What the brain does best is thinking. Evernote is most valuable not as a remembering tool, but as a thinking tool.
creativity is connecting things, especially things that don’t seem to be connected.
Essentially, it’s easier for us to interact with physical objects in the environment than with abstract ideas in our heads.
By externalizing your ideas in a variety of formats — text, sketches, photos, videos, documents, diagrams, webclips, hyperlinks — you create a system of distributed cognition across “artifacts” that can be moved, edited, rearranged, and combined.
I think one of the least appreciated methods for connecting ideas and producing breakthrough work is the “slow burn.”
Richard Feynman put it best:
“You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, “How did he do it? He must be a genius!”
First, don’t think quantity, think quality.
you should pick and choose what you capture very carefully. Think of Evernote as a Cliff’s Notes to everything valuable that you’ve learned in the past — it should include only the key points, not every single detail. Like a cheat sheet for life, but you get somewhere between 60 MB and 10 GB per month, instead of just a 3 x 5″ notecard.
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The best rule of thumb is not to set out explicit decision criteria for what you keep. Just thinking about that is exhausting.
Instead, use resonance as your criteria. As in, “that resonates with me.” We know from neuroscience research that “emotions organize — rather than disrupt — rational thinking.” Often, when something “resonates” with us, it is our intuitive/right brain/System 1 mind telling us something is valuable before our analytical/left brain/System 2 mind even knows what’s going on. It’s no coincidence that the former is the same part that drives creativity, spontaneity, and self-expression.
This note has now become a potent information weapon, its ideas and facts ready to be used in a wide variety of future contexts, at a moment’s notice.
Note Design
What we’re talking about here is putting a lot more thought into the design and structure of each individual note. It is about making individual notes the most prominent actors, like discrete atoms that can be assembled into any form.
Design is always about balancing priorities — in this case: comprehensiveness and compression.
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Compression values condensing big ideas into small packages. We gain tremendous value in condensing the Bible (and even whole religions) into the rule of thumb “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” Consuming highly compressed ideas is inherently rewarding, because we can feel that each word is rich with substance. It also helps us conserve our precious attention by eliminating the “fluff” (see Derek Sivers’ post on “compressing knowledge into directives” for more examples).
Comprehensiveness values knowing all the facts. It is the voice in your head that says “Prove it.” It wants more data, and examples, and cited sources. It is the fear that you’ll remember the main point, but forget why it matters. It helps us not let anything fall through the cracks, but also drives us toward packrat insanity.
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The way to balance these competing priorities is to:
Progressively summarize the most important points of a source in small stages (compression), and…
Preserve each of these stages in layers that can be peeled back on demand (comprehensiveness).
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spend more time/attention on things that interest and resonate with you.
As David Allen says,
Simple, clear purposes and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.