Yeah. In my opinion, an ideal system should somehow take into account that some notes are old, unreviewed, etc., and give those notes lower priority, e.g. they would be displayed in a gray color and come later in search results. So they mostly wouldn’t bother you, unless you find them by a hyperlink, or you use the right keywords in search.
Oh cool. You got me thinking and I might walk-back from what i said earlier—maybe individual notes are a burden? For example, let’s say I’m working on a title sequence for a sitcom, specifically it’s a Dark Comedy about an Oncologist. And I need to make some decisions about what style, what content etc. etc.. So I type “title sequence” or “opening credits” into my note taking system and it comes up with the example from my OP:
“Castle Bryant Johnston are the firm that did the opening titles of Cheers”
Imagine that’s the note in full. And it’s top of the heap. So I go to youtube and watch the opening titles of Cheers, and other television shows the firm worked on. (Adding further to the burden: maybe I make some more notes, or observations. Notes create notes—when does it end?)
But it still doesn’t actually resolve the decision: what this Dark Comedy about an Oncologist title sequence should be?
See, all the unreviewed old, low priority notes could be greyed out. But does it solve the problem, does make the decision any faster? No. that defeats the entire purpose of writing the note, because a note is work that is speculating on a payoff. Too many of these (as is the case with me) and the whole pattern is useless.
Through having written all this out in a reply, it seems to me the solution is simply: I should instead speculate on why they opted for historical photographs rather than write the factoid- i.e. the note should speculate on what was the reasoning behind that choice. Producing a note more like:
Castle Bryant and Johnston probably opted to make the opening titles of Cheers with static, historical photographs, which serves as a macrocosm for the lives of the main cast, who are stuck in a routine of coming to the bar—Sam in particularly clinging to former glories
And even better note, I would make observations from other Castle Bryant and Johnston title sequences and speculate on why they opted for the creative decisions they did—before I commit the note to my file!
The action and location, around the table of Roseanne shows the family dynamics literally around the Matriarch like a working class Queen’s court...blah blah blah while the single unbroken camera shot produces a feeling of… rah rah rah
I think this is better because if I make these observations at the time I write the note, rather than when I recall the note, I’ve shifted the work from my future-self to the past, and it provide heuristics or ways to think about the Oncologist Sitcom decision (or other, similar, decisions!).
So individual notes can be a burden if they don’t provide readymade answers. The bottleneck isn’t searching or recall for relevance—if the notes are too spartan they aren’t useful even if they are relevant. The issue is providing ways of making decisions and doing things well: and one way to speed up the process is by front-loading speculating on why a decision or action was taken. Rather than taking a spartan note.
Associations are fine—but what’s more important (in my view) is heuristics, rules, and techniques that are immediately applicable.
Oh cool. You got me thinking and I might walk-back from what i said earlier—maybe individual notes are a burden? For example, let’s say I’m working on a title sequence for a sitcom, specifically it’s a Dark Comedy about an Oncologist. And I need to make some decisions about what style, what content etc. etc.. So I type “title sequence” or “opening credits” into my note taking system and it comes up with the example from my OP:
Imagine that’s the note in full. And it’s top of the heap. So I go to youtube and watch the opening titles of Cheers, and other television shows the firm worked on. (Adding further to the burden: maybe I make some more notes, or observations. Notes create notes—when does it end?)
But it still doesn’t actually resolve the decision: what this Dark Comedy about an Oncologist title sequence should be?
See, all the unreviewed old, low priority notes could be greyed out. But does it solve the problem, does make the decision any faster? No. that defeats the entire purpose of writing the note, because a note is work that is speculating on a payoff. Too many of these (as is the case with me) and the whole pattern is useless.
Through having written all this out in a reply, it seems to me the solution is simply: I should instead speculate on why they opted for historical photographs rather than write the factoid- i.e. the note should speculate on what was the reasoning behind that choice. Producing a note more like:
And even better note, I would make observations from other Castle Bryant and Johnston title sequences and speculate on why they opted for the creative decisions they did—before I commit the note to my file!
I think this is better because if I make these observations at the time I write the note, rather than when I recall the note, I’ve shifted the work from my future-self to the past, and it provide heuristics or ways to think about the Oncologist Sitcom decision (or other, similar, decisions!).
So individual notes can be a burden if they don’t provide readymade answers. The bottleneck isn’t searching or recall for relevance—if the notes are too spartan they aren’t useful even if they are relevant. The issue is providing ways of making decisions and doing things well: and one way to speed up the process is by front-loading speculating on why a decision or action was taken. Rather than taking a spartan note.
Associations are fine—but what’s more important (in my view) is heuristics, rules, and techniques that are immediately applicable.