
How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought you Think (2003) - aharrison
http://speakeasy.org/~lion/nb/
======
Udo
I don't know how to say this delicately, so I won't: I'm having trouble
distinguishing this book from the disjointed ramblings of a mad man. The
RANDOM capitalization of VERY IMPORTANT WORDS! combined with the "snake-oil
sales pitch" style of writing doesn't do this work any favors, but it's really
the content where this comes up short. Apart from the premise of mapping every
thought, no viable strategy is offered achieve this.

What's the solution here? After a few years you end up with huge boxes full of
notes, some of which have been appended over and over? Mind maps rarely scale
when done with software, paper note-taking just makes it all the more
hopeless.

And really, why be so obsessive about conserving every little thought like
your stream of consciousness holds some big revelation at the end? That's not
how it works. Forgetting and scrapping things is an important part of
organizing the mind and the output it produces. On a meta level, this book
illustrates very well what happens if that doesn't work.

If we're building a system with the goal of swapping out thoughts and
memories, it really has to augment the brain in some fashion. Refining
relations between concepts is something the brain is already good at, it would
make more sense to help it along in areas where the brain sucks: keeping lists
and details. Seriously, open an Evernote account or something and don't worry
too much about organization and preservation.

I'm really sorry if this sounds mean, it's not supposed to.

~~~
brd
I'm actually happy to see this comment because it means I don't have to make
it. I appreciate the effort put into this but I don't think its going to be a
helpful resource.

I clicked expecting a well thought out strategy for organizing concept maps on
a large scale but instead this is some individuals idea on how best to
organize their own thoughts. In fact, not once in the entire document is the
term "concept map" even used which makes me think that this person has spent
zero time researching established techniques on the subject.

Concept maps are great. I've used them in the past and wish I could get in the
habit of maintaining them more often. If you're interested in capturing and
organizing your own thoughts, I'd highly recommend you look into concept maps.
This on the other hand, I'm not sure what this is and I certainly wouldn't
recommend you follow it.

~~~
nutate
When I see a management blog, lifehacking, quantified self post, I usually see
nothing more than a post like this hiding behind a veneer of fancier web
design, nice photos and better writing technique.

[edit] PS this was not a comment on the validity of the ideas presented, just
a comment on the general craziness of individual bloggers.

------
kamaal
Thanks for posting this.

Maps make amazing summarization/summary capturing tools. I used to unknowingly
use them during my college days. One of the main reasons why I spent 1/10th
the time yet scored the same as my classmates was maps. I would practically
convert each chapter into a map, and merely crawling though a map was more
than sufficient for any kind of a revision.

In our industry maps make wonderful testing tools. Lets say you want to test
X, write down a map of each functionality, then write down further nodes,
which basically is what could possible go wrong or right with each node(Each
of this becomes a separate node). For each node you expand, stress the node
bring out more test nodes until you can't stress any node anymore.

The resultant map will be nearly the best test cases you can come up with.

Now do this before you start coding, and what you will get is all the
scenarios you need to handle to make the code bug free.

Additional tip, avoid using map software. Best tools for this kind of work are
paper/pen or whiteboard/marker.

I've been using this strategy to write C code for embedded systems. And it
works like a charm.

~~~
jobigoud
What makes paper/whiteboard so advantageous ? (Honest question, I'm using
hierarchical TOC at the moment) considering it's much harder to edit, and
slower to get thoughts out compared to typing ? (Note that I've only started
reading the link, it may be addressed further down, if so, sorry).

~~~
kamaal
>>What makes paper/whiteboard so advantageous ?

This is a very important question. Drawing Maps, especially for testing
purposes depends on dumping things from your brain to paper as they come to
you. The problem with Map creation software is Mouse and Keyboard, take time
to draw a circle(Or at best position a circle), and write things inside the
circle. Brain doesn't work in get-idea->hibernate-until-recorded->proceed
mode. Our brains pretty much reach an idea, and then proceed towards the
other. For that you need a quickly interacting tool. Pen/Paper,
Whitboard/Marker is the best tool at this time for that kind of a purpose.

Another advantage of White board is the size. Many software teams gather
create a map on a big white board, take a photograph and mail the team.

Also stuff like using Pen/Paper has separate advantages. Like putting in quick
note points, or a diagram etc.

~~~
jessedhillon
Have you tried FreeMind? The interface is quite good -- none of this circle
drawing stuff you point out.

~~~
jjsz
I use Wisdomap. One level about Mind42 but I can't collapse parents. I use it
to make outlines. Click text mode then manually add the format after
exporting. It's a pain. Does Freemind export formats in HTML?

~~~
jessedhillon
It can export your mind map as a set of nested lists.

~~~
derrida
If you use Org-Mode in Emacs, you can also export to Freemind (C-c C-e m)

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jacquesm
That's very interesting. I foresee a problem with capacity. If you keep
everything around eventually you won't be able to move anymore. I'm so happy
that I'm beginning to forget some of the stuff from my childhood, to keep
carrying that along forever seems like a huge weight. Forgetting is just like
remembering: a blessing and a curse at the same time. It would be really nice
if our minds could actively forget something (like a file delete on a file
system), right now it seems to be mostly governed by some caching rule where
the last stage of the cache is /dev/null.

By committing it all to paper (and presumably, by re-reading it) you fire up
all those neurons periodically which will lead to you thwarting the garbage
collection process. As a consequence eventually you'll either run out of room
or possibly end up with mental issues (inability to acquire new stuff or
inability to focus due the large number of associations running out from each
thought you have).

There is a cost associated with this map making, still, I'm very much tempted
to try it to see what the positive effects are.

~~~
arh68
>inability to acquire new stuff or inability to focus due the large number of
associations running out from each thought you have

It's exactly this. In the active mind ( _hyper_ active, perhaps), the dataset
is ever increasing and the memory banks are thrashing. On the best days, the
cache is very deep. You never really know how deep the cache goes, though, so
what might be the in L3 one day silently becomes /dev/null. This is a problem.
(It's also, as you point out, a blessing)

A permanent store is the solution, but the brute force ( _write everything
down_ ) doesn't immediately solve the issue. There is no metadata in writing,
so searching through papers involves full-text O(ludicrous) kind of searches.
Every permanent store needs an index to be useful. It looks like the author
has developed an extensive, coherent(?) way to colocate and index written
information.

Considering how slowly most people can write, I'd be very curious to see how
good mapping software could be used with ~300wpm stenographer-paced typing
(Plover). Typing as fast as I can think into a searchable, sortable,
arbitrarily small/large/nested/rearrangable/duplicable/etc medium is
intriguing, to say the least.

EDIT: One more thing. The 'immobilization' that some ridicule is inherent in
the medium: ink on paper. A written page is immutable and cannot show a diff.
This is a bit like Purely Functional Data Structures. The 'structure' is at
best just a single page, rewritten fairly quickly. As the ideas grow, sheet by
sheet, editing a single page requires rebuilding the now-12-page idea. This is
refactoring with pen & paper.

The only way to be 'mobile' is to either not write it down in the first place
or to archive and never look at again. You're right in that rehashing old
ideas thwarts gc: it's like burning an image into your screen, right into the
phosphorus.

------
andrelaszlo
>I wrote a book on a notekeeping system: How to make a complete map of every
thought you think.

>My notekeeping system has since dramatically changed, and is now, primarily,
a simple chronology with some discipline connected to it.

From the author's site.

~~~
jobigoud
Thanks for pointing this. Notekeeping is a very personnal process anyway. In
my opinion he gave up on recording _every_ thoughts because the software
wasn't up to par with his specific structuration technique. (I do think that
almost every one will have a different way to structure his external mind so
that it is useful for him/her, generalized software will be frustrating).

I do record almost all my thinking. I use a very simple software called "the
guide" (very lightweight outliner) and also use a mix of chronology and
concept maps (basically mapping by concepts until the leaves, where each
entry/page is stamped with date).

There was interesting ideas in the book (but it does look like a sample from a
notebook :-)). I'll definitely take something out of it, starting with an
attempt at collating my dozen of files into a global system.

------
alistair3408
What should have been on his todo list: turn off caps lock

------
ciex
This is an interesting thought about the disadvantages of software text
editors:

"A long time ago, I stored all of my thoughts in a computer text file. It was
actually an AWESOME system. The computer has so many advantages that the paper
world doesn't. [...]

For all this awesomeness in the computer, you are unconsciously pulled into a
problem:

ALL OF YOUR TEXT looks EXACTLY THE SAME.[...]

YES, YES! I CAN HEAR YOU COMPUTER-PEOPLE'S COMPLAINING. ``But you can use
FONTS!'' But you can make it Bold! But you can make it Italics! yes! Yes! YES!
I know it! You CAN do all those things.

But that doesn't make it FAST. In keeping notes, you don't want to constantly
be dicking around with your UI. You want to be able to JUST WRITE.[...]

So, by contrasting with the computer, I have described the kinds of things you
want to concentrate on in your notebook. USE DIAGRAMS EVERYWHERE. They are FAR
better than coercive linear text. And USE VARIABLE WRITING STYLES. Write
sloppy, write neat, and everything in between. It communicates to you. Use
shorthand and abbreviation. Know Gregg's script? Use that when it suits you."

In general I feel that this whole text/book could use a lot of editing. It's
intentional of course, as the author says himself he just spits out the text
without going back. Still, at a length of >100 pages it is frustrating. Thank
you anyway for posting, it is very inspiring!

------
babaenciel
maybe an image of what the notebook looks like will be very helpful

------
skmurphy
I remember reading this when he first posted and finding quite a few good
insights, some expressed a little idiosyncratically but I think that's in the
nature of people doing original thinking. It's stream of consciousness but
that fits with his goal to capture and curate his thoughts. The section that
begins

    
    
       Here's a Speed List: "Electronic Collaboration" 
    

in chapter 6 Intra-Subject Architecture (see
[http://speakeasy.org/~lion/nb/html/doc007.html](http://speakeasy.org/~lion/nb/html/doc007.html)
) contains good insights into how to leverage email, wikis, and mindmaps.

------
tucson
A result example would be nice.

------
reginaldjcooper
I've seen this one before and it looks interesting; but I've got a good enough
system of notes. What I'd really like to do is keep a engineer's notebook
about my software and record things I tested, what I thought, and the results,
but I don't quite know where to start or what sort of system would work well
for me. I guess I should be A/B testing that.

------
joshdance
A man's thoughts are his own. How he choses to store or recall them is also
his own. There is no one size fits all.

~~~
jobigoud
I firmly believe this as well.

Which led me to think that in the mid term future, there will be two kinds of
people, those that can program the notekeeping software of their dreams, and
those that will have to rely on one written by someone else and make their
process fit in. (+ those that don't see the benefits or think they can just
rely on their unaugmented brain to store/structure their ideas.)

Maybe in a more distant future, when the notekeeping is integrated in the
brain, everybody will be happy.

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untothebreach
Every time I read this I think, "wow that seems like a lot of work." I wonder
if the benefits are worth it?

------
lifebeyondfife
_"...I think you'll overlook it's obvious flaws..."_

Incorrect apostrophe, Aaaaaaargh!

~~~
untothebreach
just pretend it's a joke about obvious flaws...

------
leephillips
I haven't looked at the book yet, but there is an obvious problem here with
running out of stack space....unless you have some way of avoiding thinking
about your note taking while you do it.

~~~
jobigoud
You just have a specific space where you put your notes about notekeeping.

While you take notes you don't think about it, just like when you think you
don't think about it. (Taking thoughts notes is just like thinking out loud
really, just it's searchable and can be structured).

------
JackMorgan
I want to know how to do this with org-mode and freemind.

