Articles from metaphor
Loosely Organized Notes and Creative Thinking
In his essay “Communicating with Slip Boxes,” Niklas Luhmann argues that his collection of notes is not a passive archive of his thoughts, but a “competent” conversation partner capable of surprise. Luhmann isn’t a mad scientist imbuing his inanimate creation with human qualities, he’s stating a fact. The organization of his note-taking system allowed him to pose a question, then follow his branching and linked thoughts to unexpected answers. The “conversation” is the result of an open, loosely organized system designed to surprise.
Organic Notes and the Zettelkasten Method
This introduction to Niklas Luhmann’s ideas on note-taking and organizing notes is designed to help you to develop your own thinking about how you use notes and develop ideas in your note-taking system. We need to build a vocabulary for discussing notes, note-taking, and working with notes so we can more effectively implement our ideas in the applications and systems we use. Luhmann’s Zettelkasten methodology is a good starting point.
The Faithful Gardener
Most of us don’t spend much time thinking about notes and note-taking—and why would you? Most notes we take are disposable: quick scratches meant to jog our memory. But notes serve a wide variety of purposes. Reminding is only one of them. Learning to distinguish between the types of notes you take and how to use your notes effectively is an essential part of thinking outside the brain.
Working Outside Your Brain
This article introduces a new series on creativity and the extended mind: how we use tools, our body, and the world around us to enhance the capacity of our brain and create in ways the mind can’t manage on its own. In this series I’ll be writing about note-taking, personal knowledge management systems, thinking with your body, and more.
Is It Good? Developing and Using Your Aesthetic
Self-directed creative work is different from other forms of creative work. Typically, there’s not a list of specifications you can check off on your way to “done.” Success in creative endeavors can only be measured by the recognition that the work is “good,” that it satisfies the creator’s intention—your intention. “Good” is not the same as “perfect” or “finished,” in the sense that all possible improvements have been explored and closed, but “good” is sufficient. How do you know when your work is good? You use your aesthetic: the collection of formal, material, intellectual, functional, emotional, and spiritual qualities that please you.
Your Creative Fingerprint
Just as we each have unique physical fingerprints, we each have a unique creative fingerprint. The loops, arches, and whorls in your creative fingerprint are shaped by the impulses that drive your creativity, your creative strengths, and your formative life, artistic, and spiritual experiences. But there’s a shift that takes place when you choose to make creativity a primary area of focus in your life: your creative fingerprint becomes your identity.
The Art of Time-Shifting
Most of our discussions about time are focused on finding time, managing time, and measuring the outputs of our investments of time. Time-shifting is a different way of thinking about time that’s particularly useful for creative work. It isn’t about moving around blocks of time on your calendar—it’s about learning how to recognize different rhythms of time and shift between them.
Perfection and the Persistent Process of Becoming
I’m a perfectionist. Perhaps you are too… Most of us think of perfectionism as a personal failing—a toxic combination of overly high personal standards and unrelenting self-judgement. But perfectionism is deeply ingrained in our culture. It’s time to reframe the idea of perfection and develop a new relationship with perfectionism.