Capturing
Plant your digital garden with many different seeds of ideas by capturing notes and ideas. This is the first and easiest step in our automated world to planting ideas into your digital brain for your future self to harvest.
But let’s start with a short caution and a discussion of why you’re capturing notes and ideas and putting things into your digital brain and what you want to have there. Two note-taking concepts exist. One is I only want roses in my garden. Translated, this means I only want to put my thoughts in there. If I read an article, I will put my thoughts about the article into my digital brain. The second concept is that of the hoarder: me. As I go through my day, I place anything that interests me in my read later queue. (Roses, petunias, nasturtiums, gnomes, etc.) I don’t limit myself to roses. Whatever strikes my fancy that day goes into my read later queue.
Then I read and highlight the parts of the articles I want to save for later, and these highlights go into my digital brain. Do you want only roses, or are you planning a variety of interests for your second brain?
The Capture Process
My flow goes from the input on the left, which can be anything I come across during the day that I may or may not want to save as the output (far right). My first step is to move it into my read later application. I use Instapaper, but Pocket is also a good application. Either saves it so I can read it later. When I read it later, I decide if any highlights exist that I want to go into my second brain. Once I highlight the parts of the article I want to keep, the highlights go automatically into Readwise. Readwise puts them into my inbox in my second brain. This provides the least friction possible and the least interruption to my flow during the day.
In Instapaper, I go through articles periodically and either highlight them or delete them. The decision to keep or delete is part of the process. It allows me to pause and change my mind about something I initially thought might be of interest. Don’t hesitate to delete because you will find more than enough to put into your digital brain.
What to Watch Out For
You can save articles with ease through Capturing. However, it is too easy to save articles for your main note-taking application or your read later application. For example, with one click of my mouse, I can capture a book review into Evernote. Similarly, I can send a newsletter from my email inbox to Instapaper to read later with just a few clicks. This creates a massive amount of read-later information in your inbox. If you aren’t careful, it will lead to an inability to do anything (overwhelm).
In his course [Building a Second Brain], Tiago Forte talks about this problem briefly, and his solution is to put the items into your second brain and read and summarize them later. In the book Zettlekasten: [How to take Smart Notes], Sonke Ahrens’s approach is different. He recommends putting your ideas into your second brain more selectively and summarizing them while you remember why you choose to include them. Whichever methodology you choose, you will end up with a flourishing garden in your digital brain.
Capturing
Plant your digital garden with many different seeds of ideas by capturing notes and ideas. This is the first and easiest step in our automated world to planting ideas into your digital brain for your future self to harvest.
But let’s start with a short caution and a discussion of why you’re putting things into your digital brain and what you want to have there. Two note-taking concepts exist. One is I only want roses in my garden. Translated, this means I only want to put my thoughts in there. If I read an article, I will put my thoughts about the article into my digital brain. The second concept is that of the hoarder: me. As I go through my day, I place anything that interests me in my read later queue. (Roses, petunias, nasturtiums, gnomes, etc.) I don’t limit myself to roses. Whatever strikes my fancy that day goes into my read later queue.
Then I read and highlight the parts of the articles I want to save for later, and these highlights go into my digital brain. Do you want only roses, or are you planning a variety of interests for your second brain?
The Capture Process
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My flow goes from the input on the left, which can be anything I come across during the day that I may or may not want to save as the output (far right). My first step is to move it into my read later application. I use Instapaper, but Pocket is also a good application. Either saves it so I can read it later. When I read it later, I decide if any highlights exist that I want to go into my second brain. Once I highlight the parts of the article I want to keep, the highlights go automatically into Readwise. Readwise puts them into my inbox in my second brain. This provides the least friction possible and the least interruption to my flow during the day.
In Instapaper, I go through articles periodically and either highlight them or delete them. The decision to keep or delete is part of the process. It allows me to pause and change my mind about something I initially thought might be of interest. Don’t hesitate to delete because you will find more than enough to put into your digital brain.
What to Watch Out For
You can save articles with ease through Capturing. However, it is too easy to save articles for your main note-taking application or your read later application. For example, with one click of my mouse, I can capture a book review into Evernote. Similarly, I can send a newsletter from my email inbox to Instapaper to read later with just a few clicks. This creates a massive amount of read-later information in your inbox. If you aren’t careful, it will lead to an inability to do anything (overwhelm).
In his course [Building a Second Brain], Tiago Forte talks about this problem briefly, and his solution is to put the items into your second brain and read and summarize them later. In the book Zettlekasten: [How to take Smart Notes], Sonke Ahrens’s approach is different. He recommends putting your ideas into your second brain more selectively and summarizing them while you remember why you choose to include them. Whichever methodology you choose, you will end up with a flourishing garden in your digital brain.
Personally, Zettlekasten intrigues me, but at my age, I will continue to follow Tiago’s methodology. For someone younger I would highly recommend that you consider both before you proceed. To see my other blogs on PKM go to my website: [Theholeu.com]. You can also send me a comment or question by going to the [contact me page].
