Archive for February, 2007

Keychain Access

Tuesday, February 6th, 2007
Keychain Access

Keychain Access is a native Mac OS X apprication. We can manage multiple passwords, e.g. email, ftp, or any kind of passwords, with a single login password.

For me, a field note is like this Keychain Access. I usually write down multiple GTD stuffs of the day on the field note. When I go out, I always wear the field note. I put it in a pocket of a shirt.

I don’t need to remember exact individual tasks that I have to do. All I need is to remember a single password “I wrote GTD stuffs on the field note.” I just open the fieldnote. Then I can access to the multiple tasks.

In fact, I don’t try to remember individual tasks, or I say I can completely forget them. It enable me to release some memory or efforts. After gen.erik’s expression, it is “making a room”. And I can use the remaining energy to some productive purpose ; concentrate to thinking or finding discovery.

# Perhaps, the individual GTD stuffs make us blind from discovery around us.

Watanabe’s card system, contd.

Thursday, February 1st, 2007

Ref. : Watanabe’s card system

Continued story…

Professor Schneider said, “Keep writing, and compare the cards. Then you will find any famous scholar says ambiguous and obscurity things in their books. It will be a start point of your study.”

His prediction is correct. Soon, I found a defect in a book written by Otto Funke, a world authority on English grammar at that time. I found a core of my doctor thesis. … And the core is genuine. I wrote a thesis just 300 pages, and got a degree with “magna cum laude (great honor)”.

I still use this card box. When I flip cards in my room at midnight, I feel some kind of sentiment. I use this card box 20 years ago, too. That time, I was a thin pale student. I spend time writing card day by day, compare them, and try to find a blind spot of famous theories in a small apartment.

(Watanabe, Shoichi, Chiteki Seikatsu no Houhou (A way to intellectual life), 1976, p.p. 130-131)

It seems he really write a lot of cards for research. Importantly, he compare them to find a problem or pattern. It is easily done by piece-by-piece cards. Another point is that he still use his card system for 20 years. He established his way through his experience in Germany.

Paradox

Thursday, February 1st, 2007

I have been using index cards and fieldnotes to sweep out stuffs from my mind ; that is, to forget. Then I can use my brain as CPU/RAM. In the PoIC, the cards and fieldnotes function as external and virtual storage, respectively.

Recently, however, I feel my memory is improved than before I started using them. It’s grateful, but quite paradoxical for me.

Perhaps following two things works well.

- hand writing stimulates a brain
- daily review just before and while sleep, in both conscious and subconscious layer


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