Some of you will appreciate this, from a profile of Robert Caro in The New York Times:

On a corkboard covering the wall beside Caro?s desk, he keeps an outline, pinned up on legal-size sheets, of "The Years of Lyndon Johnson." It's not a classic outline, with indentations and numbered headings and subheadings, but a maze of sentences and paragraphs and notes to himself. These days, part of the top row is gone: the empty spaces are where the pages mapping the new book used to be. But there are several rows left to go, and 13 additional pages that won?t fit on the wall until yet more come down. Somewhere on those sheets, already written, is the very last line of "The Years of Lyndon Johnson," whatever volume that turns out to be. I begged him more than once, but Caro wouldn't tell me what that line says.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/magazine/robert-caros-big-dig.html

And a picture of the outline:

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2012/04/15/magazine/robert-caro-process-7.html

Yes, this sort of large scale visualisation is one area where computer programmes are at a disadvantage. I wonder if something similar could be achieved in the near future using projectors? I suppose we already have electronic whiteboards which are fairly big and if outliner software were supporting them, could be used similarly. Once we will be in the brave new world of wall-sized computer screens like in that Tom Cruise movie, this will be a piece of cake...

But otherwise Caro's system reminds me of ConnectedText. There are individual notes, there are filing cabinets with the notes, there are notebooks that contain the index, there is an edit mode (the handwritten paper), a view mode (the typewritten paper), and a Navigator (his corkboard). The main difference is that he's got a massive "monitor" that also allows him to display several notes simultaneously, which CT can't do. So if CT had another visualisation mode where it could display several notes ("topics") side by side, where they could be freely shuffled around, and if this mode (window) could be projected onto a wall or displayed in an electronic whiteboard, CT would be an electronic version of Caro's system.

This is a beautiful system. Absolutely beautiful. I love its minimalism and efficiency. His office is fantastic. I particularly like his SC Electra 210.

Working like this focuses your attention on what's important: the actual planning and composition. Nothing focuses your concentration like writing longhand, for instance. All these tools we obsess about constantly are completely incidental to the "actual using of the brain," to paraphrase a line from an old Seinfeld episode.

I also think the old-fashioned hard copy corkboard outlining method he's using here is a million times more efficient than ANYTHING you'll ever get from ANY program on ANY computer. You can scan the entire outline in a matter of seconds--nothing is faster than a visual scan. Full sheets of paper work much better than index cards because they can hold more information. You need the wall space, though.

Note how meticulously he prepares and organizes everything. This is a MENTAL skill. It has nothing to do with specific tools.

Fantastic. Thanks for posting this.

Gary Carson wrote:

I also think the old-fashioned hard copy corkboard outlining
method he's using here is a million times more efficient than ANYTHING you'll ever get
from ANY program on ANY computer. You can scan the entire outline in a matter of
seconds--nothing is faster than a visual scan. Full sheets of paper work much better
than index cards because they can hold more information. You need the wall space,
though.

You don't just need wall space. You need a big office for the desks, space for filing cabinets etc. These are expensive resources. This is where computers introduce some social justice: they allow people with less means to achieve something very similar. The computer is a space-saving device.

Now that fairly large monitors are available on the mass market with high resolution, it should be possible to emulate at least partially this sort of corkboard solution. Personally I haven't made much use of Scrivener's corkboard exactly because only a summary of the document is available. I'd prefer to see a larger unit, such as A4.

Dr Andus wrote

Ooops - don't know what happened to the quote from Dr Andus... re social justice etc... "You don?t just need wall space. You need a big office for the desks, space for filing cabinets etc. These are expensive resources. This is where computers introduce some social justice: they allow people with less means to achieve something very similar."

You don't really need the big office and furniture and secretary and so on. This whole setup could be replicated on a much smaller and cheaper scale. For example, you could use stand-mount corkboards rather than the wall-mounted variety and arrange them around the walls or whatever. And Staples sells these heavy-duty plastic folding tables that make fantastic desks. I've got one that's nine feet long and can be carried under one arm. It's much better, I think, than any regular desk I've tried and it definitely has more working space.

As for this corkboard outlining method, I don't think it can ever be replicated on a computer. Even the biggest flat-panel monitors are too small.

Gary Carson wrote:

As for this corkboard outlining method, I don't
think it can ever be replicated on a computer. Even the biggest flat-panel monitors
are too small.

Even if you have a massive cork board in your room, there is a limit to the amount of information you can take in at any one time. The cork board just allows you a different way of navigating through your notes (draft, outline), which is basically a whole body physical movement. Considering the amazing resolution that a small iPod Touch can have these days, I can imagine that a 22in screen could display 8 pages in two rows and also make it easy to scroll sideways or up to display more pages and rows. It might be necessary to click on a document to zoom in and out but I think at least partially the experience could be emulated. Basically instead of physically moving your body in front of your cork board, you are moving the cork board horizontally and vertically across your screen, using a mouse.

I don't know if there is any software that can do that. The problem with software in general is that they don't pin information into a physical space, such as a real cork board does. As a result, for some people (like me) it's more difficult to visualise and remember where things are within an electronic document (as opposed to a real cork board, where you can remember that your introduction for instance is in the top left corner, and that a particular argument starts at the bottom of the second row). I wish there were software that could replicate a cork board by fixing pages on a physical space, so instead of scrolling through a document (like in MS Word) what you are doing is moving the cork board around on which pages have a fixed place.

Dr Andus wrote:

Basically instead of physically moving
your body in front of your cork board, you are moving the cork board horizontally and
vertically across your screen, using a mouse.
I don't know if there is any software
that can do that.

Check out Spaaze http://www.spaaze.com/

Caro's system would be totally unworkable for me because of 1) its inefficiency and time requirements; and 2) its volume limitations.

First, anything that requires you to write by hand is slow. Typing is much faster. Plus, if you write by hand you then have to re-copy everything into a computer. I think this really points up Dr. Andus's point that this guy is just very privileged. He has four years to write a book so he can use the absolutely slowest method of outlining (handwriting and re-copying) regardless of its inefficiencies. He has no deadlines so efficiency is a non-issue.

Second, looking at those pictures, what NYT calls a "painstaking" and "detailed" outline is nothing compared to outlines I regularly generate. He has 30 pages for a whole book. Yikes. I have outlines 3X that long. His system simply couldn't accommodate a truly detailed outline. NYT also says that he has filing cabinets full of notes and references. That gets back to efficiency: keeping that stuff in evernote or even searchable PDFs makes it thousands of times faster to find what you need when looking through your references. But again, the guy has all the time he needs.

Ultimately, even if I had all the time in the world for a project I can't imagine working his way when we have computer resources available. The inefficiency would drive me crazy. Maybe he's just stuck in his ways.

However privileged Caro may be now, he's earned it. He went broke writing The Power Broker, a book no one would have said was a sure thing.

An Esquire profile, http://www.esquire.com/features/robert-caro-0512 has more on working methods, which haven't changed since 1966.

Each of the files is labeled in blood-red ink ? Busby, Horace; Jenkins, Walter; The Gulf of Tonkin ? and given a code. (A particular file on the assassination of John F. Kennedy is labeled ASS. 107X, for instance.) Caro's outline contains hundreds of these codes, leading him directly to the file he will need when he is writing that particular section. "I try to have a mood or a rhythm for a chapter," he says, "and I don't want to interrupt it, searching through my files."

Only after he has filled and annotated those notebooks does Caro begin to write, three or four drafts in longhand, on pads of legal paper. With each pass, muscle is added to the frame. Finally, Caro feels prepared to give his fingers wings. "There just comes a point you feel it's time to go to the typewriter," he says. ... Three or four more drafts will appear out of that battered Smith-Corona Electra 210, each one hundreds of thousands of words, until he has his final draft.

Even then, Caro is far from finished, crossing out lines and rewriting them, often tearing out paragraphs along the edge of a ruler and taping them into a different place on a different page. There are single pages in his final draft that are three feet long.

"When I'm doing this, I can feel it," Caro says. "There's a feeling about it. You feel almost like a cabinetmaker, laying planks. There's a real feeling when you know you're getting it right. It's a physical feeling."

That link in the previous post doesn't work because for some reason the forum added a comma. This works:

http://www.esquire.com/features/robert-caro-0512

Caro's system sounds very much like Luhmann's Zettelkasten. He would probably like ConnectedText:
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/luhmanns-zettelkasten.html

Mark wrote:

> Each of the files is labeled in
blood-red ink ? Busby, Horace; Jenkins, Walter; The Gulf of Tonkin ? and given a code.
(A particular file on the assassination of John F. Kennedy is labeled ASS. 107X, for
instance.) Caro's outline contains hundreds of these codes, leading him directly to
the file he will need when he is writing that particular section. "I try to have a mood or
a rhythm for a chapter," he says, "and I don't want to interrupt it, searching through
my files."

AhHa!!! Tagging!

I've posted this series of images before, but because it's relevant to this discussion, here it is again:
http://www.will-self.com/writing-room/

More wall acreage, less (overt) system.

By the way, IIRC in the computer versus "less efficient methods" debate, Will Self comes down firmly on the side of typewriters, despite earning his living as a fiction writer and occasional journalist. He's also clearly a hand-writer too (see above).

Dr Andus wrote:

You don't just need wall space. You need a big office for the desks,
space for filing cabinets etc. These are expensive resources. This is where
computers introduce some social justice: they allow people with less means to
achieve something very similar. The computer is a space-saving device.

As I'm writing this, I am looking out of the window of my "summer office" to the sea. It is a small house that we use during vacations, but as these days I have no appointments and the weather is great, we have come here for an extended weekend. I have spent many creative hours here, as I have in hotels, cafes (Starbucks usually) and friends' homes.

Information technology allows me to take my office with me, and to enjoy a refreshing change of scenery even when there are tight deadlines --as is often the case. I wrote a part of my MBA dissertation while my wife was windsurfing. I would not trade this privilege for that of a big office, but that's just my approach.

There is another implementation of Luhmann's Zettelkasten:

http://zettelkasten.danielluedecke.de/en/index.php

My thanks to:
@Dr Andus:
Quote: "Caro?s system sounds very much like Luhmann?s Zettelkasten. He would probably like ConnectedText:
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/luhmanns-zettelkasten.html "

@Bernhard: Link to Zkn3 - http://zettelkasten.danielluedecke.de/en/index.php

Both very informative links.

I am about to trial ConnectedText and Zkn3. The latter could be an alternative to some aspects of the Qiqqa Reference Management System (which I have found to be very useful).

Slartibartfarst,

check out this post by Manfred where he compares the two:

http://takingnotenow.blogspot.co.uk/2007/12/faithful-electronic-version-of-luhmanns.html

And there is Manfred's article on the CT website, which also talks about Luhmann's Zettelkasten:

http://www.connectedtext.com/manfred.php

Alexander Deliyannis wrote:

Dr Andus wrote:
>Basically instead of physically moving
>your body in front of your
cork board, you are moving the cork board horizontally and
>vertically across your
screen, using a mouse.
>I don't know if there is any software
>that can do that.


Check out Spaaze http://www.spaaze.com/

Thanks! Yes, that's exactly the navigational metaphor I had in mind. But it would be nice if this came as standard on my favourite writing and outlining applications, rather than a separate service in a browser...

@Dr Andus: Thanks for the links re Manfred Kuehn's posts. I had read the first item where he compares the two, but had nor seen the second. (Both have been saved into my Firefox Scrapbook folder under "PIMs")

I am trialling ConnectedText, but finding it a bit kludgy compared to (say) OneNotes - the latter being where I have arrived at after years of using different PIMs including Lotus Agenda, InfoSelect v5, v7. v8, Clipboard Help & Spell, and some client-based Wikis (I am still using IS8 and CHS). Unfortunately, nothing seems to come close to the power and usefulness of Lotus Agenda. Bit of an indictment of "modern technology", that.

Slartibartfarst wrote:

I am still using IS8 and CHS

I assume IS8 = Info Select

CHS = ?