The Column
Motto: A Place for Every Datum, and Every Datum in its Place
Last Column I briefly mentioned a blog I found called “Minding the Borderlands”. That site, in addition to its value as a primary resource, was a valuable kicking off point for expanded research into some topics I’m going to write about today. I read the book “Getting Things Done”. I read about a notetaking system called the “slip-box method”, or “Zettelkasten” (it’s German). I’m thinking about lot the information that we come across in life, how I’ve been managing it, and how I may want to tweak or further define those practices. Some of those tweaks may have implications to this blog.
For example, I’ve been tagging these posts all wrong. My entire approach to tagging was backwards. Tagging and sorting are not the same thing. I read a wonderful article about why tagging against a topic is ultimately much less useful than tagging against and object. The Labels (Bloggers nomenclature for tags) I’ve been applying to these posts have been woefully broad. They don’t really help you pull together related material. Case in point, “thoughts” is one of them. Why would a Column ever NOT be tagged with “thoughts”? What good does clicking “thoughts” do? I don’t think I’m going to change my ways for the purposes of this blog, but it influenced my notetaking system greatly.
This post has been roughly 30 days coming, and originally I was going to write about the differences between Data and Information, and Information and Knowledge. I was going to do some sweet Venn Diagramming of my previously-existing systems and how they map to those concepts… but that became a whole thing of its own and frankly I’d rather keep this shortish. I’m announcing here the formulation of my new 2nd webpage:
http://www.gillespedia.com
The purpose of Gillespedia is distinct from the Column in two main ways.
1. The Column is very much about and relating to me and my life. Gillespedia (despite the name) will have nothing to do with me as a person.
2. The Column is somewhat meant to function as a time capsule/journal/whatever. These posts are fleeting. Their content is ephemeral. I see Gillespedia entries as being timeless.
Gillespedia will be where I put content like my “Counting and Math” post from a while back. The whole “I’m thinking about writing a book” might just be this instead. Who knows. The future is full of possibilities (and burritos, but that’s a different story).
Here’s some slides I made in PowerPoint. If you don’t prefer to link out to Google Drive, here’s some screenshots that may or may not be legible.
Immediately after finishing that PowerPoint (literally that same day) I discovered the notetaking/wiki-making/workspacing application “Notion”, and it threw everything up in the air again. It’s freaking sweet and I could write an entire Blog about it and how it could be the future of everything. Literally I’ve thought about moving everything in there, from my Life Tracker to this Blog. Gillespedia content right now lives inside of notion.
I probably will write about it. But now now. Now bed.
Top 5: Things I Thought about All Month
5. Gillespedia, and what I want to do with it.
4. My continued frustration with Google for their scatterbrained approach to things. Google Assistant’s “to do” list exists separately from Google Keep’s to-do possibilities, which exists separately from Google Tasks.
3. Notetaking (especially Markdown) and to-do applications, along with Knowledge Management Systems. Literally looked into SlackEdit, Simple Markdown Editor, Bear, Todoist, Things 3, Evernote, Trello, Notion, Outlook, Google Tasks, Google Keep, Google Calendar, IFTTT, and a couple of other applications.
2. Expanding and improving my Life Tracking System to include information from If This Then That (which I am taking much better advantage of now).
1. “Getting Things Done” by David Allen. I read it. It’s good. I also read “The Power of Habit” and “Bored and Brilliant” and started a couple other books I wound up returning to the library after a couple hours.
Quote:
“Dude, I never need to stop eating hot dogs. Those are the only two things I do. I eat hot dogs and look at my phone. Now I can just both constantly.”
- Adam Knox -