Watanabe’s card system
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.
