A handle is a short, evocative phrase or sentence that triggers you to remember the knowledge in more depth. It’s also a shorthand that can be used to describe that knowledge to other people.
I believe this is an important part of the practice of scalably thinking about more things. Thoughts are ephemeral, so we write them down. But unsorted collections of thoughts quickly lose visibility, so we develop indexing systems. But indexing systems are lossy, imperfect, and go stale easily. To date I do not have a single indexing system that I like and have stuck to over a long period of time. Frames and mental maps change. Creative thinking is simply too fluid and messy to be constrained as such.
The best indexing system is your own memory and stream of consciousness—aim to revisit ideas and concepts in the ‘natural flow’ of your daily work and life. I find that my brain is capable of remembering a surprising quantity of seemingly disparate information, e.g. recalling a paper I’ve read years ago in the flow of a discussion. It’s just that this information is not normally accessible / requires the right context to dredge up.
By intentionally crafting short and meaningful handles for existing knowledge, I think it’s possible to increase the amount of stuff you can be thinking concurrently about many times over. (Note that ‘concurrent’ here doesn’t mean literally pursuing many streams of thoughts at the same time, which is likely impossible. But rather easily switching between different streams of thought on an ad-hoc basis—like a computer processor appearing to handle many tasks ‘concurrently’ despite all operations being sequential)
Crafting good handles also means that your knowledge is more easily communicable to other people, which (I claim) is a large portion of the utility of knowledge.
The best handles often look like important takeaway insights or implications. In the absence of such, object level summaries can be good substitutes
See also: Andy Matuschak’s strategy of writing durable notes.
I second this. But I don’t find I need much of an indexing system. Early on when I got more into personal note taking, I felt a bit guilty for just putting all my notes into a series of docs as if I were filling a journal. Now, looking back on years of notes, I find it easy enough to skim through them and reacquaint myself with their contents, that I don’t miss an external indexing system. More notes > more organized notes, in my case. Others may differ on the trade-off.
In particular, I try to always take notes on academic papers I read that I find valuable, and to cite the paper that inspired the note even if the note goes in a weird different direction. This causes the note to become an index into my readings in a useful way.
Agree! This is also what I was getting at here. I find I don’t need an indexing system, my mind will naturally fish out relevant information, and I can turbocharge this by creating optimal conditions for doing so
More notes > more organized notes
Also agree, and I think this is what I am trying to achieve by capturing thoughts quickly—write down almost everything I think, before it vanishes into aether
Create handles for knowledge.
A handle is a short, evocative phrase or sentence that triggers you to remember the knowledge in more depth. It’s also a shorthand that can be used to describe that knowledge to other people.
I believe this is an important part of the practice of scalably thinking about more things. Thoughts are ephemeral, so we write them down. But unsorted collections of thoughts quickly lose visibility, so we develop indexing systems. But indexing systems are lossy, imperfect, and go stale easily. To date I do not have a single indexing system that I like and have stuck to over a long period of time. Frames and mental maps change. Creative thinking is simply too fluid and messy to be constrained as such.
The best indexing system is your own memory and stream of consciousness—aim to revisit ideas and concepts in the ‘natural flow’ of your daily work and life. I find that my brain is capable of remembering a surprising quantity of seemingly disparate information, e.g. recalling a paper I’ve read years ago in the flow of a discussion. It’s just that this information is not normally accessible / requires the right context to dredge up.
By intentionally crafting short and meaningful handles for existing knowledge, I think it’s possible to increase the amount of stuff you can be thinking concurrently about many times over. (Note that ‘concurrent’ here doesn’t mean literally pursuing many streams of thoughts at the same time, which is likely impossible. But rather easily switching between different streams of thought on an ad-hoc basis—like a computer processor appearing to handle many tasks ‘concurrently’ despite all operations being sequential)
Crafting good handles also means that your knowledge is more easily communicable to other people, which (I claim) is a large portion of the utility of knowledge.
The best handles often look like important takeaway insights or implications. In the absence of such, object level summaries can be good substitutes
See also: Andy Matuschak’s strategy of writing durable notes.
I second this. But I don’t find I need much of an indexing system. Early on when I got more into personal note taking, I felt a bit guilty for just putting all my notes into a series of docs as if I were filling a journal. Now, looking back on years of notes, I find it easy enough to skim through them and reacquaint myself with their contents, that I don’t miss an external indexing system. More notes > more organized notes, in my case. Others may differ on the trade-off. In particular, I try to always take notes on academic papers I read that I find valuable, and to cite the paper that inspired the note even if the note goes in a weird different direction. This causes the note to become an index into my readings in a useful way.
Agree! This is also what I was getting at here. I find I don’t need an indexing system, my mind will naturally fish out relevant information, and I can turbocharge this by creating optimal conditions for doing so
Also agree, and I think this is what I am trying to achieve by capturing thoughts quickly—write down almost everything I think, before it vanishes into aether