By ofwisdomowl 
If you are considering writing or other creative hobby, here are some books that can help start your journey: Turning Pro, The War of Art, Do the Work, Put your Ass where your heart wants to be, or Steal like an Artist.
The slip box is an extension of our own memory. As an extension of our memory, the slip box is the medium we think in, not something we think about. The note sequences are just clusters where order emerges from complexity as ideas and new thoughts emerge.
The slip-box manual
There are 2 slip boxes. One is a bibliographical one. Contents short descriptions of the book and references..
The second one would have one card for every idea he found interesting. Starting with a very short description of the idea so later one can come and search easily for the intent and core message. Notes were simple but written with care because they could be fully leveraged later. These will have references from they came from for ease access later. One note will be followed by others that have related concepts hence creating a chain of notes
Author did not just copy ideas or quotes. It’s like a translation that strives to keep the original meaning but written in personal language.
Writing is the best facilitator for thinking, learning and understanding and finally generating new ideas.
If you want to learn something you need to write it down. If you want to understand it you will need to write it in your own words.
Writing – step by step
- Make fleeting notes. These are simple reminders of thoughts you have in your head or ideas captured. They will be organized later
- Make literature notes – whatever you read take notes of stuff you want to remember. Keep it very simple and be selective of the content and ideas. Use own words. Keep notes with references to where they came from for future reference or study. Create a reference system
- Make permanent notes – after steps 1 and 2, it is time to review notes taken and reflect on them. Purpose is not to collect new ideas but to develop a few more on own words and create connections and arguments with own work or projects.
Write one note for each idea. Write as it was written for someone else. Use full sentences. Add sources and references. Be precise and brief. Now you can throw away fleeting notes and just keep developed ideas on reference slip box
Now it is time to add these to permanent slip box. Link and order them with other similar and connected ideas. Make sure to adding a link to themes or ideas so they can be found later.
Now start developing your topic bottom up. Read more to challenge or strengthen your arguments. Take more notes and develop ideas further and see what ideas will take you.
Do not start from scratch. Start with ideas you already have. Looks for themes that have been already connected. The more you are interested in a topic the more you will investigate, learn, take more notes and generate new ideas.
Later you will have enough ideas to start writing. Writing starts with ideas you already have.
Now turn your ideas into a draft. Do not just copy them. Translate them into a flow that is coherent. Looks for flow and gaps that need to be closed.
Don’t let good ideas go to waste. Gather them and keep them for future reference
THE 4 UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES
Decide on areas of interest. Once that is clear in your mind – then pick ideas, books or other stuff that’s aligned to areas of interest. Then follow process for reading and taking notes. Even if written never happens the process of note taking significantly improves learning and reading
Simplicity is Paramount
The simplicity of an idea is what makes it powerful.
The slip box system is the one that captures all ideas. All goes into one place. With the same format. Everything is streamlined so ultimately it produces insight that can published. Power comes from achieving critical mass.
The slip box system becomes more valuable in time as it grows. This system helps to present to you ideas that may have been forgotten. It can only be used to think and produce insight
To achieve critical mass it is to key to distinguish between type of notes.
- Fleeting notes. Just reminders of info. These are captured quickly. They will become useless unless you do something with them. These are only useful if they are developed more within a day or 2 of being captured – otherwise you will loose the context
- Permanent notes, contain solid information, will be kept in storage. These notes are more elaborated and can be understood later even outside the context in which they were written or taken from.
- Project notes, only specific to a project. Can be discarded after project is done. Are stored as part of the project.
Nobody ever start from scratch
Writing starts from the information we have and know and from them we define areas of focus for further development or writing. Never start with a white page – always start with what already have in mind.
Steps to successful writing
1.- Give each task an undivided attention
2.- Multitasking is not a good idea . Every shift we make is a drain in our ability to shift and delays the moment we manage to get focused again. Trying to multitask fatigue us and actually reduces our ability to do more than one task at the time. But also each task may require a different type of attention, like writing, reading or speaking they all require different skills and attention
3.- Give each task the right type of attention.- focus on getting your ideas to paper first and the focus on proof reading or looking for quality output.
The key to creativity is being able to switch between a wide-open, playful mind and a narrow analytical frame. Writing like art requires focus and flexible focus. Reading, proof-reading, formulating and outlining requires different kind of focus.
4.- Get closure
Attention and short term memory are very limited resources. Research say that we can help a max of 6 things in our head at any given time. So it is much easier to remember things we understand. Things we understand are connected either through rules, logic, narratives, models, etc. Building connections between things we learn and understand is like building a slip box in our mind
Open or pending tasks tend to occupy our short term memory until they are done. That is why unfinished tasks keep creeping up in our mind. So a task gets deleted from our short term memory until they are completed or they get written down. (Postponed). This is another way to trick the mind and eliminate them from ST memory. By keeping unresolved items in our brain, our mind will continue working on them. This is why sometimes we get and resolve items even when we are doing something else.
5.- Reduce the number of decisions
The other resource that is limited is willpower. Research shows that willpower is similar to muscle. It deplets quick and needs time to recover.
Decision making is very high consuming of energy task. This why highly successful people tend to chose the same outfits every day reduce the energy spend on these type of decisions and channel mind to more important tasks.
Decision making can be optimized by putting in place one system for gathering, cleaning and maintains thoughts and ideas. Using same tools, same templates, same process so our thinking time is focused on activities that need that brain power
6.- Learn to read
If you can not say it clearly, you don’t understand it. John Searle
Taking notes help us understand and be able to explain concepts to an audience, that audience is our future selves.
Writing and explaining concepts confront us with our gaps and misunderstandings. The process of writing thought through ideas help us in getting understanding. Understanding is a precondition for learning.
Learning truly comes by making meaningful connection of our thoughts. Slip box helps to keep thoughts and their connections with other thoughts.
Writing notes and sorting them out in the slip box it’s attempt to understand the wider meaning of things. This is why it is key to use some questions: 1)what does it mean. 2) how does it connect to. 3)what is the difference between.. 4) what is it similar to… these questions are forcing is to elaborate, to understand, to connect and learn more seriously.