Abbreviations: a discipline itself
A very common mistake in my note taking was (and still sometimes is) that I unconsciously intended to be “understandable” to others. There always seemed to be a sort of imaginary reader above my shoulder to whom I tried to please. I guess that is an unavoidable consequence of the nature of language and the way we are educated about it. Language, by definition, means communication, so, unconsciously, there is always this invisible “partner” we intend to satisfy, this acceptable conduct we try to fulfill.
In fact, it is true that language always means communication, but note taking is a very particular case in which the “other” is as close as possible; the “other” is yourself in half an hour or a couple of weeks. That extra proximity guarantees a more effective communication, and you can take advantage of that to skip steps. I’m not defending here being deliberately obscure to others, but to invent your own “ego language”, clear or obscure to others, whatever works for you, loosing the straps of language as much as you need to.
Routine tasks, for instance, are a great opportunity to exercise imagination. In any note I take, there are two useful aspects I always try to check:
- the note is effective, “Mr. Me” will understand it later when he has to. This is particularly important with handwritten notes. There are few things as frustrating (and embarrassing) as not getting through one’s own notes.
- I have improved the note’s “language” or display so next time I’ll write it in a simpler, smarter or faster way.
Of course, there are also fixed notations, things that cannot be optimized any further. It is useful to keep an index of common abbreviations in the first page of the notebook, and, once the notebook is over, to copy into the new one: a) “alive” abbreviations b) abbreviations maybe forgotten along the way but that still seem a good idea.
For to-do lists, I like the “Verb-the-noun-with-the-object” structure as proposed by 43 Folders. Maybe it works better in English than in Spanish, due to both languages’ structural differences (as it has been very often pointed out, English is more active and physical, while Spanish is better at dealing with nuances), but I haven’t ever found a simpler, smarter or faster configuration (here I must also remark that my “ego language”, of course, makes use of both languages when necessary).
The big question: What’s the limit?
I’m sure it happened to you too: one night you go to bed and, before falling asleep, you go through one of those semi-automatic journeys through how was your day. Maybe you even have it as a habit. And everything goes fine until suddenly, with a pang of sadness, you recall certain moment at the subway: “What was that brilliant thought I had then about X? It was so obvious, so evident then… Why didn’t I capture it?”
At the moment, you didn’t even identify it as an “idea”, a manipulable item that you could capture, process, elaborate. You lacked the required distance from your own thought, you were too busy being your own thought; you were in such a state of bliss, just enjoying the pleasures of your mind in motion, that it did not even cross your mind that it could be a notebook affair.
This happens all the time, maybe because of the way in which our brain is configured. Brutally summarized, left hemisphere makes the calculations, while right hemisphere enjoys the moment. That’s why tasks that involve both sides are always a good idea: it seems that our brain lateral interconnections are scarce and it is good to promote them.
Of course, having a predetermined capture attitude helps, but it is not a guarantee of anything. How do we know what to capture, then, where the limits are? Well, maybe this is the territory where science becomes art. No fixed rules. The ideal stance for capture, if we lived in the best of worlds, would be “Buddhist” detachment: do not judge anything that crosses your mind, limit yourself to capture anything that rears. Massive discrimination, pruning and elaboration come later, during the processing stage. But in real life there is not time to include everything, so you make an estimation, you follow your nose and choose. The underlying philosophy of GTD, maybe of every capture-based organization system, is that 1) it is better to be slave of a notebook than being of your mind… and 2) as a consequence, the more ideas you capture, the more ideas you’ll see become a reality. That said, the rest is up to you!
Freaky coda: when your mind floods
It reminds me of a silly child movie I saw once. A shipwrecked guy is alone in his boat. He’s been drifting along for days. Suddenly, it starts to rain, and he cries in happiness “Water! Wonderful water!”. He rejoices, he drinks as much as he can, and then, after a while, as rain keeps falling and falling, the boat starts to sink, so he exclaims “gee, if this wonderful rain does not stop soon, I’m going to drown!” (I am quoting by heart, obviously).
Well, it does not happen to me very often, but it certainly does sometimes, that I go through “over-brilliant” days, days in which mind reaches such an accelerated rate, idea after idea, that it becomes exhausting. After many days burnt by the sun, water, wonderful water comes and I collect it and keep collecting it and collect some more until there is a moment when I have so much wonderful water that I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if this is very frequent, but just in case someone else is in my situation, there are a couple of tricks that I find helpful:
- The “lid” technique: You just had this gorgeous idea, beautiful, unexpected, astonishing, maybe the solution you’ve been searching for the latest six months or years. So what do you do? Don’t write it down. Brilliant as it is, the idea will obstruct the path to new ones for a while. What to do in the meantime: rejoice, take delight in it. You deserve it and, besides, the “fear” of forgetting it (although impossible as Einstein forgetting his e=mc2 once he got it) will occupy the rest of your mind and will give you a break from chopping your life every 2 seconds to write down something new.
- Set writing equipment really at hand: yes, don’t laugh. It works. Human mind seems to be that sarcastic. “God, I hadn’t been in such a state of flow for ages. I’ll better put these pens and papers here, and here, and here, and here, to ease the transference as much as possible”. On that very moment, you’ll have your last idea. A likely explanation is that our right brain only wants to play, without being labeled, so when it feels that things are becoming too important it stops, just like those babies who talk up a storm the whole morning, but fall into a mysterious silence when dad comes around with a phone tub to set up a demo for aunt Louise… Ah, this b·$@!! mind of ours…
What’s your device of choice? Any PDA convert here? Any trick you want to share because of its utility or simply because it’s sexy? Say something!
Related posts:
A few low level capture tips (part one)
The GTD First Aid kit (Part 3)
Learn from others’ mistakes: my GTD leaks
How to become optimistic with very little effort
GTD for writers