This weekend I was re-reading the excellent book, How to take smart notes by Sonke Ahrens. Within he provides a scenario involving a mistake being made when someone first starts the Zettelkasten Method.
Everyone has been trained a certain workflow or method involving taking notes. This may have been provided to you during schooling or you picked it up from others around you. Regardless, the point is each of us has a specific way to take notes, believing it is either the only way or the most efficient.
However, when you begin the Zettleckasten Method, you must retrain yourself to this new method or workflow. The scenario provided by Sonke is our attempt to use the Zettelkasten method with our current process of taking notes. This simply does not work. We are taking a different workflow, and trying to still use our old workflow, causing friction and issues.
Rather, we need to review the new workflow, and change to that new workflow, rather than trying to merge the two. Rather than being rigid, we must be willing to bend.
Within the book, the example he provides is the introduction with the containers found on our cargo ships. Prior to this, the idea of using square containers on round ships, having to fill, find, refill containers were absurd. It simply would not work.
The issue was trying to implement a new method, by using the old method. Only by restructuring the infrastructure, IE workflow, did we acquire the box containers, new ships to optimally and efficiently haul, and create an efficient transport method on and off the cargo. Today, we couldn’t imagine using this process for efficiency.
This reminded me of the Zen proverb, empty your cup. The teacher looking upon the student took a cup and filled it with water. “You are like this cup – so full of ideas that nothing more will fit in.” The teacher poured the water out and told the student to “Come back to me with an empty cup.”
This resonates with the same idea of relearning. We must ignore what we know or have learned, in order to see clearly. Only then can we adjust and adapt. This ability of your brain to adapt its way of operating and to physically change based on stimuli is known as neuroplasticity.
This is much harder to do than to recognize. It is very hard to teach old dogs new tricks or make the horse drink the water. Just as with neuroplasticity, the older we get, the harder it becomes.
This is something I am currently witnessing in my own work environment. As our work landscape changes, many are having a very hard time adjusting and adapting. Sticking to the current known workflow and method, while trying to ingest the new landscape causes issues. It simply is not working.
While each individual must empty their own cup, those that understand must remain patient and continue to lead them to the water.
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In this podcast episode, I take a concept from Zettelkasten and apply it to current-day issues. Emptying the cup and relearning is difficult, but we must adapt to our changing work environment.
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