How to Take Note Part 2

The Stack

(If you are following this series but using a regular journal rather than notecards you can skip this installment.)

If you choose to go the 6x4 route, rather than a bound paper journal, it won’t be long before you discover the Stack. 

The Stack is the most dynamic and magical part of the smart note toolbox. We will devote much time to this tesseract of potentiality and potency later. For the gist, you just need to focus on two things. 

First, don’t be overwhelmed when it overwhelms you.

It won’t take more that 15-20 notecards before you will have a Stack. Because you are normal, the “Fog of Pile” (more on that later) will create the urge to organize these notes into some semblance of meaning and structure. (More on the Fog of Pile later, but for now just think of that combination of piles and folders on your desk or desktop that is supposed to be so organized and hyperlinked, but which feels like a giant ball of anxiety.) Organizing your Stack is both fun and easy, especially with a large flat surface (a “Battlefield) where you can spread all the information out in front of you, creating smaller, more meaningful Stack(s) of related info.

But then what? Which should come first? My grocery list or my current purpose in life? This is both the trap and the beauty: it doesn’t matter. Pick the order that feels best right now. You not only can, not only should, but you will change the order later. 

This will go against every intuition you’ve trained yourself to assume through both the digital and bound-journal information work you’ve done in the past. Creating skeletons and trees and webs of ordered information that you intend to keep all nice and tidy once and for all builds up the consuming expectation that if you don’t box it all up tight and right, then later it won’t be any good. You might not be able to find it when you need it. You won’t have the right things in the right order at the right time.

This is a lie. 

All your valiant efforts at file systems have never helped you avoid losing things. It’s only buried the things deeper and compounded the Fog of Pile. In the meantime, the things you do remember to search out and find are not findable because of the super-control-structure you built but in spite of it. You know where they are because you need them, because you knew you would need them, and because the bread-crumb trail of needing them dug a tunnel in your mind, a memory, that triggered you to draw you back to it in due time.

The same is true of the Stack. Once you learn to trust it, and trust yourself to navigate it, there are few things more efficient than finding the note you want in a Stack of cards, whether its fifty or five hundred. If you know what you’re looking for, rifling through even a massive Stack takes only a few moments. The only exception to this is when you get foolish enough to start building structures for storage outside the Stack. Once you start hiding your information from yourself, you are eventually bound to lose some of it. 

We will take this on more directly when the time comes. This is just the gist. So for the moment, don’t worry about your Stack getting bigger. Don’t try to create an index or a table of contents or a super-framework for everything. Focus instead on legible note-taking, the freedom to change the order of your cards at leisure, and the pleasure that comes when you go looking for one thing, and then find and remember something even better.

Second, find something you love as a day carry.

You will eventually want a space at your desk designated to Stack engagement (again, a “Battlefield”). But it will always be best to also have some sort of cover to wrap your unbound journal in for transport and reference. 

In my experimenting, I tried everything from cigar boxes to the inside back cover of my pocket-sized Bible from Paul’s Leather Co. In the end, I’ve settled primarily on a leather journal with hard inset covers that I ripped the paper out of and added hairbands to create a clip-board effect. I always keep 20-50 blank 6x4’s inside, and I regularly export the contents into the area on my desktop I have devoted to the Stack. When I want to take information with me, a few moments at the desktop allows me to review and import all the relevant data for the upcoming events or meetings. 

I’ve added a few other nuances and secondary carry spaces, but before you try to jump into the deep end if the tesseract concept, I recommend just finding an old hardcover book that you love to touch. A shiny leather journal from the store will work too. Just be ready to do the unthinkable: with a sharp tool, slice the paper inseam that holds the book to the cover. Remove the contents in their entirety and throw them away (or use them to paper-mâché the inside of a desk drawer, or a wall, or whatever your imagination desires.) Make sure you use a book you don’t plan to read again. Some types of day planners or portfolios will work as well. I’ve found that old hymnals work great. At last, perhaps pillage your daughter’s bathroom drawer for some elastic headbands, or buy a bag of them at the store, and use it like a strap to hold the cover snuggly together. 

Voila! It might be pretty, or it might not. What matters is that it is yours. Like the rest of your Stack, it will grow and change with you. That’s the beauty of it. With a store of blank notecards inside, you are ready to rock the gist of the smart note secret. You are ready to harness the power of paper. You are about the experience the 10x value of tesseract information theory. You are going to cut through that lingering resistance of the Fog of Pile and start doing the things you know you want to do.

Ready, Set, Smart

Loving your tools is the first step in disciplining yourself to love the things you create with them. So:

1. Get a pen you adore.

2. Get some paper you like to touch.

3. Consider writing in all caps, or, at least, experiment with handwriting you can learn to love.

4. If you’re using 6x4s, find, buy or build a day carry for your Stack.

To be continued…

Artwork