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Index Card Organization

I am starting to embrace the fact that the way I live and the things that hold my attention are not consistently in my attention. Which means the things I might be into today might lose my interest tomorrow but peek out from uder the curtain and hold my interest again a few years from now.

I embraced my shifting focus well in the last ten years. What I am yet to learn is to effectively leave myself breadcrumbs to find an older focus back when I feel ready.

I have been re-reading Pirsig's Lila. In this book Pirsig talks about a way he left himself notes in case he were to have another mental breakdown and lost all the memories. He uses an elaborate and uber-analytical method of cataloging ideas. Pirsig would write his ideas on index cards and catalog them in a particular topic. Then he used a simple rule to set the cards in order. Imagine a sort of dewey decimal system for ideas.

This system can expand infinitely but still work for just a handful of ideas.

My ideas are less than a handful, and fairly pedestrian. They are in no way as brilliant and deep as Pirsig's. Pirsig pursued value and morals. My pursuits do not compare. But my pursuits are important to me. Capturing them is important given my ever changing focus.

I will write more about the system Pirsig uses and my interpretaton of it. I will be starting with a simplistic execution of the system before complications are necessary.

For now, I am going to purchase some index cards.