In the previous post, I briefly mentioned a method of maximising idea generation through keeping a notebook in the proximity. There is a particular system that I use which I call the Spark File having been inspired by some Internet friends. It doesn’t deserve the title ‘system’ as that just makes it seem like a full-blown process. Rather, it’s a simple location in my note-taking app of choice – Notion.
I use Notion for a lot of things and one of the main purposes I find it useful for is writing ideas. I have a page where I have several sections that I have categorised my ideas. It’s primarily for the purpose of content creation. So I have currently divided it into these sections:
- Technology
- Film Making
- Website
- Personal Blog
- Books
- Videos
And whenever a thought strikes my mind, I fill it into the right category and mark it as a to-do item. This is for the sake of treating it as an objective that I want to accomplish in the near future. I have a nice name attached to this concept that I call the ‘Spark File’. Realistically speaking, I didn’t call it that. I just stole it from some random person on the Internet as I thought it complements my particular scenario. I thought it suited it perfectly and t even inspired me to write down more ideas quickly because of the term ‘Spark’. I’ve gone on a tangent.
You might be wondering, what if you don’t have a particular category that you want to fit it into and you just want to note something down as a pure thought without any tags attached to it. For this, I have used one of my favourite note-taking apps as an inspiration – Roam Research. If you want to read more about my thoughts on Roam, check it out here. Essentially, the app has a concept known as ‘Quick Capture’ where you can write down anything without any particular location, tags or any Meta attached to it. It simplifies the process to the lowest level abstraction. It’s simple and FAST!
Here, I think it’s worth going on a tangent to understand, file management. Our brain is composed of millions of nodes which act as data points which contain some information stored as memory. These nodes are all interconnected. Whenever you learn something new, essentially, your brain checks to see which of these nodes have some existing information related to that topic and creates a bridge between the 2 nodes. This way, in the future you can retrieve that specific node and see all the attached nodes. For example, if you were learning about artificial intelligence, your brain would think as you’re reading about the topic and it would start making connections to related ideas. So it would attach it with computers, robots, future, danger(or optimism maybe) and so on. Once the connection is established, in the future, if you want to retrieve information about that, your brain would go to the artificial intelligence node and then right there would be a ‘graph’ of all the connected ideas. One of the many building blocks that Roam Research is built on includes this feature of interconnectedness. It’s LITERALLY like a digital brain.
And this kind of ‘architecture’ of a note-taking app demands a non-hierarchical approach of file-management. So the ideas need to free-flowing and not ‘constricted’ into folders or dividers as that would eliminate the point. Enter quick capture.
Whenever you would like to take a note of something new, you’d basically put it into quick capture which automatically places that note into the default location. This means that you don’t have to go through the additional step of categorising the file into a folder(which is often time-consuming).
Whilst I use Roam Research for learning, I use Notion for organising my life so I have decided to use Notion for noting down ideas too. And due to the lack of the interconnectedness feature, I created a page for quick capture which has random, unorganised brains dumps. It’s messy but there’s something so amusing and powerful of being messy. It reminds me of how famous thinkers always kept their desks messy.
At this point, we know that noting down ideas is great, and using a free-flowing system to do so is a plus but why bother in the first place?
Well, as I’ve mentioned previously, there are many famous people(thinkers) who always kept a notebook near them. I believe that the reason was that they treat each idea with tremendous value. And this is why they have been able to create and discover fascinating things! If we take the example of Leonardo Da Vinci, he noted down reels of observations in the books that he carried around everywhere and he was able to unravel fascinating features of the world. He drew animals to the very minute detail including the mechanics of a horse’s leg movement. He drew excellent paintings with tremendous care and meaning including the famous Mona Lisa. He also took notes and calculated intricate mechanics problems and fascinating shapes. It’s truly impressive that a simple task can lead to an explorative mind which in turn guides us to ponder in unique perspectives.
In my experience, the 30 seconds or so that I spend expanding on an idea has been instrumental for many reasons. It has shaped me to become a better thinker and writer as a result. Additionally, it has helped me to create contextual meaning in many turbulent scenarios. What I mean by this is that in situations where I feel that I am missing context due to a lack of understanding, I have found note-taking tremendously useful as I am able to connect nodes in a great way. In that aspect, it is worth it. Furthermore, I really enjoy the process. The note-taking process is an entertaining process and I relish the aspect of it that sparks the explorative mind. When I learn something that I’m not forced to do(normally by school), I enjoy it much more as I have my own properties attached to it. For example, I get to choose the depth/breadth of the details.
Anyway, that’s it for now, I’ve gone from idea generation to note-taking. Wow!
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