6/24/2023 0 Comments Scrivener taskpaper nvalt![]() For writing projects, especially longer ones, I have tasks in OF but in practice they are more along the lines of block out an hour or two to work on XXX. ![]() For tracking Service and Teaching tasks, as well as personal logistical stuff, I find using a loosely GTD-based system in OmniFocus works great. These are probably the reasons why GTD never really caught on in academia… Zooming out to the bigger picture does not really help, either, because then we have next steps like “writing a page.” That does not really help with navigating the things you have to do to write a page, often a whole bunch of other things that can take an hour or a month. It wouldn’t make any sense to micromanage ourselves on that level. We constantly have to jump back and forth between different tasks. You make a note, go back to reading and then jump up to write down a sentence that formed itself in your mind. You try to understand a paragraph and need to look up something for clarification. You might notice a footnote, which you check quickly on. It is also difficult to anticipate which step has to be taken after the next one. The other reason is that GTD re- quires projects to be broken down into smaller, concrete “next steps.” Of course, insightful writing or academic work is also done one step at a time, but these are most often too small to be worth writing down (looking up a footnote, rereading a chap- ter, writing a paragraph) or too grand to be finished in one go. Writing that aims at insight must therefore be organised in a much more open manner. We usually start with rather vague ideas that are bound to change until they become clearer in the course of our research (cf. Here’s the longer passage that follows that quote: It’s worth downloading the first chapter of the linked book (free) above. The technique is more about managing a deck of notes in whatever physical or virtual format you choose, and less about how to take notes. The keys to an effective Zettlekasten are persistent attention to the technique of encoding the reference numbers for the cards (real or virtual), and curation of the individual notes to ensure links are recorded. Unfortunately, the author is slowly abandoning support for CT. The premier wiki software, IMO, is ConnectedText on Windows. Many zettlers find wiki software to be a good fit for their zettels. (The philosophical debate on zettel technique between Kuehn and Tiezte is interesting.) Christian Tiezte produced a Zettlekasten app – I find it clunky, personally. I know on the Mac many folks use Tinderbox for their zettels. I am not a persistent user of the technique – the investment in time never proved worthwhile for my work. Kuehn also translated Luhmann’s essay on “slip boxes” (Zettelkasten). Manfred Kuehn has written about Luhmann and Zettelkastens frequently on his blog.
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