The urge to highlight Let’s face it: we all have the urge to highlight. We come across a new idea in something we read, a poignant quote, or a relevant example for our work. We feel this undeniable force beckoning us to leave our mark. To plant the preverbal stake in the ground so…

“On what slender threads do life and fortune hang.” — Alexandre Dumas I remember reading the Count of Monte Cristo many years ago and reflecting on how this famous line captured the fickleness of fate. But I've wondered if our resiliency can be improved by finding better threads. A few…

There's something amiss with the term 'Tools for Thought.' Perhaps something as simple as having the word ‘Tool’ first causes us to focus on the tool more than the thinking. Maybe even using the term ‘Thought’ can lead us astray. It’s easy to confuse thought as an object rather than…

While the contents of this article will not be as controversial as its title, it will explore the difference between a “Tag First” versus a “Relationship First” approach to adding notes to your knowledge development system. …

Knowledge development is, at its core, a creative endeavour. You take information and create connections to further your understanding. And like other creative endeavours, this whole process walks a fine line between order and chaos. If we veer too far one way or the other, we’ll have a hard time…

One of the core principles of my External Mind focuses on setting up processes that limit the amount of work in progress. …

An External Mind, a system that enables the development of understanding by managing knowledge, requires a not-insignificant amount of effort to create, use, and maintain. So if we’re putting in all this work, we want to ensure a healthy return on our investment. …

The problem with perfect notes is that there’s no such thing as perfect notes or a perfect knowledge development system. We may all know this to be true, but that doesn’t mean we’ve stopped trying to achieve it. Perfectionism in Knowledge Development. There are two ways my perfectionist tendencies have consistently caused my knowledge…

According to Anne-Laure Le Cunff from Ness Labs, note-takers fall within one of the three following categories. Librarians collect and curate relevant information. Gardeners take an exploratory approach, tending to notes and seeing what grows. Architects focus on structured pipelines that systematically convert raw knowledge into understanding and output. If…