One of my biggest stumbling blocks when it comes to writing and researching is finding the perfect system. Recently I have been struggling with this regarding reading notes and commonplaces, both of which I use in research. Reading notes are exactly as they sound: notes on particular sources I take as or after I read. Commonplaces are quotes I take and collate from those sources which I think are broadly representative or interesting or that I would like to use in a future piece.
But for the life of me, I cannot find a satisfactory system. I am pulled between the speed, mobility, and permanence of digital, and the slowness, aesthetic, and simplicity of physical. There are many factors that go into this personal paroxysm, but most are not worth relating, at least not now. The important thing is that I am in flux without a stable system to actually get things done.
It’s helpful to remind myself that, in the grand scheme of things, I am not that special. Millions of people have lived and died before me using much simpler tools than are available to me, and were likely often more effective. Ignoring all the debate over whether physical media are “better” for note-taking, one undeniable feature is that they are radically simple, and simplicity with constraints is often the antidote to listlessness. So why do I obsess so much over my tool? Why do I not just use a plain notebook?
I think the biggest thing preventing me from using simpler methods is the fear of forgetting, or of not being able to access my notes. This is erroneous and irrational in at least two ways.
First, I don’t think I actually reference the notes I do have stored in my note system on my computer with full-text search and tags etc. that often. I have tens of thousands of words written down across text files that I haven’t seen in years, and probably never will again. Ideas and quotes and reflections are lost under subdirectories or headings, almost impossible to find. Despite lacking full-text search or tagging or any fancy features, notebooks, as physical artifacts, have a certain geographic and mnemonic power. Even if I cannot remember the exact content or location of what I wrote down, I can often picture the page in my mind and flip to it without much friction. This does degrade over time—but so does finding digital notes.
Second, I think this fear belies the true purpose of these tools. They are not primarily for reference or collection, but for thinking and memory. My reading notes are not for creating a library catalog, but for helping me understand and work through arguments and ideas. My commonplaces are not for constructing a database or feeding the goodreads.com beast, but for marking certain sections as important and connecting ideas from across my reading. In both cases, the tools should be of benefit to me even if the material product is destroyed. The real aim is not the elaboration of text, but the education of the soul.
I have come to realize that everything is ephemeral. All is vanity. Ideas do not last much longer than a day—maybe sometimes two or three—even if you write them down. Those notes will be lost in a couple weeks, and unless you put some significant thought and time into them, you will not remember how to find them. Even then, the context of the written word is less than of the living mind.
What to do then? You must deal with ideas, you must get them out, as they come each day. You must write incrementally. More than that, you must embed them in context-rich common places. You cannot live a deferred life. Deal with what you can today and resign the rest to oblivion, or, if it is truly important, trust it will come back to you at the right time. You can help this by putting things in contexts you will want to find them in in the future (the aforementioned common places, which could be the notes for a future essay, or an index card in a book). Commonplaces (one word) are best used or expanded upon when you first read them and understand their place in the lattice of your thought, and its context. Similarly for reading notes: if you put it off more than a few days, you will likely never get back to it. Better to be honest and either do it right now or remove it from your list of obligations.
As far as picking a system to actually get things done with, simplicity is the key: a system should only be as complex as it needs to be. I am tempted to make every system I make totalizing, accounting for every contingency and hypothetical situation. I must push back against that impulse. So, for the next two months, I am going to try using one notebook for each: one for commonplaces and one for reading notes. Each will be arranged flatly in chronological order. To make things easier for future me, I can log each entry in the index in the front of the notebook. If a certain theme or connection arises between entries, I can write down a few words about it. This is about as simple a system as I can think of. It also has the benefit of being explicitly ephemeral. Both notebooks will show a timeline of my thoughts and what I considered important. And, being so simple, it allows me to focus entirely on the actual work of understanding and creating.
Of course, if it is expedient, I may transfer such notes to my digital system; the point is to have a stable bedrock practice upon which to build everything else.
Assuming I remember, I will check in in November.
