in principle
In a previous article , “Being an Imperfect Perfectionist—Starting with Tidying Up” (“Tidying”), I introduced some principles and tools for tidying up. A friend left a message saying that he hoped to introduce the workflow of these methods, that is, how to implement these methods into daily life.
I decided to do it a bit, using how I wrote the article “Organize” as an example of how I use these method principles in my own projects.
First, let’s quickly review the principles mentioned in “Organization”:
A good memory is not as good as a bad pen: jot down all your thoughts, big or small
Cherish your limited attention: Focus your limited attention on what you’re doing by recording all your thoughts in a tool
Twenty-eight principle (Pareto principle): put the important time first on the important content
Agile thinking: run in small steps, iteratively solve problems in parallel, instead of using serial thinking
Notes also have “hierarchy”: classify notes, and use different methods and tools for different types of notes
Make time an essential friend: try to include the dimension of time when taking notes
writing stories
The opportunity for me to write the article “Organization” was actually when I was writing a diary.
In my previous article about writing a diary , I suggested to prepare a blank sheet of paper aside while writing the diary, and record the interesting and fragmented thoughts in the brain with some key words, and some of them can be written in the diary later. Some can be placed in other places and expanded later.
While writing a journal one time, my mind went back to when I was applying for a master’s degree. At that time, I asked my friends to fill out a questionnaire to tell me what they thought of me. One of them said that I was very organized and organized the project documents very well.
Then I thought about it, so why not sort out my own approach to organizing? This can both help me organize my thoughts and share it with friends who need it. So, I grabbed the white paper next to me and wrote these keywords on it:
small note for writing
Writing down these fragments should have happened at the end of last year. A lot has happened in life since then, and the priority of this article has always been pushed down by other articles. But this note has been stuck in my diary.
At the beginning of this year, I started using Notion, and I created a writing folder with many topics I want to write about.
The Status of Writing Folders (Notion)
Based on my interest in a topic and the completeness of the material I’ve collected, I’ll probably rank articles in a priority order.
So I also put this note and some thoughts I had at the time under one entry. But it didn’t unfold at the time.
Thoughts on Tidying Up (Notion)
In the two months after that, I didn’t touch this topic, partly because I was reading some books in other fields and wanted to write articles in that field; and also because I was just starting to work, and my mind was full of messy thoughts every day. , it is difficult to find an opportunity to write an article about “organization”. Until my work started on the right track, I began to summarize and reflect on what I did well and badly, and decided to write these ideas into articles.
One of my takeaways from this job is learning how to multithread complex tasks. In this process, the progress of each project, the things to be done, and the deadlines need to be clearly sorted out, so the writing of “Organization” is a logical thing.
After deciding to write this article, the first thing I did was create a new note under the Writing category of Evernote. Regardless of whether there is content or not, the notes are created first.
Here I did not use Notion to write specific content for two reasons: 1. Notion currently does not support offline operations, so there is a potential risk that the requirement of “recording any ideas anytime, anywhere” cannot be achieved. 2. In terms of search function, Evernote is much better than Notion. When writing an article, you need to frequently search for other notes to supplement the content. At the same time, the article itself will become the search object in other scenarios in the future. Therefore, I usually put such large articles in Evernote, and most of the temporary project notes are put in Notion.
After creating a blank note, I first set the framework, of course, this framework may be modified later. After that, I write under different headings whenever possible. Maybe half an hour before starting work in the morning (I sometimes work from home), maybe on the commute.
If I find that some new ideas have emerged during the writing process, I will open a special module at the end of the article to record the new ideas. After the first draft is completed, I will focus on these ideas, either discard them or add them to the article. middle.
My first drafts are generally pretty bad – typos, sloppy sentences, incoherent logic, a thing that doesn’t make it clear, it’s all about me. But after the first draft is completed, I will ask myself to read and revise it repeatedly, and try to read it in different “brain states”: if I read it when my brain is particularly awake, I can see the more subtle logical errors in the article; By reading it after a day at work, I can see if my writing is easy enough to understand and focused enough that readers don’t need to read word for word to know what I’m talking about.
Finally, before publishing, I will read it again in the preview interface to provide the best reading experience.
Application of Review Principles
So how do I use the principles in Tidy Up?
Good memory is not as bad as bad writing: I will record all my thoughts in a traceable place – ideally in my usual note-taking software, and preferably in a specific folder, and devise a mechanism Allow yourself to review the contents of this “temporary” folder from time to time.
The note mentioned above is not the best way to keep track because of the possibility of losing it, but under the circumstances, I didn’t want to take out my phone (I was easily distracted by all kinds of information on my phone) . But then I also try to make my ideas electronic.
Cherish limited attention: If I have any thought that might be worthwhile, I immediately record it somewhere, so that my brain’s resources aren’t tied up and I can’t really immerse myself in the moment. Therefore, we need to establish a mechanism to make our recording behavior as smooth as possible. For example, when writing a diary, preparing a note aside, having a module at the end of the document to record fragmented ideas, and setting up entries for fragmented ideas in the note-taking software are all ways to lower the threshold for self-recording. After recording, you also need to set a time point to get yourself into the habit of reviewing regularly.
Twenty-eight principles (Pareto principle): When writing the content, I will set the framework first, because I know that these are the things I want to make clear. As for the fragmented ideas, I will review them together after the main content is over. This ensures that I can complete the most important content first, and deal with other content as appropriate.
Agile thinking: Agile thinking is arguably the most important way of thinking in my daily life. For example, in the process of writing this article, I did not require myself to do it in one step, set a framework that would not be changed at the beginning, nor did I require myself to write a perfect article at the first draft stage. On the contrary, I always tell myself: write it first, write it later, and then change it after you write it. And change, I also have to change several times, instead of asking myself to change to the perfect one at a time. The fermentation of ideas is the same. The frequency of my articles is not very high, not only because I have a lot of things at hand, but also because I think the process of landing some ideas takes time, so I will not rush to put what I just thought of. The topic immediately falls to the article, but is put into the task flow. This is also an application of the “28 principle”.
Notes also have a “hierarchy”: before I write, I throw all the topics and any thoughts on the topic under the corresponding entry in Notion. After starting writing, all the content will be moved to Evernote, the entry on Notion will only be tracked as a status, and the status of the corresponding entry will be pulled under “in progress” by me. After the article is written, the status will change. is “complete”. But I’m not going to add anything to Notion. In other words, this note is “half discarded”.
Another manifestation is that during the writing process, the fragmented ideas generated will be placed at the end of the document by me, and after the official completion of the writing, those contents will be deleted by me, or become the subject of a new article. So my notes will flow in different tools as the task status changes, and the corresponding notes will also be deleted, updated, and saved.
Treat time as an essential friend: What I didn’t mention above is that I usually set a deadline for the article I start writing, and after the framework is formulated, set a sub-deadline for each framework. Of course, I am quite tolerant to myself, so it often happens that the deadline cannot be completed, but it will not be too much. The advantage of setting a deadline for yourself is that you can have an estimate of your own resources (time, energy), and as the number of times increases, the estimate will become more and more accurate. At the same time, deadlines are also a good way to motivate yourself.
Epilogue
There are countless tools and methods for organizing, and while we are learning and improving, we also need to avoid getting lost – what is the purpose of my learning to use tools?
I think the purpose of our tools is to maximize the value of the assets we accumulate—documents, ideas, notes, etc.—to help us live and work. Tools and methods serve the content, they are not ends in themselves, the purpose is to achieve one’s life pursuit.
Therefore, no matter how many tools there are, do not seek the best, but only the right one.
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