Slipbox pitfalls

Slipbox pitfalls

Just like it's possible to make bad flashcards, it's possible to make a #slipbox that doesn't converse with you, a "graveyard for notes".

  • It must be trivial to follow links and jump to any note, with good hotkeys (Doom Emacs' <leader> n r f and Org-mode's C-c C-o may be dangerously clunky)
  • You must have the backlinks view (in org-roam the org-roam-buffer) visible or easily togglable (and often in fact toggled)
    • And your color theme and fonts shouldn't undo its visual structure
  • Don't attempt to recreate Wikipedia
    • Don't taxonomize topics like Wikipedia would. OK, sometimes you make a portal—a note that's an index over many others around a topic or purpose—but such indexes follow certain rules, see the book.
    • Though Sönke Ahrens doesn't say, try to title notes as active claims such as "Premature scaling can stunt system iteration" Matuschak: Evergreen notes should be concept-oriented. Jethro Kuan had a similar experience wrt "definition notes" vs "claim notes": Topic notes.
    • See where Matuschak uses proper noun titles: notes.andymatuschak.org/z6f6xgGG4NKjkA5NA1kDd46whJh2Gt5rAmfX "These note types are weakly evergreen. I may add to them over time, but because they aren’t concept-oriented, they’re not as useful to build on as an evergreen note… Non-trivial writing about proper nouns typically gets factored into separate evergreen notes which can be used in multiple places."
  • Think of Luhmann's A6 cards. Sure, he had "card sequences", the equivalent of long notes, but try anyway to think of what might fit on an A6 card as it's possible you should be splitting your notes more (which ties back into the fact it shouldn't be a problem in the first place to juggle many small notes).
  • Try to always rewrite instead of quote.
    • Usually you quote for an additional purpose, such as finding who originated a common aphorism and why. Expect to usually quote no more than one sentence and rarely a paragraph. If the quote is just too well-written to rewrite, perhaps come back after a day and then try to express the same idea in your words. The "mere ritual" of reproducing the insight is that good for making you learn.

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Created (2 years ago)