I find it useful to start with a clear prompt (e.g. ‘what if X’, ‘what does Y mean for Z’, or whatever my brain cooks up in the moment) and let my mind wander around for a bit while I transcribe my stream of consciousness. After a while (e.g. when i get bored) I look back at what I’ve written, edit / reorganise a little, try to assign some handle, and save it.
That is helpful, thank you.
I think you shouldn’t feel chained to your past notes? If certain thoughts resonate with you, you’ll naturally keep thinking about them.
This doesn’t match up with my experience. For example, I have hundreds, HUNDREDS of film ideas. And sometimes I’ll be looking through and be surprised by how good one was—as in I think “I’d actually like to see that film but I don’t remember writing this”. But they are all horrendously impractical in terms of resources. I don’t really have a reliable method of going through and managing 100s of film ideas, and need a system for evaluating them. Reviewing weekly seems good for new notes, but what about old notes from years ago?
That’s probably two separate problems, the point I’m trying to make is that even non-film ideas, I have a lot of notes that just sit in documents unvisted and unused. Is there any way to resurrect them, or at least stop adding more notes to the pile awaiting a similar fate? Weekly Review doesn’t seem enough because not enough changes in a week that an idea on Monday suddenly becomes actionable on Sunday.
Not all my notes pertain to film ideas, but this is perhaps the best kept, most organized and complete note system I have hence why I mention it.
IMO it’s better to let go of the idea that there’s some ‘perfect’ way of doing it. Everyone’s way of doing it is probably different, Just do it, observe what works, do more of that. And you’ll get better.
Yeah but nothing is working for me, forget a perfect model, a working model would be nice. A “good enough” model would be nice.
HUNDREDS of film ideas. And sometimes I’ll be looking through and be surprised by how good one was—as in I think “I’d actually like to see that film but I don’t remember writing this”.
Note that I think some amount of this is inevitable, and I think aiming for 100% retention is impractical (and also not necessary). If you try to do it you’ll probably spend more time optimising your knowledge system than actually… doing stuff with the knowledge.
It’s also possible you could benefit from writing better handles. I guess for film, good handles could look like a compelling title, or some motivating theme / question you wanted to explore in the film. Basically, ‘what makes the film good?’ Why did it resonate with you when you re-read it? That’ll probably tell you how to give a handle. Also, you can have multiple handles. The more ways you can reframe something to yourself the more likely you are to have one of the framings pull you back later.
Thanks for preserving with my questions and trying to help me find an implementation. I’m going to try and reverse engineer my current approach to handles.
Oh of course, 100% retention is impossible. As ridiculous and arbitrary as it is, I’m using Sturgeon’s law as a guide for now.
That is helpful, thank you.
This doesn’t match up with my experience. For example, I have hundreds, HUNDREDS of film ideas. And sometimes I’ll be looking through and be surprised by how good one was—as in I think “I’d actually like to see that film but I don’t remember writing this”. But they are all horrendously impractical in terms of resources. I don’t really have a reliable method of going through and managing 100s of film ideas, and need a system for evaluating them. Reviewing weekly seems good for new notes, but what about old notes from years ago?
That’s probably two separate problems, the point I’m trying to make is that even non-film ideas, I have a lot of notes that just sit in documents unvisted and unused. Is there any way to resurrect them, or at least stop adding more notes to the pile awaiting a similar fate? Weekly Review doesn’t seem enough because not enough changes in a week that an idea on Monday suddenly becomes actionable on Sunday.
Not all my notes pertain to film ideas, but this is perhaps the best kept, most organized and complete note system I have hence why I mention it.
Yeah but nothing is working for me, forget a perfect model, a working model would be nice. A “good enough” model would be nice.
Note that I think some amount of this is inevitable, and I think aiming for 100% retention is impractical (and also not necessary). If you try to do it you’ll probably spend more time optimising your knowledge system than actually… doing stuff with the knowledge.
It’s also possible you could benefit from writing better handles. I guess for film, good handles could look like a compelling title, or some motivating theme / question you wanted to explore in the film. Basically, ‘what makes the film good?’ Why did it resonate with you when you re-read it? That’ll probably tell you how to give a handle. Also, you can have multiple handles. The more ways you can reframe something to yourself the more likely you are to have one of the framings pull you back later.
Thanks for preserving with my questions and trying to help me find an implementation. I’m going to try and reverse engineer my current approach to handles.
Oh of course, 100% retention is impossible. As ridiculous and arbitrary as it is, I’m using Sturgeon’s law as a guide for now.