0/ Several people read my last tweetstorm and found that it assumed too much context. So here's round two.
1/ Some people take notes. Some people don't. Do you?
2/ The concept of notes isn't especially groovy, sexy, cool, or interesting, unfortunately. Sorry. Maybe it will be after this thread.
3/ I didn't always take notes.
4/ It seemed like a good process for active learning, but I noticed that I didn't always re-read or re-use my notes, and that felt discouraging.
5/ I take a lot of notes these days. I'm taking an online course with Tiago Forte, of @fortelabs, who some have called "the next David Allen." @gtdguy
6/ David Allen, for context, is a productivity thought leader who has impacted many people in the last generation. I grew up reading about his ideas from @ginatrapani and other authors at @lifehacker@hotdogsladies of 43 folders, and more.
7/ Allen recommends capturing your information, especially actionable and reference materials, in a way that ensures that you will "get things done."
8/ It's a great system, one that is easy to start but takes years to master.
9/ I totally recommend getting his book if you need to dramatically level up your skills at getting things done.
10/ Learn more about David Allen before learning about Tiago Forte, because I see Forte's work as an extension of Allen's.
11/ That said, Forte has a course about GTD that's a very, very concise, zero to sixty actionable version. So that's an option.
12/ Sounds salesy, but I don't recommend online courses lightly. I'd never done them before this month.
13/ Anyways. The course I'm taking is called Building A Second Brain. #BASB.
14/ It's about capturing, organizing, and retrieving reference materials, notes, so that they're useful for creative output.
15/ Each of those verbs - capturing, organizing, and retrieving - has a corresponding methodology. Capturing's methodology is Progressive Summarization.
16/ The idea is that, after you take a note, each time you revisit that note, you improve it, adding optional layers.
17/ Layer 1: Take a note.
18/ Layer 2: Bold the best parts.
19/ Layer 3: Highlight the best bolded parts.
20/ Layer 4: Summarize the note.
21/ Layer 5: Remix the note, turning it into a deliverable, such as a tweet, a tweetstorm, or blog post.
22/ Each layer is optional, and you don't do each layer with every note. You do it "just in time," "opportunistically," "as needed."
23/ Why do all this work? When you revisit a note, possibly weeks or months later, it's quick and easy to get a sense of what the note's value.
24/ Like, it takes 30 seconds. Quick. Easy. Suddenly, notes are valuable again.
25/ There are other tools in the course- like P.A.R.A., which tells you where to store those notes, so you'll be sure to find them.
26/ But progressive summarization is the first pillar, and the one that's relevant to what I was talking about.
27/ Specifically, I was talking about a sixth layer, beyond 5, beyond remixing.
28/ What happens when you share a remix of a note - a tweetstorm, a blog post - and someone else reads it, and takes notes?
29/ What if they go through the same process you did, but with your output?
30/ They're coming at it from a different angle. They have a different context, different questions, different goals.
31/ But somehow, your output is important and relevant to them. You have overlapping interests.
32/ What happens if they complete all five stages of progressive summarization? What if they share their remix with you?
33/ With their context, they will produce something new that responds to but is notably not identical to your output.
34/ Similarly, it's also not identical to the input you had. They might not have even read what you were taking notes on.
35/ Let's call this sixth layer "feedback", thanks @EvanSamek: when others go through the same process with your output.
36/ Again, if you can access their output, which responds to your output, you can learn from them and their context.
37/ No reason it needs to stop there. It's a conversation, a feedback loop.
38/ The really interesting piece is, what if you look at this from the top, the outside?
39/ What does this mean for organizations and societies?
40/ How does knowledge flow between individuals over time?
41/ How does that process change if those individuals use this process?
42/ Again, what if we aren't individual selves, but a network of connections?
43/ How can we help each other, lift each other up, use knowledge to grow collectively?
44/ Put another way, in context, now that I've explained this more clearly, (I hope), how will you employ this knowledge?
45/ What notes are you taking? What will you tweet back?
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Tweetstorms or threaded tweets have become a popular way to share and distribute ideas both with and beyond the character constraints (formerly 140, now 280). ✍️
As Tiago Forte @fortelabs has pointed out, you can "dial down the scope" of writing by writing a tweetstorm, receiving feedback, and then adapting into a blog post, or some other, larger deliverable. 🎛️
Tweetstorms occupy a space and size between a tweet and a blog post.
However, tweetstorms are public. You might not be ready to share your thoughts with a public audience. 😳
Usually, people learn languages + tools to start or further a career as a programmer, engineer, etc. Otherwise, people typically stick to what is easily available / understandable to them (e.g., smartphone apps, consumer applications and OS's, typically no programming).
Both these options are fine, but I don't think there needs to be a divide between technologists and non-technologists, programmers and non-programmers. Time will blur and destroy this divide, like it did with previous soft technologies writing + money (breakingsmart.com/en/season-1/a-…).
I'm not taking either path right now. Learning to use technologies like shells, text editors, and programming languages has been pleasurable and useful for me. I don't want to focus or define my career around them, though.
In 2017, I played a lot of board games in person, and online, with @boardgamearena. My favorites: Codenames, Noir, Outlaws, Secret Moon, Pandemic (especially Legacy), Quantum, + an old favorite, chess.
I used to think playing games was: wasted time, guilty pleasure. Now I let myself enjoy them, + I also think there are benefits. @soryuforall says sports are life minus everything important. You can mess up + experiment. Even if you lose, you learn. Same is true w/ games.
The more board games you’ve played, the faster you are at picking them up. People who don't play a lot of games are slow to learn new games, people who do are surprisingly quick.
1/ I'm toying with the idea of a final stage of Progressive Summarization. #BASB
2/ Currently, the final stage is to incorporate what you've learned from your notes into a "remixed" deliverable of some kind - such as a tweet, a blog post, or a book.
3/ Of course, that's not really final within your own PKM, because the deliverable and the materials that you used to create it circulate back into your PARA notebooks.
1/ #Anki#srs has a concept of leeches: "cards that you keep on forgetting. Because they require so many reviews, they take up a lot more of your time than other cards." apps.ankiweb.net/docs/manual.ht…
2/ There are also leeches in your task manager: tasks that you keep on rescheduling / procrastinating.
3/ The Anki manual suggests a few options for dealing with #Anki leeches: prioritizing one card rather than another (in the case of interference); deleting the leech entirely; or changing the presentation of the card / making a new card.