Any writer knows how frustrating it can be to organize your ideas. You have an idea of what you want to write, but as soon as you start making that outline you hit a wall. You spend so much time worrying about how you want to express your ideas, before long you can’t even remember what it was you wanted to write about.
As useful as outlines can be for giving structure to your writing, remember that content is always the most important. What good is a beautifully organized piece of writing if you’re not saying anything?
At the start of Robert Pirsig’s Lila, he writes about using individual slips of paper to jot down notes and ideas rather than listing them all out sequentially. As he goes along with this, he notices certain ideas start taking shape. The more slips he adds, the more connections he sees until eventually he ends up with his breakthrough book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (ZMM).
Ryan Holiday uses a similar system. He frequently discusses the Commonplace Book as a vita tool not just for writing but for life in general. Rather than an actual book, Holiday uses a system of index cards, categorized into various themes, to collect and organize his ideas for his writing projects.
For a detailed explanation of how to construct such a Commonplace Book, I suggest taking a look at Holiday’s post linked above. Rather than detail my own process, I’ve listed below the various benefits from switching over to this index card-based system.
Connections are easier to see
When I first started using this system, I made the mistake of trying to force each card into a single neat category that would perfectly encapsulate the idea behind it. What I failed to realize was that in doing so, I was blinding myself to the connections between not only the individual cards but the categories themselves.
To give an example, here is a card where I wrote down a quote from The Art of Learning. After spending an unnecessary amount of time trying to decide if I wanted to categorize the card under ‘Mastery’ or ‘Quality’, I put both at the top of the card. With this simple little act, I uncovered a connection I had previously missed. Like dominoes, ideas started pouring in as I started to question the connection between Mastery and Quality.
The categories provide direction
With this index card system, I’ve found it much easier to find direction in my craft. Whenever I hit a snag, I turn to my collection and look at the categories I’ve set up. Being able to visually see the index cards helps provide direction. If one theme is full of cards, that tells me that that topic is especially interesting to me, and spurs me to dive further into it.
By the same token, it’s easy to see gaps in my knowledge by paying attention to the themes that are less filled out. If there’s a category with just a handful of cards, I’ll use that as a cue to explore it more and expand my knowledge.
The ideas form the structure
Unlike the outline system which prioritizes structure over content, index cards flip this around and create space so the content drives the structure. In fact, this is the very system from which ZMM was created. By collecting and organizing his plethora of slips, Pirsig was able to let the content guide the book. Rather than a rigidly structured piece, ZMM ended up a beautifully chaotic work that conveyed the idea of Quality better than any outlined work could have.
Whether it’s for writing or just for personal use, I highly recommend starting a Commonplace Book to collect and organize information. While you could use notebooks/journals or electronic tools just as well, I’ve found that there’s something about the index cards that makes the process more dynamic and useful.
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