Just a quick word, in the midst of much else, to urge all fellow CRIMPers to read Tiago Forte's very impressive book on "Building a Second Brain".

When I first read reviews, I felt rather dismissive about his systems with their prissy acronyms such as PARA or CODE.

Now that I've read the book in full, I've realised that he's talking much less about technology and much more about using habits and mindset for self-discovery and cultural/social enrichment (of both self and others).

In short, I'm a convert!

More seriously, it's actually a valuable meditation on what taking notes and gathering information is really about; while technology (as a way of de-stressing the "biological brain") is a big part of it, I'd say it's actually secondary to the real meaning of the work, which is that managing notetaking in a structured, thoughtful way can help you grow as a person in ways you would not necessarily (be able to) identify otherwise.

Okay, okay, so that makes it sound like a standard U.S. self-help work (do this and you will become a Better Person)! But quite apart from the various strategies and habits he discusses, it's his sensible, down-to-earth analysis that makes this book genuinely valuable.

I'm certainly inspired!

Cheers,
Bill

Thank you for mentioning the book here. I will going to check it out.

I don't want to be a bummer here. But, I really have very negative view of the idea of "de-stressing the brain". I have seen this kind of note on a lot of todo apps, note taking apps, and specially the GTD framework: where the author of the GTD system spend a lot of time how removing burden from the brain is important.

I think this idea is absolutely misguided: and opposite to the actual reality on how the brain/biology works. The established science about human biology is that the more use an organ the better it gets. That is where the "if you don't use it, you will lose it" saying came from. That is why body building works. The more you stress your muscle, the stronger it gets. The same is true of the human brain. The more you stress it, the better it gets.

- and these tools which are claiming to aid our brain are actually doing the opposite. Indeed, the more we depend on those tools, our brain is going to weaker and weaker at remembering and analyzing. You can check this by reading stories of memorizations champions; and chess masters, and even the regular shop keeper. My sister is a shop keeper. The way she does maths in hear head amazes me. This is because not she is a genius; it is because she has used her brain again and again, and it has become better.

- Obviously I am not going to stop using these tools, methods. But, the promise that we will be better thinkers by using cool note taking system is just opposite to reality of our biology. It is better to stress the brain. Studies on Alzheimer also clearly showed that people who use their brain for tasks (for memorization, organization, thinking, learning language etc) are less susceptible to those diseases. So, de-stressing your brain is a bad idea. It is better to stress it.

Did I miss sth on this?
I honestly get very frustrated at the GTD book because of this opinion. I was outraged when he talked about removing the burden off the brain. I still get frustrated when a lot of people talk about destressing the brain.

am I in mistaken?

@Dellu

Yes, I think you're missing one thing.

"Getting stuff out of your head to de-stress the brain" means: Getting boring stuff out of your head. Stuff like "I must not forget to pay the bills, to do this and do that..." Yes, these things must not get forgotten but if your brain is occupied with remembering this, it has less capacity to do the "heavy-lifting", to do interesting, challenging thinking. And challenging thinking is what keeps our brain in good shape.

Just my 2ct.

In principle, I tend to agree with @Dellu (being all in favour of strengthening my brain!); on the other hand, without my vast list of to-dos (many of them extremely tedious and forgettable), I wouldn't be able to live, so in practice I agree with @Franz as well. There, how's that for some magnificent fence-sitting!

Also, I've been analysing my own use of notes, and find that to take full advantage of the Forte method, note analysis would have to become a vital part of my day. Now, I've always intended to make it such, because I have huge amounts of potentially useful info awaiting Distillation and Expression (the second, "convergence" part of the Forte CODE approach!). But I'm finding his system as described deceptively simple – in practice, organising is always complicated, even if you decide to ditch a large proportion of your collected information because it's out of date, no longer relevant, doesn't interest you any more, or for any other reason. Inevitably, I find myself having to resort to multiple layers, despite every attempt to keep things to a simple two.

So I'm giving my (weak!) brain a good workout by formulating an efficient approach to (a) sorting out my existing information and (b) structuring what I want to keep. I've finally opted for Obsidian because it's just so fricking impressive! But I'm still running Craft alongside it because it's so flexible and has such convenient sharing options.

With any luck, I'll end up with a Huge, Muscular, Incredibly Fit and Well Organised Brain!

Cheers,
Bill

Franz Grieser wrote:

@Dellu

Yes, I think you're missing one thing.

"Getting stuff out of your head to de-stress the brain" means: Getting
boring stuff out of your head. Stuff like "I must not forget to pay the
bills, to do this and do that..." Yes, these things must not get
forgotten but if your brain is occupied with remembering this, it has
less capacity to do the "heavy-lifting", to do interesting, challenging
thinking. And challenging thinking is what keeps our brain in good
shape.

Just my 2ct.

Franz Grieser wrote:

Getting boring stuff out of your head. Stuff like “I must not forget
to pay the bills, to do this and do that…”

This was the biggest, best lesson I learned when I finally capitulated and came to depend on a task manager. Any little thing that occurs to me to remember to look into, or do, goes into the task manager, sometimes with a date/time notification. Then it's gone from my mind until I either clear my Inbox (or recategorize tasks into lists, or dates/times) or I get a notification that I often otherwise would have forgotten.

On any given day, while on the go I share into my task manager a half dozen URLs to read, calls to make, things to look up, or briefly enter ideas to flesh out later. There's no way I would ever have been able to keep track of all these things on my own without a way to quick-enter them somewhere, evaluate them, dismiss them, and get notifications on them.

I know that in times of stress, my brain defaults to being able to keep track of 7 things. An unimportant thing comes in, something else, however big or urgent, just falls out. So creating a list of things to keep track of DOES free the cognitive load, and helps me de-stress. Also, usually, it helps me remember to do those big things.

Dellu, in light of what you wrote I wonder what your thoughts are on the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann and his Zettlekasten note-taking system. On one hand, his system removed from his brain the burden of using the kind of note-taking approach which is burdensome because of its inherent deficiencies, but on the other hand his system allowed him to write prolifically at a world class level.

Re your comments on GTD, I'd agree it's not the system for everyone, though I think its emphasis on "mind like water" removes some of the non-productive mental stress many people face while trying to become more organized and productive. Or, as David Allen, the GTD originator says on his website, "Mind Like Water: A mental and emotional state in which your head is clear, able to create and respond freely, unencumbered with distractions and split focus." That may not work for some people, but for others it's part of destressing their brain so it can work more effectively."

https://gettingthingsdone.com/2012/05/david-allen-defines-mind-like-water/

Daly



Dellu wrote:

Thank you for mentioning the book here. I will going to check it out.

I don't want to be a bummer here. But, I really have very negative view
of the idea of "de-stressing the brain". I have seen this kind of note
on a lot of todo apps, note taking apps, and specially the GTD
framework: where the author of the GTD system spend a lot of time how
removing burden from the brain is important.

I think this idea is absolutely misguided: and opposite to the actual
reality on how the brain/biology works. The established science about
human biology is that the more use an organ the better it gets. That is
where the "if you don't use it, you will lose it" saying came from.
That is why body building works. The more you stress your muscle, the
stronger it gets. The same is true of the human brain. The more you
stress it, the better it gets.

- and these tools which are claiming to aid our brain are actually doing
the opposite. Indeed, the more we depend on those tools, our brain is
going to weaker and weaker at remembering and analyzing. You can check
this by reading stories of memorizations champions; and chess masters,
and even the regular shop keeper. My sister is a shop keeper. The way
she does maths in hear head amazes me. This is because not she is a
genius; it is because she has used her brain again and again, and it
has become better.

- Obviously I am not going to stop using these tools, methods. But, the
promise that we will be better thinkers by using cool note taking system
is just opposite to reality of our biology. It is better to stress the
brain. Studies on Alzheimer also clearly showed that people who use
their brain for tasks (for memorization, organization, thinking,
learning language etc) are less susceptible to those diseases. So,
de-stressing your brain is a bad idea. It is better to stress it.

Did I miss sth on this?
I honestly get very frustrated at the GTD book because of this opinion.
I was outraged when he talked about removing the burden off the brain. I
still get frustrated when a lot of people talk about destressing the
brain.

am I in mistaken?

Interesting contention: you see, given that Niklas didn't have access to digital technology, what's always impressed me is not so much his Zettelkasten system as the fact that he must have preserved, in his own biological brain, a kind of meta-index enabling him to refer to appropriate notes and create the necessary cross-references. I don't see how he could possibly have made such good use of his enormous collection without this kind of meta-structure. Or have I missed something?

Daly de Gagne wrote:

Dellu, in light of what you wrote I wonder what your thoughts are on the
German sociologist Niklas Luhmann and his Zettlekasten note-taking
system. On one hand, his system removed from his brain the burden of
using the kind of note-taking approach which is burdensome because of
its inherent deficiencies, but on the other hand his system allowed him
to write prolifically at a world class level.

Re your comments on GTD, I'd agree it's not the system for everyone,
though I think its emphasis on "mind like water" removes some of the
non-productive mental stress many people face while trying to become
more organized and productive. Or, as David Allen, the GTD originator
says on his website, "Mind Like Water: A mental and emotional state in
which your head is clear, able to create and respond freely,
unencumbered with distractions and split focus." That may not work for
some people, but for others it's part of destressing their brain so it
can work more effectively."

https://gettingthingsdone.com/2012/05/david-allen-defines-mind-like-water/

MadaboutDana wrote:

he must have preserved, in his own
biological brain, a kind of meta-index enabling him to refer to
appropriate notes and create the necessary cross-references. I don't see
how he could possibly have made such good use of his enormous collection
without this kind of meta-structure.

I agree, It is easier to remember a smaller number of connective fields/folders/tags in an index, though I don't know the size of his index, or the topical breadth of his files.

I have tens of thousands of saved documents in hundreds of folders, but they all resolve to around 30 primary folders, making it a fairly quick matter to save and retrieve files. I could similarly envision that knowing essential cross-reference categories could make manual filing and retrieval relatively painless.

MadaboutDana:

No doubt Niklas Luhmann was highly intelligent and, as Zettlekasten demonstrates, he was capable of original thinking in creating what today, among other things, might be called a second brain and/or an external brain. It is said that Luhmann's Zettlekasten had 90,000 slips

I am not sure I know what you mean by a metta index, but certainly he was able to keep a "big picture" in mind, and maintain a sense of what was in the system. What fascinates me is that, while he didn't have access to a "responsive" technology in the sense that we have today because of computers, he attributed his zettlekasten with enabling him to have ideas he might not otherwise have had. His slips, what today we call index cards, were connected with each other through the notations he assigned to them. In other words, he had a way of linking and retrieving in a more or less defined or orderly way. But was it as complete at we might enjoy today through software such as Obsidian or other applications? Probably not. On the other hand, he could also take out a handful of cards, sometimes at random, and realize new connections/associations/ideas, as though the Zettlekasten had a life of its own, what i think of as serendipity. I wonder whether an unintended consequence of working with modern computers is that we have lost the potential for serendipity.

Also worth noting is that the history of working with slips of paper to preserve and organize knowledge goes back at least to the 16th century, an overview of which can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zettelkasten

Daly



MadaboutDana wrote:

digital technology, what's always impressed me is not so much his
Zettelkasten system as the fact that he must have preserved, in his own
biological brain, a kind of meta-index enabling him to refer to
appropriate notes and create the necessary cross-references. I don't see
how he could possibly have made such good use of his enormous collection
without this kind of meta-structure. Or have I missed something?

Daly de Gagne wrote:
Dellu, in light of what you wrote I wonder what your thoughts are on the
>German sociologist Niklas Luhmann and his Zettlekasten note-taking
>system. On one hand, his system removed from his brain the burden of
>using the kind of note-taking approach which is burdensome because of
>its inherent deficiencies, but on the other hand his system allowed him
>to write prolifically at a world class level.
>
>Re your comments on GTD, I'd agree it's not the system for everyone,
>though I think its emphasis on "mind like water" removes some of the
>non-productive mental stress many people face while trying to become
>more organized and productive. Or, as David Allen, the GTD originator
>says on his website, "Mind Like Water: A mental and emotional state in
>which your head is clear, able to create and respond freely,
>unencumbered with distractions and split focus." That may not work for
>some people, but for others it's part of destressing their brain so it
>can work more effectively."
>
>https://gettingthingsdone.com/2012/05/david-allen-defines-mind-like-water/
>

Franz Grieser

“Getting stuff out of your head to de-stress the brain” means: Getting boring stuff out of your head.

Yes, that seems to work great for now because it reliefs our brain temporarily.

Daly de Gagne wrote:

Dellu, in light of what you wrote I wonder what your thoughts are on the
German sociologist Niklas Luhmann and his Zettlekasten note-taking
system. On one hand, his system removed from his brain the burden of
using the kind of note-taking approach which is burdensome because of
its inherent deficiencies, but on the other hand his system allowed him
to write prolifically at a world class level.

Dear Daly;
I honestly cannot comment on a renown scholar like Luhmann. I am not a sociologist. So, I have barely anything to say on him. His method also seems appealing for his situation:
- He has access for a limited amount of books: so, he takes all the relevant points out of those books

But, I recently read a blog on his wring. This blogger said his writing is jumbled with disconnected idea; and his writing lacks coherent flow. I cannot confirm that. But, if that is the case, it is possible that his zettels made him write that way.

But, I think the how people are trying to emulate his method is just trash. What people call zettel method now just small pieces of text hyperlinked to another small piece and that one again linked to another piece. I don't think that is very effective method of thinking or writing. I think it is very shallow: much such similar to Tiktok where highly compromised brains relief stress by jump from one link to another. Compromised brains cannot concentrate on one issue more than a couple of minutes: they seek constant stimulus--therefore, they jump from one link to another. That is why the media that feed/exploit these compromised brains are so popular these days: Tiktok, Twitter, Zettel: they are all made to feed this impulse.

A nice quote from Nicolas Carr:

"Hyperlinks also alter our experience of media. Links are in one sense a variation on the textual allusions, citations, and footnotes that have long been common elements of documents. But their effect on us as we read is not at all the same. Links don’t just point us to related or supplemental works; they propel us toward them. They encourage us to dip in and out of a series of texts rather than devote sustained attention to any one of them. Hyperlinks are designed to grab our attention. Their value as navigational tools is inextricable from the distraction they cause."


- I had a conversation about this exact topic recently in Obsidian forum, by the way: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/why-use-links-over-hashtags-discuss/45560/10

I agree with Dellu. I spent a brief time messing around with zettelkasten and found it to be counterproductive busywork that got in the way of actually getting things done. I'm not trying to "build a second brain", I'm trying to use my first brain to write something meaningful. And to do that I organise my notes in a hierarchy where I can find them again, using a structure and naming convention that instantly tells me what I'm looking at.

For interest, here is Andy Matuschak's take on the subject:
“Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking”
https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z7kEFe6NfUSgtaDuUjST1oczKKzQQeQWk4Dbc

Note the meaningless URL. If I stored my notes that way, or using zettel codes such as 1.a.1.b2 or 20221104053328 I would never find anything again. I much prefer something like Book Research > Notes > Interviews.

Your reference to Matuschak is interesting: by far my favourite feature in the new version of Obsidian is the built-in Matuschak-style "tab stacking", which allows you to have multiple notes open (in a "stack") and then compare any note in the stack with another note. This is amazingly intuitive, as well as powerful – I love it, and use it much more than I ever refer to backlinks.

Cyganet wrote:

I agree with Dellu. I spent a brief time messing around with
zettelkasten and found it to be counterproductive busywork that got in
the way of actually getting things done. I'm not trying to "build a
second brain", I'm trying to use my first brain to write something
meaningful. And to do that I organise my notes in a hierarchy where I
can find them again, using a structure and naming convention that
instantly tells me what I'm looking at.

For interest, here is Andy Matuschak's take on the subject:
“Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is
“better thinking”
https://notes.andymatuschak.org/z7kEFe6NfUSgtaDuUjST1oczKKzQQeQWk4Dbc

Note the meaningless URL. If I stored my notes that way, or using zettel
codes such as 1.a.1.b2 or 20221104053328 I would never find anything
again. I much prefer something like Book Research > Notes > Interviews.

MadaboutDana wrote:

Your reference to Matuschak is interesting: by far my favourite feature
in the new version of Obsidian is the built-in Matuschak-style "tab
stacking", which allows you to have multiple notes open (in a "stack")
and then compare any note in the stack with another note.

Sounds interesting. What's the name of this plugin? I cannot find a external "tab stacking" plugin.

Sorry, been away: it's now built into the actual program (V1.0 onwards)! There's a drop-down button in the top right-hand corner of the actual chrome that allows you to stack or unstack tabs.

I have a "stacked" list of tasks (Business, Personal, Family etc.) in one window, and a kanban board plus my daily note in another (unstacked) window. Overkill? Hey, that's my middle name... ;-)

Franz Grieser wrote:

MadaboutDana wrote:
>Your reference to Matuschak is interesting: by far my favourite feature
>in the new version of Obsidian is the built-in Matuschak-style "tab
>stacking", which allows you to have multiple notes open (in a "stack")
>and then compare any note in the stack with another note.

Sounds interesting. What's the name of this plugin? I cannot find a
external "tab stacking" plugin.

MadaboutDana wrote:

Sorry, been away: it's now built into the actual program (V1.0 onwards)!
There's a drop-down button in the top right-hand corner of the actual
chrome that allows you to stack or unstack tabs.

Thanks, found it.