Pile of Index Cards

The practice of writing down thoughts and facts for the purpose of holding them fast and preventing their escape into the dim region of forgetfulness, has been much resorted to by thoughtful and studious men. Lord Bacon left behind him many manuscripts entitled “Sudden thoughts set down for use.” Erskine made great extracts from Burke; and Eldon copied Coke upon Littleton twice over with his own hand, so that the book became, as it were, part of his own mind. The late Dr. Pye Smith, when apprenticed to his father as a bookbinder, was accustomed to make copious memoranda of all the books he read, with extracts and criticisms. This indomitable industry in collecting materials distinguished him through life, his biographer describing him as “always at work, always in advance, always accumulating.” These note-books afterwards proved, like Richter’s “quarries,” the great storehouse from which he drew his illustrations.

source : Self Help, by Samuel Smiles, (1900?)
(digital text at Project Gutenberg)

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I have been preparing for a presentation next week. I have tried to do this task with my indexcards. This is the next stage of the PoI method.

1. I scanned and reviewed last four months’ indexcards in the Dock (for work). I picked up about forty indexcards related to the title of presentation.
2. I make small piles of common topics as seen in the picture. Each piles is consisted by one to four indexcards, but no limitation. A chronological order is not important now.
3. I put memo, correction, etc. for past indexcards with red pen. I write new indexcard to interpolate between topics.
4. Each piles are compiled into slides of Keynote (or Power Point :P). Besides Keynote, I use Adobe Illustrator, Omni Graffle, LaTeXiT, gnuplot and GMT.

川喜多二郎 (Kawakita Jiro) introduced this card-handling method in “発想法 (Hassouhou = abduction)” (1967). Now this method is known as “KJ method” (The “KJ” is initial of his name).

In the PoI system, the Dock works as storage : all indexcards you wrote drop into the Dock in their final stage. You don’t need frustrated with “where did I put that indexcard?” kind of problem. All you need is look the Dock, then you’ll find it.

This is mentioned in “Cho Seiri hou” by Noguchi Yukio, who introduced push-out filing system formally known as “Noguchi filing system“. He expressed this rule as “one pocket rule“. If you put somethings in a single pocket, you can find them in the pocket. On the other hand, if the pocket is two or more, you have to look all the pockets.

For example, it is convenient to put all things, that you take when you go out, in a single basket (over nighter). When you go out, you pick up keys, watch, wallet etc. from the basket. So indexcard is.

The one pocket rule prevent your productive energy from dissipation.

# Noguchi noted that he had never taken full advantage of the one pocket rule with his filing system, because he own two filing systems, one in his office and another in home. But it is unavoidable problem with analog media…

Motto of this Pile-of-Indexcards (PoI) system is,

• It must be simple !
• It must be fun !

The PoI system works as storage of your idea. You will see a number of card easily exceed a thousand. If the system is complicated, it will out of management, and easily corrupt. In nature, an entropy (complication, randomness) of a system is increase. This is natural order. So the system must be “extremely” simple to keep system work.

Second factor is mental matter. I am so lazy person. If I feel something wrong, in conscious/subconscious whatever, I quit immediately. I have to motivate myself to keep working. For example, I enjoy this system by introducing new stationeries. Stationeries I use currently is a result of “trial and error”. I enjoy to choose what I should introduce to make the system fun. Stationeries I show here is just recommendation. Also my system is still changing, version 1.0. So you can use your favorites for this system, though you must follow minimum rules, chronological order, for example. What is important is you enjoy it and keep writing.

Revised 2006.12:30 12:41
Revised 2006.12.17

We can find chronological management of files and “Law of accessibility” behind the flickr, photo sharing system.

For example, when I upload new photos, they appear in the top-left of the page, where people view first and frequently (that is, V=1, x=t=0 -> A = 1 = maximum). Older photos are pushed down down down to the bottom of the page. This looks like I put indexcards I just write on card stand or box where I can see all time.

For classification, flicker basically doesn’t need classification. Just upload first, and sometime later, classify them for convenience. This makes us free from a load of classification at very first stage of photo sharing process.

# Did you notice that? I hadn’t notice at all!

Revised : 2006.11.26 Title is changed