A change in mindset made me drop a lot of my tools

Posted by jsamlarose
Apr 17, 2022 at 08:10 AM

Lots to appreciate here. I think the practice of note-taking has been caught up in a broad sweep of late, a kind of “do you even Zettel, bro?” and lots of people citing Luhmann (who apparently didn’t even originate the practice). Still, there are base principles that I’ve extracted and found useful— the function of “networked thinking” in creating pathways through connected thoughts, the utility of notes vs highlights, etc. I think you’re right in that some of us probably take more notes than we need or will ever use, and that the fetishisation of note systems can get in the way of producing things, much the same way as fiddling with productivity systems can get in the way of actually getting meaningful things done.

I continue to take notes for various reasons, personal and professional, in an app that isn’t often mentioned as a “knowledge management tool” or “second brain” but serves me incredibly well. A relatively small number of my notes are connected and for some (many?) of them the document is less valuable than the process; the thinking I did as I made the note is more valuable than the note that exists by the time I’m finished.

Harking back to Luhmann again: if he was able to be so productive with a stack of index cards, the rest of us mere mortals can probably get by without obsessing about all the contemporary bells and whistles. Progress is a wonderful thing, and I admire what I’ve seen some people with some really involved workflows. Took me a minute to appreciate that my brain works differently from theirs, and that the more moving parts a workflow/system depends on, the less likely it is that I’ll maintain it.

Maybe some of this is about having a really good personal filter, learning how to figure out what actually works for us individually in the face of emergent practices that seem to become ubiquitous and essential (while still being open to improvements and learning from others)?