Atomic Habits by James Clear - As I stated above, felt like this was a good book to start as I felt like it would help me get into the habit of reading more. It always kind of knew that breaking tasks down into smaller steps was a good idea, but I think the concepts around building proper support scaffolding around that habits (as in, making it easy to stick with your habits) has been the real winner. It’s made me recognize the opportunities and conditions I need to establish and support my desired habits. In another thread, I make mention on how my reading is most easily slotted in on my lunch break, well in order to continue having enough time I need to make sure I pack a lunch. ATM I have sandwhich stuff just available at work, but one of my next habits I want to implement is better dieting. Which I’m currently trying to tackle ways to make that effortless. I’ve picked up a salad spinner to help make salad making at home easy, but I’m in the middle of a big move and am waiting until afterwords to tackle more of the fresh ingredient stocking & meal prepping.
For my actual review of it, I do think it’s an easy read that has it’s “no duh” moments, but I also think there is some great insight. Again, I keep mentioning it because it’s been the part most helpful for me, but the topics around making desirable habits easy and undesirable habits hard has been a huge help in actually making things stick. In the How are you “Dumbifying” your life? thread, I made mention of how I’ve made my phone a little more of a nuisance to use with app timers & eye distance pop-ups that rather consistently interrupt my usage. The handful of seconds that either takes is usually enough for me to recognize that I’m done with my scroll and put the phone down. Or, if I want to continue, I have to opt-in. Typically I just add a couple minutes to the timer rather then remove it for the day as a whole.
How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking by Sonke Ahrens. The title is super, super boring and honestly, the book isn’t the most fun read as it takes the author incredibly long to get to actually talking about the actual fundamental process of doing the thing. But this was one I really wanted to read. For the past handful of years, I’ve been aware of a note taking system called Zettlekasten via my introduction to Obsidian, a markdown note taking editor. For many users within the Obsidian space, it was a popular tool for implementing a personal Zettlekasten, meanwhile I was just using it for Dungeons & Dragons at the time due to markdown’s ability to link notes together. Thought it would be handy for tracking locations and NPCs.
Well, in lieu of all the AI shit, I’ve become hyper concerned around it’s ability to subtly shape public thought, and potentially the ability for people to think for themselves. (Super doomer take, I know. I think there are some benefits to be had, but at an extreme cost that makes me question if it’s all worth it in the end? Currently, I doubt it.) Furthermore, I think as AI continues to be used, it is ever increasingly important for me to be able to articulate my thoughts, feelings, emotions, reasoning and what else have you without needing any outside influence. Fundamentally, that is what separates the art and work I create from stuff AI generates. I can rationalize, express, reference; and I can all do so intentionally and with purpose. My perspective, my history, my experiences, my learning; they all guide my decisions and these are all things that I can express in conversation and within my work. That is something AI will never, ever be able to do, and I believe that will ultimately be the biggest difference maker between people who actually create, and those who are prompt jockys. (Sorry, I’ll get off my soapbox now.)
One way that I felt compelled to combat all this AI stuff is to start really getting my personal thoughts organized, as well as to begin writing more. With my light familiarity with Zettlekastens, along with some YouTube videos surrounding some similar topics, I ended up coming across this book as it ultimately is the “guide” on Zettlekastens.
What a Zettlekasten is, is a personal knowledge management systems using notecards stored in a box (thus, when translated from German the term is “slipbox”.) There’s been a handful of examples of the system throughout history, but in more recent times there seemed to be this big revival behind the system due to the resulting research work by German philosopher & sociologist Niklas Luhmann. TL;DR on this dude is that he’s an insanely influential sociologist of the 20th century within Central Europe. Wrote upwards to 70 books & 400 scholarly articles on a variety of subjects. Across all of this writing though, he more or less argued that there was a common, social phenomena across many different social systems that reoccurred in a similar type of social language. This all culminated in his publishing of his ultimate goal, a Theory of Society, which he accomplished in 1997 a year prior to his death. (I am very much paraphrasing here to get the gist of it. What this all means is that this dude wrote a lot about a wide range of incredibly dense topics, and via his note taking system, often found ways to connect ideas across various topics and systems, which culminated in his theories and arguments.)
Regardless of if individuals agreed with him or not, there is an immense amount of respect for how much this dude wrote. 70 books & 400 articles is an insane amount, and after his death there was a lot of curiosity surrounding how he did it and thus, the Zettlekasten has been gaining in popularity.
Again, like I said prior I think the book takes way to long to actually get to talking about how to actually do the thing. Furthermore, it’s written for more of a student researcher & writer audience, so a lot of the concepts I had to sort of translate to ways that I could see actually applying to my current personal & professional life. The author does make a good quote though regarding getting the “gist” of writing and lectures that I felt was probably the most applicable to individuals reading & writing not for student papers but more as just enthusiasts. That being said, again I feel like the book just takes far too long to actually get to the methodology, especially when it’s deconstructing traditional note taking and learning methods. Like halfway through the book I’m doing what I’m used to and highlighting shit, and the dudes saying “yeah you’re actually not learning anything by doing that by the way” and so I feel like I want to reread the book this time, but actually with my Zettlekasten ready to go.
Edit: small little note I wanted to add here because it popped into my mind. Zettlekasten had historically been a handwritten methodology— but the other is acutely aware of how digital applications like Obsidian make the implementation and management of a Zettlekasten much easier while still adhearing to the true principles. I could go on another little tangent regarding Obsidian in particular and why I think it’s a great little piece of software to manage a timeless personal knowledge management system, but I’ll refrain as that’s rather off topic.
