Pile of Index Cards

Desmond Morris, an author of “Naked Ape”, point out in his book “The Nature of Happiness (2004)” that even human life is modernized, our primitive instinct as a hunter won’t disappear.

In this age, however, it is difficult to satisfy this instinct in a way actually hunt or kill animals. As a substitute, our brain feel similar satisfaction by hunt money, hunt book, do sports, or collect toys.

I have been thinking why analog media is so comfort for me, and not digital media. For me it is difficult to feel this kind of satisfaction on digital media. If I turn a computer off, shuuun, files on a monitor is disappear. All files are virtual. So I print almost all files I wrote on the computer, and then filed.

Why I return to analog media. Perhaps, it can be explained by the primitive instinct as a hunter. I like to collect my thought with cards. As I write cards, I see how many I wrote. It has certain thickness. I like to count them I write at the end of work. I like to see a dock full of cards I wrote.

I think paper won’t disappear even our life is more digitalized or virtualized. Or we already see it after heavy digital/virtual experience in this age.

Last week end, I picked up all index cards related to PoIC development from the dock@home. These selected cards are used for writing the PoIC manual v. 2.0. Watanabe Shoichi called this kind of selected cards as Task Force.

First, I made dividers correspond to the sections in the manual. Then I review all index cards in the dock@home, and put related cards into appropriate section.

I had use this card system to capture all ideas about this system itself. One year accumulation in chronological order, and 1.5 hours for classification. There are 700 cards about the PoIC. It is 1/3 of cards in the dock@home.

When I finish writing this manual, the Task Force could be keep out from the main chronological order because they finish their primal work. A remnant is keep in the main chronological order for future use.

This kind of reproduction seems the best way to reduce a number of cards in the dock. Same time, an entropy (randomness of information) of the system is reduced. Perhaps, it looks like a “meiosis” in biology.

The Kokuyo’s fieldnote is one of key tool in the PoIC system.

At the beginning of the service, I had thought I treat only index card and dock. With requests from readers, I include the fieldnote to the service.

In the PoIC manual, I wrote the Moleskine is too expensive to use as idea capturer. We tend to hesitate to take quick notes on the Moleskine. On the other hand, the hipsterPDA is consisted by index cards, but it is too disippative. In addition, as jon mention, a clip-holded hPDA makes us dis-inclined to check through our actions.

The Fieldnote seems good intermediate between the Moleskine and the hPDA. According to the reports from customers, they satisfy the Fieldnote as alternative for the Moleskine/hPDA, and the quality of the paper is good. I received some specification request from new customer.

Fieldnote Specification :
- 91 mm x 160 mm x 8 mm size (just fit to a pocket)
- 80 g weight
- 80 pages
- 3 mm quadrille grid (see close up)
- light-blue grid color
- hard cover

For reference, I usually consume a fieldnote per month. You can find some more pictures of the Fieldnote at my flickr photo set “Fieldnote as Virtual Memory“.

Ref. : @blog v1.5, Watanabe’s episode about Indexcard

I introduced this Shoichi Watanabe’s episode in brief before. This is little bit more detail to be merged into wiki.

While I stayed in Germany as student, I learned one can do a great work only with small, silent room and cards, from Professor Schneider.

At the beginning of the stay, Professor Schneider handed me a piece of card. Titles of papers are typed on the card. These papers are a start point of my study in Germany. He said “If you read these papers, you will see what you should read next.”

I read these papers, but I couldn’t find focus of my study. One day, he invited me to dinner, and asked me about a progress. I honesty answered my study didn’t go well, although my time is limited in Germany.

Then he gave me a suggestion (Darf ich Ihnen einen Vorschlag machen?). He recommended a card system for me. As first step, he suggested to get a card box (Kartei Kasten). And I bought wooden card box immediately. I bought a large thick paper together : I made card by myself.

I copied a whole contents of a book written by a grammarian, item by item to the cards, day to night, every day. In addition, I took memo of related stuff, discovery, everything on the cards.

(Watanabe, Shoichi, Chiteki Seikatsu no Houhou (A way to intellectual life), 1976, p.p. 127-130)

This book was written in 1976, and he reminded when he was student. So this story is about more than 50 years ago. Watanabe’s box here is smaller than the Dock we call. Later he call the box as “Task Force” and he said still use it. Watanabe’s card is larger than 5×3. His card is approximately B6 size.

Ref. : @blog, Output without input is impossible

I’ve been reading Shoichi Watanabe’s “Chiteki Seikatu no Houhou (A way of intellectual life)” since last monday. This book is one of a reference of the PoIC manual, and a bible for me. This morning, I found a hint about taking Reference card in this book unexpectedly.

In topic “Problem of card system” (p.p. 74-75),

Taking card is harmful for reading book, because it interrupt reading. The best way to avoid this problem is to buy a book. Then you can put line where you like, put circle where your heart moves. It is possible because it is your own book. … This hack is for a general book. This is not true when reading technical book. (Translation by Hawk)

For general book, such as hobby, enlightenments, whatever, we should be more relaxed. Our enjoyment must not be spoiled by taking card. But for technical book we must not hesitate to take Reference cards.

So it is natural that a characteristics (or distribution of cards) is different between Dock @home and @office.

# I didn’t expect the solution is in this book at all. This kind of miracle sometimes happen for “analog” book. :)