"In its remote pages it is written that the animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) sucking pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies."
From: El idioma analítico de John Wilkins, Jorge Luis Borges (trans. Lilia Graciela Vázquez)
Notes and note taking strategies can be classified and categorized into many different non-overlapping systems. All of these systems expose some relevant ideas that can be helpful but none of these classifications are, in and of themselves, privileged, standing above or in front of the others. In the notes here we will look at some of these classifications to see what may help us as design considerations.
One important distinction has to do with the time usage of notes. We all make notes that we expect to make sense 10 minutes after we write them but which we expect would be worthless in a day or a week.
A central part of knowledge work is note taking, and almost all knowledge workers use some sort of note taking method to organize their work. It has been argued, I think persuasively, that the act of working with notes is essentially thinking itself. But even people who do not take that view generally view some sort of knowledge record keeping and manipulation as essential to their work.
Notes as Thought: One argument, for instance, claims that modern physics would not be possible without notes/notations because the expressions used are too complex for humans to keep in active memory for manipulation without the aid of writing. This is certainly my experience with mathematical work.
Many different note taking methods have been made into strategies (also called systems, though that term is problematic for reasons discussed below) for effective intellectual work.
Each of these strategies will work for someone and won't work for someone else. In the end, most knowledge workers develop idiosyncratic systems, pieced together from bits of many of the published systems combined with elements of whatever strange practices they have invented or picked-up along the way.
We also note in passing that outlining, often related to note taking, is another important aspect of intellectual work. The needs of some note taking strategies support outlining while others actively break outlining as an activity. This is reflected in some tools, for instance, Obsidian versus Logseq; Obsidian is a good tool for atomic notes, while Logseq is a good outlining tool (and a better journal).
2021.08.10 (Current Working Draft)
Matthew Turner