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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Tiago Forte
Read between
August 24 - September 11, 2022
Verum ipsum factum (“We only know what we make”) —Giambattista Vico, Italian philosopher
“The greater your ignorance the more verifiably accurate must be your facts,”
“Use what you have; even if it seems meager, it may be magic in your hands.”
If there is a secret to creativity, it is that it emerges from everyday efforts to gather and organize our influences.
there is a flaw in focusing only on the final results: all the intermediate work—the notes, the drafts, the outlines, the feedback—tends to be underappreciated and undervalued.
If we consider how precious little time we have to produce something extraordinary in our careers, it becomes imperative that we recycle that knowledge back into a system where it can become useful again.
it’s not enough to simply divide tasks into smaller pieces—you then need a system for managing those pieces. Otherwise, you’re just creating a lot of extra work for yourself trying to keep track of them.
Like LEGO blocks, the more pieces you have, the easier it is to build something interesting. Imagine that instead of starting your next project with a blank slate, you started with a set of building blocks—research
five kinds of Intermediate Packets you can create and reuse in your work:
Distilled notes:
Outtakes: The material or ideas that didn’t make it into a past project but could be used in future ones.
Work-in-process:
Final deliverables:
Documents created by others:
you’ll become interruption-proof because you are focusing only on one small packet at a time,
you’ll be able to make progress in any span of time. Instead of waiting until you have multiple uninterrupted hours—which,
Intermediate Packets increase the quality of your work by allowing you to collect feedback more often.
eventually you’ll have so many IPs at your disposal that you can execute entire projects just by assembling previously created IPs.
By “thinking small,” you can focus on creating just one IP each time you sit down to work, without worrying about how viable it is or whether it will be used in the exact way you envisioned.
While you can sit down to purposefully create an IP, it is far more powerful to simply notice the IPs that you have already produced and then to take an extra moment to save them in your Second Brain.
How could you acquire or assemble each of these components, instead of having to make them yourself?
Our creativity thrives on examples. When we have a template to fill in, our ideas are channeled into useful forms instead of splattered around haphazardly.
These are some of the most valuable connections—when an idea crosses the boundaries between subjects. They can’t be planned or predicted.
Retrieval Method #1: Search
Search has the benefit of costing almost nothing in terms of time and effort.
Retrieval Method #2: Browsing
When the time comes to take action, you’ll be able to enter the appropriate workspace and know that everything found there is relevant to the task at hand.
Retrieval Method #3: Tags
Tags are like small labels you can apply to certain notes regardless of where they are located.
The main weakness of folders is that ideas can get siloed from each other, making it hard to spark interesting connections...
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Retrieval Method #4: Serendipity
There are moments when it feels like the stars align and a connection between ideas jumps out at you like a bolt of lightning from a blue sky.
First, while using the previous retrieval methods, it is a good idea to keep your focus a little broad.
Second, serendipity is amplified by visual patterns. This is why I strongly suggest saving not only text notes but images as well
Third, sharing our ideas with others introduces a major element of serendipity. When you present an idea to another person, their reaction is inherently unpredictable.
Remember: Retrieve an Idea Exactly When It’s Needed
Connect: Use Notes to Tell a Bigger Story
Creative expression isn’t always about self-promotion or advancing our own career. Some of our most beautiful, creative acts are ones in which we connect the dots for others in ways they wouldn’t be able to do themselves.
Create: Complete Projects and Accomplish Goals Stress-Free
By the time she sat down to write the outline, she realized she already had all the Intermediate Packets—metaphors, research facts, stories, diagrams—she needed at her fingertips. All she had to do was string together the notes and existing IPs she had already captured.
Creativity Is Inherently Collaborative
The transformation comes from the fact that smaller chunks are inherently more shareable and collaborative.
Once you understand how incredibly valuable feedback is, you start to crave as much of it as you can find.
Everything Is a Remix
Don’t take the work of others wholesale; borrow aspects or parts of their work.
cite all your sources and influences, even if you don’t strictly have to.
Instead of thinking of your job in terms of tasks, which always require you to be there, personally, doing everything yourself, you will start to think in terms of assets and building blocks that you can assemble.
To truly make an idea stick, you have to engage with it. You have to get your hands dirty and apply that knowledge to a practical problem.
You have to value your ideas enough to share them.
Creative products are always shiny and new; the creative process is ancient and unchanging. —Silvano Arieti, psychiatrist and author of Creativity: The Magic Synthesis
