By Sönke Ahrens, 2017 ## Introduction Everybody writes. It doesn’t necessarily mean papers, articles or books, but everyday, basic [[Writing]]. - We write when we need to **remember** something, be it an idea, a quote or the outcome of a study. - We write when we want to **organise our thoughts** and when we want to **exchange ideas** with others. - We write down not only those things we fear we won’t remember otherwise, but also the very things we try to **memorise**. **==Every intellectual effort starts with a note==**. [[Writing]] plays such a central role in [[Learning]], studying and research. Improving the **organisation** of all [[Writing]] makes a difference. **The process of [[Writing]] starts much, much earlier than that blank screen** and that the actual writing down of the argument is the smallest part of its development. [[Writing]] is not what follows research, [[Learning]] or studying, it is the **medium** of all this work. The quality of a paper and the ease with which it is written depends more than anything on **what you have done in writing before you even made a decision on the topic**. [[Willpower]] is, as far as we know today, a limited resource that depletes quickly. Self-control and self-discipline have much more to do with our environment than with ourselves (cf. Thaler, 2015, ch. 2) – and the environment can be changed. Every task that is interesting, meaningful and well-defined will be done, because there is no conflict between long- and short-term interests. Having a meaningful and well-defined task beats [[willpower]] every time. Not having willpower, but **not having to use willpower**. ### 1 Everything You Need to Know >[!example] Keyword: Workflow, Good structure, Generating new ideas “I never force myself to do anything I don’t feel like. Whenever I am stuck, I do something else.” **A good structure allows you to move seamlessly from one task to another** – without threatening the whole arrangement or losing sight of the bigger picture. **A good structure is something you can trust**. It relieves you from the burden of remembering and keeping track of everything. If you can **trust the system**, you can let go of the attempt to hold everything together in your head and you can start focusing on what is important: The content, the argument and the ideas. A **good structure enables flow**, the state in which you get so completely immersed in your work that you lose track of time and can just keep on going as the work becomes effortless (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). **Having a clear structure to work in** is completely different from making plans about something. If you make a plan, you impose a structure on yourself; it makes you inflexible. We do not want to make ourselves dependent on a plan that is threatened by the unexpected. **[[Learning]] in a way that generates real insight**, is accumulative and sparks **new ideas**. Having read more does not automatically mean having **more ideas**. A system is needed to keep track of the everincreasing pool of information, which allows one to combine different ideas in an intelligent way with the aim of **generating new ideas**. [[Writing]] is not only for proclaiming opinions, but the main tool to achieve insight worth sharing. #### 1.1 Good Solutions are Simple – and Unexpected >[!example] Keyword: Complexity, Technique, Changing work habits, Workflow, Trust the system, Holistic perspective >[!cite] Getting Things Done (Allen, 2001) There is no need to build a complex system and there is no need to reorganise everything you already have. You can start working and developing ideas immediately by taking smart notes. Even if you just want to **keep track** of what you read, organise your notes and develop your thoughts, you will have to deal with an increasingly **complexity** in structure and content, especially because **==it is not just about collecting thoughts, but about making connections and sparking new ideas==**. We don’t have to choose between usability and usefulness. Quite the contrary. The best way to deal with **complexity** is to keep things as simple as possible and to follow a few basic principles. The simplicity of the structure allows **complexity** to build up where we want it: on the content level. It is not about redoing what you have done before, but about **changing the way of working** from now on. 1. We only need to combine two well-known and proven ideas. The first idea lies at the heart of this book and is the **technique** of the simple **[[slip-box]]**. 2. Even the best tool will not improve your productivity considerably if you don’t **change your daily routines** the tool is embedded in. Like every **change in behaviour**, a **change in working habits** means going through a phase where you are drawn back to your old ways. **Routines require simple, repeatable tasks** that can become automatic and fit together seamlessly (cf. Mata, Todd, and Lippke, 2010). The importance of an overarching **workflow** is the great insight of David Allen’s “**[[Getting Things Done]]**” (Allen, 2001). The principle of [[Getting Things Done|GTD]] is to collect everything that needs to be taken care of in one place and process it in a standardised way. It forces us to make clear choices and regularly check if our tasks still fit into the bigger picture. [[Getting Things Done|GTD]] relies on clearly defined objectives, whereas insight cannot be predetermined by definition. We usually start with rather vague ideas that are bound to change until they become clearer in the course of our research (cf. Ahrens, 2014, 134f.). [[Getting Things Done|GTD]] requires projects to be broken down into smaller, concrete “next steps.” [[Writing]] is not a linear process. What we can take from Allen as an important insight is that **the secret to a successful organization lies in the holistic perspective**. 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 >[!example] Keyword: Productivity, Working techniques, Work routine, Control of the process, Working environment, Workflow, Dialogue partner Invention of Niklas [[Luhmann]]. What he liked most was reading and following his diverse interests in philosophy, organizational theory and sociology. He started to think about how one idea could relate and contribute to different contexts. **==His [[slip-box]] became his dialogue partner, main idea generator and productivity engine==**. It helped him to structure and develop his thoughts. > “My project: theory of society. Duration: 30 years. Costs: zero” (Luhmann, 1997, 11). In 30 years, he published 58 books and hundreds of articles. While some career-oriented academics try to squeeze as many publications out of one idea as possible, [[Luhmann]] seemed to do the opposite. After doing extensive research on [[Luhmann]]’s workflow, the German sociologist Johannes F.K. Schmidt concluded his **productivity** could only be explained by his unique **working technique** (Schmidt 2013, 168). “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.” ([[Luhmann]] et al., 1987, 154f.) We are still so used to the idea that a great outcome requires great effort that we tend not to believe that **a simple change in our work routines** could not only make us more productive, but the work also more fun. To **stay in control**, it's better to keep your options open during the [[Writing]] process rather than limit yourself to your first idea. [[Luhmann]] was able to focus on the important things right in front of him, pick up quickly where he left off and **stay in control of the process** because the **structure** of his work allowed him to do this. If we work in an environment that is flexible enough to accommodate our work rhythm, we don’t need to struggle with resistance. 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 (cf. Neal et al. 2012; Painter et al. 2002; Hearn et al. 1998). Is not just about having the right **mindset**, it is also about having the right **workflow**. [[Luhmann]] and his [[slip-box]] worked together that allowed him to move freely and flexibly between different tasks and levels of thinking. #### 1.3 The slip-box manual >[!example] Keyword: Bibliographical references, Original ideas [[Luhmann]] had two [[slip-box|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. 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). 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 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. **==He did not just copy ideas or quotes from the texts he read, but made a transition from one context to another==**. He did not organise his notes by topic, but in the rather abstract way of giving them fixed numbers. It would be rather misleading to think of his slip-box as a personal Wikipedia or a database on paper. **==By adding 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. ### 2 Everything You Need to Do >[!example] Keyword: [[Writing]] Imagine **==you do not start with a clean sheet==**. Imagine instead some friendly genie (or well-paid personal assistant – whatever is more likely for you to have available) prepared a rough draft of your paper for you. It is already a fully developed argument including all references, quotes and some really smart ideas. Editing is work that needs focus. You have to rephrase some sentences, delete one or two redundancies and maybe add a couple of sentences or even passages to fill some holes left in the argument. But at the same time, it is a well-defined task: nothing that couldn’t be done within a few days and certainly nothing you would have trouble motivating yourself to do: Everybody is motivated when the finish line is within reach. It would certainly make things a lot easier if you already had everything you need right in front of you: The ideas, the arguments, the quotes, long developed passages, complete with bibliography and references. Searching through a file system with strings of discussions, plenty of material and ideas is, believe it or not, fun. It does not require the kind of focused attention you would need to formulate a sentence or to understand a difficult text. Your attention is rather at ease and it even helps to have a playful mindset. [[Writing]] these notes is also not the main work. **Thinking is. Reading is. Understanding and coming up with ideas is**. And this is how it is supposed to be. The notes are just the tangible outcome of it. Writing notes accompanies the main work and, done right, it helps with it. **[[Writing]] is, without dispute, the best facilitator for thinking, reading, learning, understanding and generating ideas we have. Notes build up while you think, read, understand and generate ideas**. If you want to learn something for the long run, you have to write it down. **==If you want to really understand something, you have to translate it into your own words==**. Thinking takes place as much on paper as in your own head. “**Notes on paper, or on a computer screen do not make contemporary physics or other kinds of intellectual endeavour easier, they make it possible**,” neuroscientist Neil Levy concludes in the introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics, summarizing decades of research. You have to externalise your ideas, you have to write. If we write, it is more likely that we understand what we read, remember what we learn and that our thoughts make sense. Thinking, reading, learning, understanding and generating ideas is the main work of everyone who studies, does research or writes. #### 2.1 [[Writing]] a paper step by step >[!example] Keyword: Method, Workflow 1. Make [[Obsidian/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. - They are **temporary reminders** of what is in your head. - Put them into one place, which you define as your inbox, and process them later. 2. 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. - Keep these notes together with the **bibliographic details** in one place – your reference system. 3. Make [[Permanent notes]]. 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. - 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 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 [[Obsidian/Fleeting Notes]] from step one and put the literature notes from step two into your reference system. 4. Now add your new **permanent notes** to the slip-box by: - Filing each one behind one or more related notes - Adding links to related notes - 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. 5. **Develop your topics**, questions and research projects bottom up from within the system. - 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. - 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. 6. 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. - Look through the connections and **collect all the relevant notes** on this topic 7. **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. You never work on just one idea, but many ideas in different stages at the same time. Most people follow different lines of thought at the same time. They might focus for a while on one idea, but then leave it alone for another while until they see how to proceed further. It is helpful then to be able to pick up on another idea now and go back to the earlier thought later. It is much more realistic to keep this flexibility and you don’t have to worry about starting all over. ### 3 Everything You Need to Have >[!example] Keyword: Tools 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. The [[slip-box]] provides an external resource to think in and helps with those tasks our brains are not very good at, most of all objective **storage of information**. #### 3.1 The Tool Box We need four tools: - **Something to write with and something to write on** [[Obsidian/Fleeting Notes]] - 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. It can be a notebook, a napkin, an app on your phone or iPad. These notes are not meant to be stored permanently. They will be deleted or chucked soon anyway. They only function as a reminder of a thought and are not meant to capture the thought itself. - **A reference management system** for [[Literature notes]] - The reference system has two purposes: To collect the references and the notes you take during your reading. - Just give the notes a standardised title like “AuthorYear” and keep them in alphabetical order in one place. - **The slip-box** - **An editor** ### 4 A Few Things to Keep in Mind We sometimes forget that the handling is as important as the possibilities of the tool itself. If we try to use a tool without putting any thought into the way we work with it, even the best tool would not be of much help. Luhmann’s [[slip-box]] is currently the object of a long-term research project at the University of Bielefeld, and their first results have already given us a comprehensive understanding about how Luhmann really worked with it. You can look up for yourself some of his notes on their website. (Link) Add to this understanding recent psychological insights about learning, creativity and thinking (?) By keeping just a few **basic principles** in mind and with an understanding of the logic behind the **file system**, I see no reason why anyone should not be able to replicate Luhmann’s formula for successful learning, [[Writing]] and research. ## The Four Underlying Principles ### 5 [[Writing]] Is the Only Thing That Matters For students, **the need for writing** mainly appears in the form of examination. The written work **represents** a preceded performance, namely learning, understanding and the ability to analyse other texts critically. By writing, students **demonstrate** what they have learned, show their ability to think critically and ability to develop ideas. This understanding is related to the idea that students **prepare** for independent research. In this mindset, the writing of a paper is just another skill to be learned. Students should not only learn to write papers, but also learn facts, be able to discuss their ideas in seminars and listen carefully to lectures. **Studying does not prepare** students for independent research. **It IS independent research**. Nobody starts from scratch and everybody is already able to think for themselves (?). ### 6 Simplicity Is Paramount >[!example] Keyword: Standardized format, workflow It is the simplicity of an idea that makes it so powerful. It is not the perspective of the industry that counts, but the purpose of the whole trade. (Meaning: if you want to change something in a [[process]] - like [[Obsidian/Note Taking]] - you must have an olistic perspective and adapt the change in the whole system, aligning every single part of the chain, of the [[workflow]]) Many students and academic writers handle their ideas and findings in the way it makes **immediate sense**: If they read an interesting sentence, they underline it. If they have a comment to make, they write it into the margins. If they have an idea, they write it into their notebook, and if an article seems important enough, they make the effort and write an excerpt. Working like this will leave you with **a lot of different notes in many different places**. Instead of having different storage for different ideas, everything goes into the same [[slip-box]] and is **standardised into the same format**. Everything is streamlined towards one thing only: **insight that can be published**. The slip-box becomes more and more valuable the more it grows, instead of getting messy and confusing. The [[slip-box]] is designed to present you with ideas you have already forgotten, allowing your brain to **focus on thinking instead of remembering**. #### 3 type of notes to achieve critical mass >[!example] Keyword: Fleeting notes, Literature notes, Permanent Notes, Project notes Only if the notes of these three categories are kept separated it will be possible to build a critical mass of ideas within the [[slip-box]]. - [[Obsidian/Fleeting Notes]] 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. - [[Permanent notes]] will never be thrown away and contain the necessary information in themselves in a permanently understandable way. - [[Project notes]] 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. One of the major reasons for not getting much [[Writing]] or publishing done lies in the confusion of these categories. ##### Typical mistakes 1. A typical mistake Is to **write everything down** and treating it as [[Obsidian/Fleeting Notes]] or [[Permanent notes]] (all together): the cofusion between notes that serve different purposes, makes good ideas hidden by more irrelevant writings. The lack of a good structure for orientation also makes the set of notes unusable. 2. The second typical mistake is to **collect notes only related to specific projects**. - By 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. 3. The third typical mistake is, of course, to treat all notes as [[Obsidian/Fleeting Notes]]. Just collecting unprocessed fleeting notes inevitably leads to chaos (and unefficient notes not parsed by the author). ##### The Purpose of the different type of notes It is important to reflect on the purpose of these different types of notes. - [[Obsidian/Fleeting Notes]] are there for **capturing ideas quickly** while you are busy doing something else. - When you are in a conversation, listing to a lecture, hear something noteworthy or an idea pops into your mind while you are running errands, a quick note is the best you can do without interrupting what you are in the middle of doing. - That might even apply to reading, if you want to focus on a text without interrupting your reading flow. Then you might want to just underline sentences or write short comments in the margins. But underlining sentences or writing comments in the margins are also just fleeting notes and do nothing to elaborate on a text. They will very soon become completely useless – unless you do something with them. [[Obsidian/Fleeting Notes]] are only useful if you review them within a day or so and turn them into proper notes you can use later. These kinds of notes are just reminders of a thought, which you haven’t had the time to elaborate on yet. [[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. Most ideas will not stand the test of time, while others might become the seed for a major project. The only permanently stored notes are the [[Literature notes]] in the reference system (can be very brief as the context is clearly the text they refer to) and the [[Permanent notes]] in the [[slip-box]] (they need to be written with more care and details as they need to be self-explanatory.) 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.” (Hagen, 1997). 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]]. Some notes might disappear into the background and never catch his attention again, while others might become **==connection points to various lines of reasoning==** and reappear on a regular basis in various contexts. As it is not possible to foresee the development of the [[slip-box]], **==the fate of the notes is nothing to worry about==**. In contrast to the [[Obsidian/Fleeting Notes]], every [[Permanent notes]] for the [[slip-box]] is elaborated enough to have the potential to become part of or inspire a final written piece, but that can not be decided on up front as their relevance depends on future thinking and developments. The notes are no longer reminders of thoughts or ideas, but contain the actual thought or idea in written form. **This is a crucial difference**. It is the **standardised format** that enables the notes to build up a critical mass in one place. [[Project notes]] are related to only one specific project, are kept together with other project-related notes in a **project-specific folder**. (They are located) 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 >[!example] Keyword: Writing, Circular process The process of [[Writing]] is vastly misunderstood. ^73f449 Almost always, the decision on the topic is presented as the necessary first step, after which follows everything else. Thereafter, you will certainly find a multi-step plan you are supposed to follow: Be it twelve steps, according to the Academic Skills & Learning Centre of the Australian National University, or eight, if you go with the recommendations of the Writing Center of the University of Wisconsin, the rough order is always the same: Make a decision on what to [[Writing|write]] about, plan your research, do your research, write. Interestingly enough, these road maps usually come with the concession that this is only an idealised plan and that in reality, it rarely works like that. **Every intellectual effort starts from an already existing preconception**, which then can be transformed during further inquires and can serve as a starting point for following efforts. Basically, that is what Hans-Georg Gadamer called the **hermeneutic circle** (Gadamer 2004). [[Writing]] at the same time continues to be taught as if we could start from scratch and move forward in a straight line – as if it were possible to pull a good question out of thin air and wait with the reading until the literature research is done. We have to **read with a pen in hand**, develop ideas on paper and build up an ever-growing pool of externalised thoughts. We will not be guided by a blindly made-up plan picked from our unreliable brains, but by our interest, curiosity and intuition, which is formed and informed by the actual work of reading, thinking, discussing, writing and developing ideas. By focusing on what is interesting and keeping written track of your own intellectual development, topics, questions and arguments will emerge from the material without force. **==Every question that emerges out of our [[slip-box]] will naturally and handily come with material to work with==**. If we look into our slip-box to see where clusters have built up, we not only see possible topics, but topics we have already worked on – even if we were not able to see it up front. The things you are supposed to find in your head by brainstorming usually don’t have their origins in there. Rather, they come from the outside: through reading, having discussions and listening to others, through all the things that could have been accompanied and often even would have been improved by [[Writing]]. Taking smart notes is the precondition to break with the linear order. It structures your workflow according to the fact that **[[Writing]] is not a linear process, but a circular one**. When it finally comes to the decision on what to write about, you will already have made the decision – because you made it on every single step along the way, again and again every day, improving it gradually. A clear, **reliable structure** is paramount. ### 8 Let the Work Carry You Forward >[!example] Keyword: Workflow, Motivation, Learning system, Network of ideas You may remember from school the difference between an exergonic and an endergonic reaction. In an exergonic reaction, energy is released to the surroundings. The bonds being formed are stronger than the bonds being broken. In an endergonic reaction, energy is absorbed from the surroundings. The bonds being formed are weaker than the bonds being broken. In the first case, you constantly need to add energy to keep the process going. In the second case, **the reaction, once triggered, continues by itself and even releases energy**. **The dynamics of work are not so different**. Sometimes we feel like our work is draining our energy and we can only move forward if we put more and more energy into it. But sometimes it is the opposite. Once we get into the [[workflow]], it is as if the work itself gains momentum, pulling us along and sometimes even energizing us. This is the kind of dynamic we are looking for. A good [[workflow]] can easily turn into a virtuous circle, where **the positive experience motivates us** to take on the next task with ease, which helps us to get better at what we are doing, which in return makes it more likely for us to enjoy the work, and so on. But if we feel constantly stuck in our work, we will become demotivated and much more likely to procrastinate, leaving us with fewer positive or even bad experiences like missed deadlines. We might end up in a vicious circle of failure (cf. Fishbach, Eyal and Finkelstein, 2010). Only if the work itself becomes rewarding can the dynamic of **motivation** and reward become self-sustainable and propel the whole process forward (DePasque and Tricomi, 2015). Creating satisfying, repeatable experiences The only thing that matters is to discover something that gives a **good experience** that you would like to have again. To enter the virtuous circle where **willpower isn’t needed** anymore because you feel like doing it anyway. **Feedback loops** are not only crucial for the dynamics of motivation, but also the key element to any learning process. **Nothing motivates us more than the experience of becoming better at what we do**. And the only chance to improve in something is getting timely and concrete feedback. The most reliable predictor for long-term success is having a “**growth mindset.**” To actively seek and welcome feedback, be it positive or negative, is one of the most important factors for success (and happiness) in the long run. (Carol Dweck,) Embracing a growth mindset means to get **pleasure out of changing for the better** (which is mostly inwardly rewarding) instead of getting pleasure in being praised (which is outwardly rewarding). Having a growth mindset is crucial, but only one side of the equation. Having a **==learning system==** in place that enables feedback loops in a practical way is equally important. Following a **circular approach** allows you to implement many **feedback loops**, which give you the chance to improve your work while you are working on it. ([[Learn in public]], ndr) It is not just about increasing the number of opportunities to learn, but also to be able to correct the mistakes we inevitably make. **Reading with a pen in the hand** forces us to think about what we read and check upon our understanding. We tend to think we understand what we read – until we try to rewrite it in our own words. By doing this, we not only get a better sense of our ability to understand, but also increase our ability to clearly and concisely express our understanding – which in return helps to grasp ideas more quickly. (Passing from [[Obsidian/Fleeting Notes]] to [[Permanent notes]]) The ability to **express understanding** in one’s own words is a fundamental competency for everyone who writes – and only by doing it with the chance of realizing our lack of understanding can we become better at it. **The better we become, the easier and quicker we can make notes, which increases the number (and satisfaction, ndr) of learning experiences**. The same applies to the crucial ability to distinguish the important bits of a text from the less important ones. The same goes for writing [[Permanent notes]], which have another feedback loop built-in: Expressing our own thoughts in writing makes us realise if we really thought them through. While we learn and become better, our [[slip-box]] becomes more knowledgeable too. It grows and improves. And the more it grows, the more useful it becomes and the easier it will be for us to make new connections. The [[slip-box]] is not a collection of notes. Working with it is less about retrieving specific notes and more about being pointed to relevant facts and **generating insight** by letting ideas mingle. **==Its usability grows with its size, not just linearly but exponentially==**. The **inner connectedness** of the [[slip-box]] will not just provide us with isolated facts, but with **lines of developed thoughts**. Because of its inner complexity, a search thought the [[slip-box]] will confront us with related notes we did not look for. **The more content it contains, the more connections it can provide**. The more connected information we already have, the easier it is to learn, because new information can dock to that information. If facts are not kept isolated nor learned in an isolated fashion, but hang together in a **network of ideas**, or “latticework of mental models” (Munger, 1994), it becomes easier to make sense of new information. It is not the [[slip-box]] or our brains alone, but the dynamic between them that makes working with it so productive. (They’re **dialogue partners**) ## The Six Steps to Successful Writing ### 9 Separate and Interlocking Tasks #### 9.1 Give Each Task Your Undivided Attention it is obvious that we are surrounded by more sources of distraction and less opportunities to train our attention spans. #### 9.2 Multitasking is not a good idea >[!example] Keyword: Attention, Workflow, Productivity 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. For some, it is one of the most important skills to cope with today’s informational overload. And studies show that those who claim to multitask a lot also claim to be very good at it. Those interviewed in these studies do not see their **productivity** impaired by it. On the contrary, they think it’s improved. But they usually don’t test themselves in comparison with a control group. Psychologists who interviewed the multitaskers did test them instead of just asking. They gave them different tasks to accomplish and compared their results with another group that was instructed to do only one thing at a time. The outcome is unambiguous: **While those who multitasked felt more productive, their productivity actually decreased – a lot** (Wang and Tchernev 2012; Rosen 2008; Ophir, Nass, and Wagner 2009). Multitasking is not what we think it is. It is not focusing attention on more than one thing at a time. Nobody can do that. When we think we multitask, **what we really do is shift our attention quickly between two (or more) things**. And every shift is a drain on our ability to shift and delays the moment we manage to get focused again. Doing something many times makes us believe we have become good at it – completely independent of our actual performance (Bornstein 1989). We unfortunately tend to confuse familiarity with skill. ==[[Writing]] 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. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the 1970s described “flow,” **the state in which being highly focused becomes effortless** (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975), [18]other forms of attention, which are much less dependent on will and effort, attracted researchers’ interest. When it comes to **focused attention**, we focus on one thing only, something we can sustain for only a few seconds. The maximum duration of focused attention seems not to have changed over time (Doyle and Zakrajsek 2013, 91). Focused attention is different from “**sustained attention**,” which we need to stay focused on one task for a longer period and is necessary to learn, understand or get something done. The good news is that ==we can train ourselves to stay focused on one thing for longer if we avoid multitasking, remove possible distractions and separate different kinds of tasks as much as possible so they will not interfere with each other==. It is not just a question of having the right mindset, but, equally important, of how we **organise our workflow**. The [[slip-box]] provides not only a clear structure to work in, but also forces us to shift our attention consciously as we can complete tasks in reasonable time. Together with the fact that every task is accompanied by writing. #### 9.3 Give Each Task the Right Kind of Attention >[!example] Keyword: Tasks of [[Writing]], Attention **Proofreading**, for example, is obviously part of the writing process, but requires a very different state of mind than the attempt to find the right words. When we **proofread** a manuscript, we take on the role of a critic who takes a step back to see the text with the eyes of a dispassionate reader. We scan the text for typos, try to smooth out patches and check structure. We deliberately put distance between ourselves and the text to see what is really on the paper, not just in our heads. We try to block out the knowledge of what we meant to say to be able to see what we wrote. While taking on the role of a critic is not the same as being an impartial reader, it is enough to spot most of what we missed before: the holes in the argument, the parts we did not explain as we did not need to explain them to ourselves. If the critic constantly and prematurely interferes whenever a sentence isn’t perfect yet, we would never get anything on paper. We need to get our thoughts on paper first and improve them there, where we can look at them. Especially complex ideas are difficult to turn into a linear text in the head alone. While **proofreading** requires more focused attention, **finding the right words** during writing requires much more floating attention. It is also easier to focus on finding the right words if we don’t have to **think about the structure** of the text at the same time, which is why a printed outline of the manuscript should be always in front of our eyes. We have to know what we don’t have to write about at the moment, because we know that we will take care of that in another part of our text. **Outlining** or changing the outline is also a very different task that requires a very different focus on something else: not on one thought, but on the whole argument. It is important, though, to understand outlining not as the preparation of writing or even as planning, but as a separate task we need to return to throughout the writing process on a regular basis. Proofreading, formulating and outlining are also different from the task of **combining and developing thoughts**. 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. It is much more associative, playful and creative than the other tasks and requires a very different kind of attention as well. To master the art of [[Writing]], we need to be able to apply whatever kind of attention and focus is needed. Oshin Vartanian compared and analysed the daily workflows of Nobel Prize winners and other eminent scientists and concluded that it is not a relentless focus, but flexible focus that distinguishes them. “The problemsolving behavior of eminent scientists can alternate between extraordinary levels of focus on specific concepts and playful exploration of ideas. This suggests that successful problem solving may be a function of flexible strategy application in relation to task demands.” (Vartanian 2009, 57) The key to creativity is being able to switch between a wide-open, playful mind and a narrow analytical frame.” (Dean, 2013, 152) To be flexible, we need an equally **flexible work structure** that doesn’t break down every time we depart from a preconceived plan. One can be the best driver with the quickest reactions, able to adjust flexibly to different street and weather conditions. None of that will help a bit if the driver is stuck on rails. **==It does not help us to have great insight into the necessity of being flexible in our work if we are stuck in a rigid organisation==**. #### 9.4 Become an Expert Instead of a Planner >[!example] Keyword: Generating insight, Experience, Feedback loop, Workflow Exclusive use of analytical rationality tends to impede further improvement in human performance because of **analytical rationality’s slow reasoning** and its emphasis on rules, principles, and universal solutions. Bodily involvement, speed, and an intimate knowledge of concrete cases in the form of good examples is a prerequisite for true expertise.” (Flyvbjerg 2001, 15) 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. > It is similar to the moment where we had the training wheels of our bikes taken off and started to learn cycling properly. We might have felt a bit insecure in the first moment, but at the same time, it became obvious that we would never have learned to bicycle if we left the training wheels on. The only thing we would have learned is to ride a bike with training wheels on. To be able to become an expert, we need the freedom to make our own decisions and all the necessary mistakes that help us learn. **==Experts have internalised the necessary knowledge so they don’t have to actively remember rules or think consciously about their choices.==** They have acquired enough experience in various situations to be able to rely on their intuition to know what to do in which kind of situation. Their decisions in complex situations are explicitly not made by long rational-analytical considerations, but rather come from the gut (cf. Gigerenzer, 2008a, 2008b). Gut feeling is not a mysterious force, but an incorporated history of experience. It is the sedimentation of deeply learned practice through numerous **feedback loops** on success or failure. > Chess players seem to think less than beginners. Rather, they see patterns and let themselves be guided by their experience from the past rather than attempt to calculate turns far into the future. The **intuition** of professional academic and nonfiction writing can also only be gained by systematic exposure to **feedback loops** and experience, which means that success in academic writing depends to a great degree on the organization of its practical side. The **workflow** around the [[slip-box]] is not a prescription that tells you what to do at what stage of writing. On the contrary: It gives you a structure of clearly separable tasks, which can be completed within reasonable time and provides you with instant feedback through interconnected writing tasks. It allows you to become better by giving you the opportunity for deliberate practice. The more experience you gain, the more you will be able to rely on your intuition to tell you what to do next. **Real experts don’t make plans** (Flyvbjerg 2001, 19). #### 9.5 Get Closure >[!example] Keyword: Short-term memory, Understanding, Meaningful connection Attention is not our only limited resource. Our short-term **memory** is also limited. We can hold a maximum of seven things in our head at the same time, plus/minus two (Miller 1956). Information cannot be saved in short-term memory like on a memory stick. Rather, it kind of floats around in our heads, seeks our attention and occupies valuable mental resources until it is either forgotten, replaced by something more important (according to our brains) or moved into long-term memory. it is so much easier to **remember things we understand** than things we don’t. Things we understand are connected, either through rules, theories, narratives, pure logic, mental models or explanations. And deliberately building these kinds of **meaningful connections** is what the [[slip-box]] is all about. - How does this fact fit into my idea of …? - How can this phenomenon be explained by that theory? - Are these two ideas contradictory or do they complement each other? - Isn’t this argument similar to that one? - Haven’t I heard this before? - And above all: What does x mean for y? **Zeigarnik effec**t: 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. We don’t actually have to finish tasks to convince our brains to stop thinking about them. All we have to do is to write them down in a way that convinces us that it will be taken care of. The brain doesn't distinguish between an actual finished task and one that is postponed by taking a note. By [[Writing]] something down, we literally get it out of our heads. This is why David Allen’s “[[Getting Things Done]]” system works: The secret to have a “mind like water” is to get all the little stuff out of our shortterm memory. - 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. The main advantages of thinking in writing is that everything is externalised anyway. Letting thoughts linger without focusing on them gives our brains the opportunity to deal with problems in a different, often surprisingly productive way. While we have a walk or a shower or clean the house, the brain cannot help but play around with the last unsolved problem it came across. And that is why we so often find the answer to a question in rather casual situations. #### 9.6 Reduce the Number of Decisions >[!example] Keyword: Motivation, Willpower Next to the **attention** that can only be directed at one thing at a time and the **short-term memory** that can only hold up to seven things at once, the third limited resource is **motivation** or willpower. The environmental design of our **workflow** makes all the difference. For the longest time, [[willpower]] was seen more as a character trait than a resource. This has changed. Today, willpower is compared to muscles: a limited resource that depletes quickly and needs time to recover. “We use the term **ego depletion** to refer to a temporary reduction in the self’s capacity or willingness to engage in volitional action (including controlling the environment, controlling the self, making choices, and initiating action) caused by prior exercise of volition.” (Baumeister et al., 1998, 1253) A broad assortment of actions make use of the same resource. Acts of self-control, responsible decision making, and active choice seem to interfere with other such acts that follow soon after. The implication is that some vital resource of the self becomes depleted by such acts of volition. To be sure, we assume that this resource is commonly replenished, although the factors that might hasten or delay the replenishment remain unknown, along with the precise nature of this resource.” (Baumeister et al., 1998, 1263f) Even something seemingly unrelated like being the victim of prejudices can have a significant effect (Inzlicht, McKay, and Aronson, 2006) as “controlling the influence of stereotypes (… may rely on the same…) limited-strength resource on which people draw for self-regulation” (Govorun and Payne 2006, 112). The smartest way to deal with this kind of limitation is to cheat. Instead of forcing ourselves to do something we don’t feel like doing, we need to find a way to make us feel like doing what moves our project further along. Doing the work that need to be done without having to apply too much [[willpower]] requires a technique, a ruse. A **reliable and standardised working environment** is less taxing on our attention, concentration and willpower, or, if you like, ego. It is well known that decision-making is one of the most tiring and wearying tasks. 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. Being able to finish a task in a timely manner and to pick up the work exactly where we left it has another enjoyable advantage that helps to restore our attention: We can have breaks without fear of losing the thread. ### 10 Read for Understanding #### 10.1 Read With a Pen in Hand >[!example] Keyword: Translating, Dialogue If you understand what you read and **translate** it into the different context of your own thinking, materialised in the [[slip-box]], you cannot help but transform the findings and thoughts of others into something that is new and your own. The [[slip-box]] is an idea generator that develops in lockstep with your own intellectual development. Together, you can turn previously separated or even isolated facts into a critical mass of interconnected ideas. Drawing from the slip-box to develop a draft is more like a **dialogue** with it than a mechanical act. The idea is not to copy, but to have a **meaningful dialogue** with the texts we read. When we extract ideas from the specific context of a text, we deal with ideas that serve a specific purpose in a particular context, support a specific argument, are part of a theory that isn’t ours or written in a language we wouldn’t use. This is why we have to **translate** them into our own language to prepare them to be embedded into new contexts of our own thinking, **Translating** means to give the truest possible account of the original work, using different words “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.” ([[Luhmann]] et al., 1987, 150) Whenever we explore a new, unfamiliar subject, our notes will tend to be more extensive, but we shouldn’t get nervous about it, as this is the **deliberate practice of understanding** we cannot skip. Without a clear purpose for the notes, taking them will feel more like a chore than an important step within a bigger project. #### 10.2 Keep an Open Mind >[!example] Keyword: Confirmation bias We are naturally drawn to everything that makes us feel good, which is everything that confirms what we already believe we know. The very moment we decide on a hypothesis, our brains automatically go into search mode, scanning our surroundings for supporting data, which is neither a good way to learn nor research. Worse, we are usually not even aware of this confirmation bias that surreptitiously meddles with our life. We want to make the right decisions without too much mental effort We want to: - 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.” (Kant 1784) Probably the best method is to take notes – not excerpts, but condensed reformulated accounts of a text. Rewriting what was already written almost automatically trains one to shift the attention towards frames, patterns and categories in the observations, or the conditions/assumptions, which enable certain, but not other descriptions.([[Luhmann]] 2000, 154f) #### 10.4 Learn to Read >[!example] Keyword: Understanding **Reading with a pen in your hand** is the small-scale equivalent of a lecture. [[Permanent notes]], too, are directed towards an audience ignorant of the thoughts behind the text and unaware of the original context, only equipped with a general knowledge of the field. The only difference is that the audience here consists of our future selves. “The principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool,” Feynman stressed in a speech to young scientists (Feynman 1985, 342). Reading, especially rereading, can easily fool us into believing we understand a text. Rereading is especially dangerous because of the mereexposure effect: The moment we become familiar with something, we start believing we also understand it. On top of that, we also tend to like it more (Bornstein 1989). Understanding is not just a precondition to learning something. To a certain degree, **learning is understanding**. And the mechanisms are not so different, either: We can only improve our learning if we test ourselves on our progress. #### 10.5 Learn by Reading >[!example] Keyword: Elaboration Learning itself requires **deliberate practice**, and I mean actual learning that helps us to increase our understanding of the world, not just the learning that makes us pass a test. And deliberate practice is demanding; it requires effort. Trying to skip this step would be like going to the gym and trying to work out with the least effort possible. “The one who does the work does the learning,” writes Doyle (2008, 63). Exercise helps to transfer information into long-term memory (cf. Ratey 2008). The best-researched and most successful learning method is **elaboration**. **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. “Writing for Learning” is the name of an “elaboration method” (Gunel, Hand, and Prain 2007). 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. [[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. ### 11 Take Smart Notes >[!example] Keyword: Bigger frame, Context 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. Even more problematic than staying within the given frame of a text or an argument is the inability to interpret particular information in the text within the **bigger frame** or argument of the text. Scientific thinking is plainly impossible if we can’t manage to **think beyond a given context** and we only focus on the information as it is given to us (Bruner, 1973) [[Luhmann]] recommends: Writing brief accounts on the main ideas of a text instead of collecting quotes. It is no less important to do something with these ideas – to think hard about **how they connect with other ideas from different contexts** and could inform questions that are not already the questions of the author of the respective text. This is exactly what we do when we take the next step, in which we write and add permanent notes to the slip-box. We don’t just play with ideas in our heads, but do something with them in a very concrete way: 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. #### 11.1 Make a Career One Note at a Time >[!example] Keyword: Steps, Tasks of writing 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. This, he writes in his autobiography: “allowed me to produce over ten pages of an ordinary novel volume a day, and if kept up through ten months, would have given as its results three novels of three volumes each in the year” (Trollope, 2008, 272). Academic or nonfiction texts are not written like this because in addition to the writing, there is the reading, the research, the thinking and the tinkering with ideas. (**Different tasks** of writing) 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.” It does make sense to **==break down the work into manageable and measurable steps==**, but pages per day don’t work that well as a unit when you also have to read, do research and think. 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. [[Luhmann]]’s [[slip-box]] contains about 90,000 notes, which sounds like an incredibly large number. But it only means that he wrote six notes a day from the day he started to work with his slip-box until he died. You could therefore measure your daily productivity by the number of notes written. #### 11.2 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). 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]]. Only by [[Writing]] can an argument be looked at with a certain distance – literally. We need this distance to think about an argument – otherwise the argument itself would occupy the very mental resources we need for scrutinizing it. ==We reinvent and rewrite our memory every time we try to retrieve information.== 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. Most people still think about thinking as a purely internal process, and believe that the only function of the pen is to put finished thoughts on paper. **Real thinking requires some kind of externalization**, especially in the form of [[Writing]]. “Notes on paper, or on a computer screen [...] do not make contemporary physics or other kinds of intellectual effort easier, they make it possible” (Levy 2011, 290). A common way to embed an idea into the context of the [[slip-box]] is by **writing out the reasons** of its importance for your own lines of thought. When it came to writing the first [[Permanent notes]] for the slip-box was: - What does this all mean for my own research and the questions I think about in my slip-box? - Why did the aspects I wrote down catch my interest? If I were a psychologist, this book would interest me for completely different reasons than if I were a politician or a debt adviser. #### 11.3 Learn by not Trying >[!example] Keyword: Elaboration, Learning, Understanding **Elaboration** through taking smart literature notes increases the likelihood that we will remember what we read in the long term. Transferring these ideas into the **network of our own thoughts**, our latticework of theories, concepts and mental models in the [[slip-box]] brings our thinking to the next level. The [[Literature notes]] are going to be archived, which means the ideas would be lost in the reference system if we didn’t do something with them. That is why we transfer them into our external memory, the [[slip-box]], with which we have an ongoing dialogue and where they can become part of our active set of ideas. Without a very thorough filter, our brains would constantly be flooded by memories, making it impossible to focus on anything in our surroundings. Robert and Elizabeth Ligon Bjork from the University of California suggest distinguishing between two different measurements when it comes to memory: **Storage strength** and **retrieval strength** (Bjork 2011). It is difficult, if not impossible, to verify this claim, but it does make sense to shift the attention from storage strength to 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. Every piece of information can become the trigger for another piece of information. What does help for true, useful [[Learning]] is to connect a piece of information to as many **meaningful contexts** as possible, which is what we do when we connect our notes in the slip-box with other notes. **==[[Learning]] is making meaningful connections.==** **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. 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. Writing notes and sorting them into the [[slip-box]] is nothing other than an attempt to understand the wider meaning of something. The **slip-box** forces us to ask numerous elaborating questions: - What does it mean? - How does it connect to … ? - What is the difference between … ? - What is it similar to? The deliberate creation of variations and contrasts can facilitate [[Learning]]. Elaborating on the differences and similarities of notes instead of sorting them by topic not only facilitates learning, but facilitates **the ability to categorise and create sensible classifications**! 🔍 Feynman diagrams #### 11.4 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. 3. 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. ### 12 Develop Ideas Ideally, new notes are written with explicit reference to already existing notes. The slip-box is not intended to be an encyclopaedia, but a tool to think with, we don’t need to worry about completeness. As an extension of our own [[memory]], the [[slip-box]] is the **medium** we think in, not something we think about. #### 12.1 Develop Topics >[!example] Keyword: Index, Keywords 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. The organisation of the notes is in the **network of references** in the slip-box, so all we need from the **index** are entry points. A few wisely chosen notes are sufficient for each entry point. 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. 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. The way people choose their **keywords** shows clearly if they think like an archivist or a writer. 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. As writers, we approach the question of **keywords** differently. We look at our [[slip-box]] for already existing lines of thought and think about the questions and problems already on our minds to which a new note might contribute. By assigning the **keyword** alone, the note is already put into a specific context. **Keywords** should always be assigned with an eye towards the topics you are working on or interested in, never by looking at the note in isolation. The Zettelkasten does make suggestions based on existing keywords and scans for keywords in the text you wrote. Good **keywords** are usually not already mentioned as words in the note. **Assigning keywords is a crucial part of the thinking process**, which often leads to a deeper elaboration of the note itself and the connection to other notes. #### 12.2 Make Smart Connections [[Luhmann]] used four basic types of cross-references in his file-box (Schmidt 2013, 173f; Schmidt 2015, 165f). 1. The first type of links are those on notes that are giving you the **overview of a topic**. These are notes directly referred to from the **index** and usually used as an **entry point** into a topic. On a note like this, you can collect links to other relevant notes to this topic or question, preferably with a short indication of what to find on these notes (one or two words or a short sentence is sufficient). **They help orientate** oneself within the slip-box. [[Luhmann]] collected up to 25 links to other notes on these kind of entry notes. They don’t have to be written in one go as links can be added over time, which again shows how topics can grow organically. 4. The most common form of reference is plain **note-to-note links**. They have no function other than indicating a relevant connection between two individual notes. By linking two related notes regardless of where they are within the slip-box or within different contexts, surprising new lines of thought can be established. These note-to-note links are like the “**weak links**” (Granovetter 1973) of social relationships. They often can offer new and different perspectives. These links can help us to find surprising connections and similarities between seemingly unrelated topics. It is no coincidence that one of the main features of [[Luhmann]]’s theory of social systems is its discovery of structural patterns that could be found in very different parts of society. (For example, he was able to show how vastly different things like money, power, love, truth and justice can be seen as social inventions) The search for **meaningful connections** is a crucial part of the thinking process towards the finished manuscript. #### 12.3 Compare, Correct and Differentiate >[!example] Keyword: Comparing, Differencies, Problem solving If we forget about an idea and have it again, our brains get as excited as if we are having it the first time. Therefore, working with the [[slip-box]] is disillusioning, but at the same time it increases the chance that we actually move forward in our thinking towards uncharted territory, instead of just feeling like we are moving forward. Sometimes, the **confrontation with old notes** helps to detect differences we wouldn’t have noticed otherwise. What seems to be the same idea sometimes turns out to be slightly, but crucially, different. This is especially helpful when two authors use the same concept in slightly different ways. It is much easier to detect these small but crucial differences when we literally have our notes in front of our eyes, comparing them during our attempts to connect them. It is much easier to see differences and similarities than to detect them by mere thinking. **Comparing notes** also helps us to detect contradictions, paradoxes or oppositions When we realise that we used to accept two contradicting ideas as equally true, we know that we have a problem – and problems are good because we now have **something to solve**. A paradox can be a sign that we haven’t thought thoroughly enough about a problem. The **construction of oppositions** is the most reliable way of generating new ideas (Rothenberg 1971; 1996; 2015). The constant **comparing of notes** also serves as an ongoing examination of old notes in a new light. **==The addition of one note leads to a correction, a complementation or an improvement of old ideas.==** Sometimes, we find two unrelated studies that give proof to the same point, which is not a correction, but an indication that we are on to something. Adding new notes to old notes and being forced to compare them leads not only to a constant improvement of one’s own work, but often discloses weaknesses in the texts we read. The slip-box not only confronts us with dis-confirming information, but also helps with what is known as the feature-positive effect (Allison and Messick 1988; Newman, Wolff, and Hearst 1980; Sainsbury 1971). The [[slip-box]] constantly reminds us of information we have long forgotten and wouldn’t remember otherwise – so much so, we wouldn’t even look for it. #### 12.4 Assemble a Toolbox for Thinking >[!example] Keyword: Retrieve ideas, Mental model Just by working with the [[slip-box]], we **retrieve old ideas** and facts on an irregular basis and connect them with other bits of information Our ability to read a situation or to interpret information depends on our broader knowledge and how we make sense of it. The importance is to have not just a few, but a broad range of **mental models** in your head. You’ve got to hang experience on a latticework of models in your head.” (Munger 1994). A truly wise person is not someone who knows everything, but someone who is able to make sense of things by drawing from an extended resource of **interpretation schemes**. The beauty of this approach is that we co-evolve with our [[slip-box|slip-boxes]]: we build the same connections in our heads while we deliberately develop them in our slip-box If we practice [[Learning]] not as a pure accumulation of knowledge, but as an attempt to build up a latticework of theories and **mental models** to which information can stick, we enter a virtuous circle where learning facilitates learning. “By [[Learning]], retaining, and building on the retained basics, we are creating a rich **web of associated information**. The more we know, the more information (hooks) we have to connect new information to, the easier we can form **long-term memories**. Learning becomes fun. We have entered a virtuous circle of learning, and it seems as if our long-term [[memory]] capacity and speed are actually growing.” (Sachs 2013, 26) 1. Pay attention to what you want to remember. 2. Properly encode the information you want to keep. (This includes thinking about suitable cues.) 3. Practice recall. (Ibid., 31) ==We [[Learning|learn]] something not only when we connect it to prior knowledge and try to understand its broader implications (**elaboration**), but also when we try to retrieve it at different times (**spacing**) in different contexts (**variation**), ideally with the help of chance (**contextual interference**) and with a deliberate effort (**retrieval**).== The slip-box not only provides us with the opportunity to learn in this proven way, it forces us to do exactly what is recommended just by using it. (Il rischio di creare un automatismo e però di dimenticarsi la ragione per cui è stato creato) We have to **elaborate** on what we read just to be able to write it down and translate it into different contexts. We **retrieve** information from the [[slip-box]] whenever we try to connect new notes with old notes. 🔍 mental models #### 12.5 Use the Slip-Box as a Creativity Machine >[!example] Keyword: Intuition, Comparing “[[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) **Intuition** is not the opposition to rationality and knowledge, it is rather the incorporated, practical side of our intellectual efforts, the sedimented experience on which we build our conscious, explicit knowledge (cf. Ahrens 2014). Steven Johnson, who wrote an insightful book about how people in science and in general come up with genuine new ideas, calls it the “slow hunch.” As a precondition to make use of this **intuition**, he emphasises the importance of experimental spaces where ideas can freely mingle (Johnson 2011). A laboratory with open-minded colleagues can be such a space, much as intellectuals and artists freely discussed ideas in the cafés of old Paris. ==Innovation is not the result of a sudden moment of realization, anyway, but incremental steps toward improvement==. Even groundbreaking paradigm shifts are most often the consequence of many small moves in the right direction instead of one big idea. This is why the search for small differences is key. The neurobiologist James Zull points out that **comparing is our natural form of perception**. We even **compare** when we focus on one thing: “Paying attention does not mean unrelenting attention on one focal point. Our brains evolved to notice details by shifting focus from one area to another, by repeatedly scanning the surroundings. [...] The brain is more likely to notice details when it scans than when it focuses.” (Zull 2002, 142f) #### 12.6 Think Inside the Box >[!example] Keyword: Intuition, Comparing, Abstraction Creative people are better at **recognizing relationships, making associations and connections** and seeing things in an original way—seeing things that others cannot see“ (Andreasen 2014). **Comparing**, differentiating and connecting notes are the basis of good academic [[Writing]], but playing and tinkering with ideas is what leads to insight and exceptional. To be able to play with ideas, we first have to liberate them from their original context by means of **abstraction** and re-specification. **Abstraction** should indeed not be the final goal of thinking, but it is a necessary in-between step to make heterogeneous ideas compatible. We need to abstract from concrete situations every day. Only by **abstraction** and re-specification can we apply ideas in the singular and always different situations in reality (Loewenstein, 2010). Studies on creativity with engineers show that the ability to find not only creative, but functional and working solutions for technical problems is equal to the ability to make **abstractions**. The better an engineer is at abstracting from a specific problem, the better and more pragmatic his solutions will be. **Abstraction** is also the key to analyse and compare concepts, to make analogies and to combine ideas; this is especially true when it comes to interdisciplinary work (Goldstone and Wilensky 2008). The concrete **standardization** of notes in just one format that enables us to literally shuffle them around, to add one idea to multiple contexts and to compare and combine them in a creative way without losing sight of what they truly contain. The real enemy of independent thinking is not an external authority, but our own inertia. ==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.== Our brains just love routines. Before new information prompts our brains to think differently about something, they make the new information fit into the known or let it disappear completely from our perception. 🔍 “The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking”, the mathematicians Edward B. Burger and Michael Starbird collected different strategies to do that (2012). - They emphasise the importance of **feedback loops** and the need to find ways to confront ourselves with our errors, mistakes and misunderstandings. This is a built-in feature of the slip-box. - Another habit of the effective thinkers they highlight is their ability to focus on the main ideas behind the details, to **grasp the gist** of something. Our perception does not follow the order of seeing first and interpreting second. It does both at the same time: We always perceive something as something – our interpretation is instantaneous. We need a trick to see what we don’t see. As we always immediately see a whole picture of something, everything else, including the reinterpretation of it or the detection of missing bits, is a step that follows. The same is true when we read: We don’t see lines on a paper first, then realise that these are words, then use them to build sentences and finally decipher the meaning. We immediately read on the level of **meaningful understanding**. To really **understand** a text is therefore a constant revision of our first interpretation. Rarely does a professionist show any interest in learning from the experience of others. Often, companies don’t even keep track of their own **failed attempts**. 🔍 “The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking,” Oliver Burkeman Manager biographies are a good example: Even though all of them contain some anecdotes about setbacks, these are always embedded in a bigger story about success (failed managers unfortunately rarely write biographies). The same is true in research: It is very good to know what has already proven to not work if we try to come up with new ideas that do work. One possibility to deal with this tendency is to ask counterfactual questions, like “**==what if==**?” (Markman, Lindberg, Kray and Galinsky, 2007). It is easier to learn about the function of money in a society if we wonder how strangers would exchange goods without using money than if we just focus on the obvious problems we have in a society based on money exchange. Sometimes, it is more important to rediscover the problems for which we already have a solution than to think solely about the problems that are present to us. Problems rarely get solved directly, anyway. Most often, the crucial step forward is to redefine the problem in such a way that an already existing solution can be employed. The first question should always be directed towards the question itself: **What kind of answer can you expect from asking a question in this particular way? What is missing?** Taking simple ideas seriously. Sometimes the breakthrough in a scientific process is the discovery of a simple principle behind a seemingly very complicated process. By using the [[slip-box]] on a daily basis, we train these important intellectual skills deliberately: We check if what we understood from a text is really in the text by having our understanding in written form in front of our eyes. We learn to focus on the gist of an idea by restricting ourselves in terms of space. We can make it a habit to always think about what is missing when we write down our own ideas. And we can practice asking good questions when we sort our notes into the slip-box and connect them with other notes. #### 12.7 Facilitate Creativity through Restrictions >[!example] Keyword: Format, Standardization, Structure I highly recommend treating a digital note as if the space were limited. **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. Each note should fit onto the screen and there should be no need of scrolling. [[Literature notes]] are condensed on a note saying, “On page x, it says y,” These **standardizations** make it possible that the technical side of note-taking can become automatic. Not having to think about the organisation. This kind of self-imposed restriction is counterintuitive in a culture where more choice is usually regarded as a good thing and more tools to choose from seen as better than having less at hand. But **not having to make decisions can be quite liberatin**g. Not having to make choices can unleash a lot of potential. A **clear structure** allows us to explore the internal possibilities of something. Even the act of breaking with convention depends on it. 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==**. ### 13 Share Your Insight “Writing itself makes you realise where there are holes in things. I’m never sure what I think until I see what I write.” (Carol Loomis) [[Writing]] is nothing more than the revision of a rough draft, which is nothing more than turning a series of notes into a continuous text. The perspective changes another time: Now, it is not about understanding something in the context of another author’s argument, and it is also not about looking for multiple connections in the slip-box, but about **developing one argument and bringing it into the linearity** of a manuscript. #### 13.1 From Brainstorming to Slip-box-Storming While we want to find topics that are important, interesting and can be dealt with using the material we have available, the brain prioritises ideas that are easily available in the moment. This, obviously, does not equal relevant. **The brain more easily remembers information that it encountered recently, which has emotions attached to it and is lively, concrete or specific**. Ideally, it rhymes as well (cf. Schacter, 2001; Schacter, Chiao and Mitchell, 2003). When it comes to finding good questions, it is therefore not enough to think about it. We have to do something with an idea before we know enough about it to make a good judgement. **We have to work, write, connect, differentiate, complement and elaborate on questions** – but this is what we do when we take smart notes. #### 13.2 From Top Down to Bottom Up Developing topics and questions It seems counterintuitive that we become more open to new ideas the more **familiar** we are with ideas we have already encountered, but historians of science will happily confirm this (Rheinberger 1997). Being intimately **familiar** with something enables us to be playful with it, to modify it. In the beginning that **familiarity** makes it harder to come up with new ideas. We just didn’t know that most of the ideas we had are actually not that innovative. But while the belief in our own ingenuity decreases with expertise, we become more able to actually make a genuine new contribution. #### 13.3 Getting Things Done by Following Your Interests >[!example] Keyword: Motivation, Small tasks, Organize the work It is not surprising that **motivation** is shown to be one of the most important indicators for successful students – next to the feeling of being in control of one’s own learning course. (Balduf 2009) Nothing **motivates** us more than seeing a project we can identify with moving forward, and nothing is more demotivating than being stuck with a project that doesn’t seem to be worth doing. 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. It would be quite sad if we did not change our interests during research. The ability to keep control over our work and change course if necessary is made possible by the fact that the big task of “writing a text” is broken down into **small, concrete tasks**, which allows us practically to do exactly what is needed at a certain time and take the next step from there. “When people experienced a sense of autonomy with regard to the choice, their energy for subsequent tasks was not diminished. An important question that deserved empirical attention concerns the potential for autonomous choice to vitalise or enhance self-regulatory strength for subsequent tasks. (Moller, 2006, 1034) **Organizing the work** so we can steer our projects in the most promising direction not only allows us to stay focused for longer, but also to have more fun – and that is a fact (Gilbert 2006). #### 13.4 Finishing and Review >[!example] Keyword: Structure **==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. This is a setup in which the inevitable by-product of one production line becomes the resource for another, which again produces by-products that can be used in other processes and so on. The process of reading and [[Writing]] inevitably produces a lot of unintended by-products. Not all ideas can fit into the same article, and only a fraction of the information we encounter is useful for one particular project. The projects we work on can be in completely different stages of completion. Some of them might not even have come to our attention. This is advantageous not only because we make progress on the next papers or books while we are still working on the current one, but also because it allows us to switch to other projects whenever we get stuck or bored. #### 13.5 Becoming an Expert by Giving up Planning >[!example] Keyword: Manageable tasks, Feedback loops Be sceptical about planning, especially if it is merely focused on the outcome, not on the actual work and the **steps required to achieve a goal**. While it doesn’t help to imagine oneself the great author of a successful and timely finished paper, it does make a difference if we have a realistic idea about what needs to be done to get there in our minds. We can only learn from our experiences if **feedback** follows shortly afterwards. Disassembling the big challenge of “writing a paper” into **small, manageable tasks** helps to set realistic goals that can be checked on a regular basis. If we instead set out to write, say, three notes on a specific day, review one paragraph we wrote the day before or check all the literature we discovered in an article, we know exactly at the end of the day what we were able to accomplish and can adjust our expectations for the next day. Every kind of work tends to fill the time we set aside for it, like air fills every corner of a room (Parkinson 1957). If we have the finish line in sight, we tend to speed up, as everyone knows who has ever run a marathon. That means that **the most important step is to get started**. **Rituals help, too** (Currey 2013). It is much easier to get started if the next step is as feasible as “writing a note,” “collect what is interesting in this paper” or “turning this series of notes into a paragraph” than if we decide to spend the next days with a vague and illdefined task like “keep working on that overdue paper.” #### 13.6 The Actual Writing Ernest Hemingway was once asked how often he rewrote his first draft. His answer: “It depends. I rewrote the ending of ‘A Farewell to Arms,’ the last page of it, thirty-nine times before I was satisfied.” “Was there some technical problem there? What was it that had stumped you?” the interviewer asked. “**Getting the words right**,” Hemingway replied (Paris Review, 1956). **==The first draft is only the first draft.==** Slavoj Žižek said in an interview that he wouldn’t be able to write a single sentence if he didn’t start by convincing himself he was only writing down some ideas for himself, and that maybe he could turn it into something publishable later. One of the most difficult tasks is to rigorously delete what has no function within an argument – “kill your darlings.” This becomes much easier when you move the questionable passages into another document and tell yourself you might use them later. **For every document I write, I have another called “xy-rest.doc,” and every single time I cut something, I copy it into the other document**, convincing myself that I will later look through it and add it back where it might fit. Of course, it never happens – but it still works. Others who know a thing or two about psychology do the same (cf. Thaler, 2015, 81f). ### 14 Make It a Habit “It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copybooks and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.” (Whitehead) The most reliable predictor of our behaviour in the immediate future is – surprise, surprise – the **intention** to do it. But good intentions don’t last very long, usually. 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. If we manage to establish a **routine** in this first step, it becomes much easier to develop the urge to turn these findings into [[Permanent notes]] and connect them with other notes in the slip-box. It is not so difficult to get used to thinking within an external memory of notes, as the advantages become obvious quite quickly. ## Afterword The [[slip-box]] does not put the learner in the centre. Quite the contrary: It allows the learner to let his or her own thinking become decentralised within a **network of other ideas**. **==[[Learning]], thinking and [[Writing]] should not be about accumulating knowledge, but about becoming a different person with a different way of thinking==**. Change is possible when the solution appears to be simple. ## Bibliography ## Index