fully developed plan in our heads. But liberating our brains from the task of organizing the notes is the main reason we use the slip-box in the first place.

Even though we will not get an overview of the whole slip-box (as we certainly will never get an overview of our whole internal memory), we can get an overview of a specific topic. But because the structure of topics and subtopics is not a given, but the outcome of our thinking, they too are subject to ongoing considerations and alteration. The consideration of how to structure a topic, therefore, belongs on notes as well– and not on a meta-hierarchical level. We can provide ourselves with a (temporarily valid) overview over a topic or subtopic just by making another note. If we then link from the index to such a note, we have a good entry point. If the overview on this note ceases to correctly represent the state of a cluster or topic, or we decide it should be structured differently, we can write a new note with a better structure and update the respective link from the index. This is important: Every consideration on the structure of a topic is just another consideration on a note– bound to change and dependent on the development of our understanding.

Do they wonder where to store a note or how to retrieve it? The archivist asks: Which keyword is the most fitting? A writer asks: In which circumstances will I want to stumble upon this note, even if I forget about it? It is a crucial difference.

12.3 Compare, Correct and Differentiate

Compare, Correct and Differentiate

12.4 Assemble a Toolbox for Thinking

When we delegate the storage of knowledge to the slip-box and at the same time focus on the principles behind an idea while we write, add and connect notes, when we look for patterns and think beyond the most obvious interpretation of a note, when we try to make sense of something, combine different ideas and develop lines of thought, we do exactly that: we build up a “latticework of mental models” instead of just “remembering isolated facts and try and bang ’em back.”

12.5 Use the Slip-Box as a Creativity Machine

Use the Slip-Box as a Creativity Machine “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.” (Steve Jobs)

12.6 Think Inside the Box

Think Inside the Box

Creativity cannot be taught like a rule or approached like a plan. But we can make sure that our working environment allows us to be creative with ideas.

The ability to generate new ideas has more to do with breaking with old habits of thinking than with coming up with as many ideas as possible. For obvious reasons, I do not recommend “thinking outside the box”. On the contrary, we can turn the slip-box into a tool for breaking out of our own thinking habits.

12.7 Facilitate Creativity through Restrictions

Facilitate Creativity through Restrictions

The slip-box imposes quite a few restrictions on its user. Instead of having the choice between all kinds of fancy notebooks, papers or writing formats, or being able to employ the whole range of productivity tools available for note-taking, learning and academic or nonfiction writing, everything is reduced to a single plain-text format and collected in a single simple slip-box system with no frills or features.

By restricting ourselves to one format, we also restrict ourselves to just one idea per note and force ourselves to be as precise and brief as possible. The restriction to one idea per note is also the precondition to recombine them freely later. Luhmann choose notes in the format A6. A good rule of thumb for working with the program is: Each note should fit onto the screen and there should be no need of scrolling.

Literature is condensed on a note saying, “On page x, it says y,” and later stored with the reference in one place. Ideas and thoughts are captured on the slip-box notes and connected to other notes always in the same way in the same place. These standardizations make it possible that the technical side of note-taking can become automatic. Not having to think about the organisation is really good news for brains like ours

less choice can not only increase our productivity, but also our freedom and make it easier to be in the moment and enjoy it (Schwartz, 2007). Not having to make choices can unleash a lot of potential, which would otherwise be wasted on making these choices.

Language in itself is extremely standardised and limited in many ways. We are restricted to the use of only 26 letters, but what that enables us to do! We can write novels, theories, love letters or court orders– just by rearranging these 26 letters. This is certainly not possible despite the restriction to 26 letters, but because of it. Nobody will open a book and wish it contains more types of letters or be disappointed because it is, again, just another variation of the same alphabet.[36]

The biggest threat to creativity and scientific progress is therefore the opposite: a lack of structure and restrictions. Without structure, we cannot differentiate, compare or experiment with ideas. Without restrictions, we would never be forced to make the decision on what is worth pursuing and what is not.

“Writing itself makes you realise where there are holes in things. I’m never sure what I think until I see what I write.

there is no need to worry about finding a topic to write about. Just look into your slip-box and see where clusters have been built up. These clusters are what caught your interest again and again, so you already know that you have found material to work with.

13.1 From Brainstorming to Slip-box-Storming

If we, on the other hand, let questions arise from the slip-box, we know that they are tried and tested among dozens or even hundreds of other possible questions. The vast majority of questions might have been answered quickly or disappeared as no notes were drawn to them, either because of a lack of interest or a lack of material. This is how evolution works: by trial and error, not planning.

Good questions are in the sweet spot of being relevant and interesting, not too easy to answer but possible to tackle with material that is available or at least within our reach.

13.3 Getting Things Done by Following Your Interests

Getting Things Done by Following Your Interests

If we accompany every step of our work with the question, “What is interesting about this?” and everything we read with the question, “What is so relevant about this that it is worth noting down?” we do not just choose information according to our interest. By elaborating on what we encounter, we also discover aspects we didn’t know anything about before and therefore develop our interests along the way.

13.4 Finishing and Review

A key point: Structure the text and keep it flexible. While the slip-box was very much about experimenting with and generating new ideas, we now need to bring our thoughts into a linear order. The key is to structure the draft visibly. It is not so much about deciding once and for all what to write in which chapter or paragraph, but what does not need to be written in a particular part of the manuscript.

Another key point: Try working on different manuscripts at the same time. While the slip-box is already helpful to get one project done, its real strength comes into play when we start working on multiple projects at the same time.

Remember: Luhmann’s answer to the question of how one person could be so productive was that he never forced himself to do anything and only did what came easily to him. “When I am stuck for one moment, I leave it and do something else.” When he was asked what else he did when he was stuck, his answer was: “Well, writing other books. I always work on different manuscripts at the same time. With this method, to work on different things simultaneously, I never encounter any mental blockages.”

13.5 Becoming an Expert by Giving up Planning

It is like martial arts: If you encounter resistance or an opposing force, you should not push against it, but redirect it towards another productive goal. The slip-box will always provide you with multiple possibilities.

Becoming an Expert by Giving up Planning

The other lesson is not that we can’t learn from our experiences, but that we can only learn from our experiences if feedback follows shortly afterwards– and maybe more than once in a while.

13.6 The Actual Writing

was revise the draft he already had. One of the most difficult tasks is to rigorously delete what has no function within an argument– “kill your darlings.”[42] This becomes much easier when you move the questionable passages into another document and tell yourself you might use them later.

good intentions don’t last very long, usually.

When we perform an action repeatedly, its familiarity seems to bleed back into our judgments about that behavior. We end up feeling we have more control over precisely the behaviours that, in reality, we have the least control over.

The trick is not to try to break with old habits and also not to use willpower to force oneself to do something else, but to strategically build up new habits that have a chance to replace the old ones.

The more pressure we feel, the more we tend to stick to our old routines– even when these routines caused the problems and the stress in the first place.

Change is possible when the solution appears to be simple.

The slip-box is as simple as it gets. Read with a pen in your hand, take smart notes and make connections between them. Ideas will come by themselves and your writing will develop from there. There is no need to start from scratch. Keep doing what you would do anyway: Read, think, write. Just take smart notes along the way.