I recently listened to an episode of the “Focused” podcast that talked in-depth about the idea of linking our thinking.  It was primarily a dicussion about recently developed apps that can help you build a sort of idea database that is organized by links amongst ideas as opposed to the traditional, top-down organization of folders and files.  It struck me as a sort of relational database.  At one point, the podcast hosts referred to such programs as a “second brain,” and when you think about the structure of a linked set of ideas and information, comparing it to a brain really is a good metaphor.  I particularly liked the part of the discussion that talked about the difference between taking notes, which is a process of collection with little expectation of outputs, and making notes, which assumes some additional thinking to integrate new knowledge into existing frameworks and understanding in a way that will manifest itself in action.  

Yes, this is a nerdy topic, but I love this question about what we should do with all of the information and knowledge we are acquiring.  Last week I wrote about the importance of reading and exposing ourselves to new ideas and concepts.  But the idea of Personal Knowledge Management takes the next step to ask what we are supposed to do with all of that learning.  

I don’t have all of the answers on the topic, but there are definitely a few tools or practices that I use or have used in the past that help me to make meaning of and digest all of the inputs and ideas that come my direction.  Perhaps the most important tool of all is writing.  The foundation of my writing practice has been a weekly reflective and narrative journal entry.  I now have over 20 years of weekly entries, exploring new thoughts and experiences, analyzing challenges and opportunities, and capturing the day to day and week to week experiences that constitute my life.  It’s a place where I can process my spiritual and intellectual identity, and try to make sense out of what is happening.  Another conduit for making meaning has been my blog.  I started the @schoolmadefresh blog when I took my new job with Santa Ana Unified back in 2015, trying to capture some of the big ideas associated with my role as the Executive Director of School Renewal and then as an Assistant Superintendent.  In the past 2 years, I’ve been even more committed to a weekly blog post, as a strategy to process my thinking and sharing it with a wider audience.  I wish I had time to blog and share even more, but I’m not sure I could sustain more than I am doing now.  At least not while in the midst of raising 6 kids and leading educational institutions full time.  For over a year now, I have also gotten in the habit of doing very brief daily jottings.  This is literally 4-5 sentences in my bullet journal that summarizes what is on my mind.  This came about after a weekend getaway with my wife for her birthday, when I came across a young man in the hotel lobby who seemed something of a modern version of Ernest Hemingway.  He had settled in with his breakfast and a notebook, which was full of jottings.  He was fully consumed in his writing, and it was clear to me that this was a regular practice for him.  Perhaps it was the romantic in me that envisioned myself jotting away in my notebook in hotel lobbies or restaurants around the world, but I decided to add long form writing to my own bullet journal (instead of just using it to keep my daily bullet list or habit trackers).  

In addition to these more structured journaling practices, I am a somewhat obsessive notetaker.  I try to capture the main ideas in what I am reading in my bullet journal, and in the case of academic articles, I have a somewhat complicated grid in Excel that I use to capture main ideas, conceptual frameworks, methodologies, conclusions, and strengths and weaknesses of each article.  When it comes to books I read, most of my notes come in the form of annotations in the book itself.  This is the area of my thinking where I am interested in exploring a more deliberate practice to link ideas.  I’m hoping to learn a little more about the application packages designed to facilitate this type of organization: Roam Research, Obsidian, and Craft.  I’m also interested in leveling up my very basic graphic design skills with the hopes of capturing my learning in more visually conceptualized ways.  It should be a fun experiment.

One of the pieces of advice in the Focused podcast episode was the recommendation to start with a specific use case.  Instead of dumping all of my notes into the app and seeing what happens, the idea would be to more carefully curate what I add based on a specific need.  I’ve thought it would interesting to take my Excel documents with academic articles, along with the contents of my Mendeley database, and try to process those into a linked thinking database.  I also do a lot of personal writing and reflection on spiritual topics, and can envision organizing those into a linked note system.  

In any case, I’m excited about the possibilities to develop a system that better captures the thinking that I’m already doing by linking ideas in more organic ways and then seeing what develops in terms of fresh understandings and new frameworks for organizing my intellectual life.