I help you write for your book or business as smoothly as a mermaid swims so you can reach more of the people that you are here to serve. I also share about my life and give you free links to all my articles on writing, personal development and traveling Japan. To get inspired, sign up for my weekly FunLetters!
The Paradox of information + writing
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How are you doing? Is there anything you are celebrating? Let me say first-- I’m riding high because my second business, which I acquired in January, has celebrated a big milestone. Background: My grandfather started a business 50 years ago, a magazine about banjos, it passed to my dad and now it's mine. After a LOT of work behind the scenes, I finally was able to announce that the business is open (and not closing, which almost happened). A lot of people are celebrating and supporting. Feel free to reply and tell me something you are celebrating! And as much as I love that, I also really want to talk about: Notes, journals, the genius that they contain and the PARADOX Paradox “…a paradox that a lot of people experience as they take notes: the more notes they gather, the more the volume of information grows, the more time and effort it takes to review it all, and the less time they have to do so. Paradoxically, the more notes they collect, the less discoverable they become!” – Tiago Forte, Building a Second Brain AHH I don’t know how you feel about this but it drives me crazy. I love knowledge. I love information. I love paper. Nope. Can’t say I did… the more I wanted to write down every thought in the hopes it would help me remember it more… Thus a circling problem. LOL the hilarity of it and the tragedy… So how do I find things when I want them? It's a big problem. I've come at this problem a number of ways over the last few years. I've tried different planners… But I really got serious about getting organized when I decided to change my entire life and move to Japan. There was so much to do in applying for jobs in Japan and preparing to go, that I got a coach who taught me a productivity and organization system. It definitely helped...enough. It worked just enough to help me do everything I needed to do before getting on a plane to Japan with suitcases in hand. What was that system I used in 2018? Basically I used a giant excel sheet organized by project area, that broke it all down by timeline. It was okay. I got things done! That WAS a milestone to celebrate... But a friend of mine saw it and was like aghast at how much I was shoving in this excel sheet lol. It made her cross eyed. Honestly, me, too. And the essentials to prep for Japan were complete but I still had a lot unfinished. I got everything I needed to do done, but not everything I wanted to do. But in 2019, I had some free time. I had finally made it to Japan and prepared to dig in for some creative activity. Ready to do more of what I want to do... Now I got some things done, but during my Japan Year in 2019-2020, I noticed a few things… First, in Japan, I no longer had my library of old journals, or notebooks to refer back to: No access to any of that insight. AND there had to be good stuff in there. But I didn’t even see that as a big problem because I had a bigger problem: Despite the lack of distractions…. I didn’t even feel like I was making the most out of the insights from the 1-2 journals I could carry with me or the documents on my computer. So forget the 20 journals back in my dad’s attic (cries). I had organized myself more than ever, and it was just not enough. However, I did reach one pinnacle: I was more aware than ever of how much I still needed to improve my system for finding and organizing my writing and ideas so I could do something with them. How many ideas I had done nothing with, how many things had fallen in the cracks for years! At that point, I didn’t have much confidence I could fix this. I was more organized than ever, but still... I was copying and pasting some of the same ideas in my excel sheet productivity system…. week after week At the end of each week I still had done nothing with many ideas, so I copied it to the next week and a lot never really went anywhere. Some did. But the excel sheet didn’t do everything for me, and my ideas were trapped into documents or journals. Some things just didn't fit into the system of an excel sheet at all... It was very much in my space, the things that didn’t work with the system: -my multi-passionate nature and all the slow burn projects, -insights from my journals, Tarot Readings or meditations -business musings from old trainings or things that are 5 steps ahead of where I am now, -fuzzy and unformed ideas, still brewing. I could handle my todo list for big, urgent problems and a finite number of projects with clear tasks. But I am such an octopus with 8 things at once. That system just could not handle my brain and the zillions of ideas I come up with. It didn’t fit me. Not ALL of me. It wasn't enough, I needed more. Well, I eventually tried a few other systems. I upgraded the excel sheet to Notion, which made it easy to tuck things out of sight if they were not a priority. No more going cross eyed looking at the big list AND I had more space to expound on projects or tasks if needed, without it distracting me when I don't need to see it. I made a bunch of templates and trainings on this Notion system that I share with my students now. But that’s still for organizing projects and tasks. What about all the other stuff? The thing I really love for organizing all the other stuff – is a free app called Obsidian. I have a whole system of how I use it, And I feel like I make sense to me now. For the last two years I have experimented with it to develop a whole new system to fill the gap so I can work on more things that I want to do versus need to do. I’ve used it as a hub to archive all my writing from journals, tarot readings, business classes, articles, and so much more. And it’s changed my life. It connects ideas in a new way instead of being scattered everywhere in a place I never see. So if you feel like there is no hope for you, please keep an open mind! Maybe there is something out there. Now to address the Paradox As a final thought, I want to pull forward: another quote of Tiago Forte that truly represents what I’ve learned from this whole journey to get organized: “Instead of consuming ever-greater amounts of content, we could take on a more patient, thoughtful approach that
favors rereading, reformulating, and working through the implications of ideas over time.
Not only could this lead to more civil discussions about the important topics of the day;
it could also preserve our mental health and heal our splintered attention.” I’ve shifted my life into spending more time looking back: looking back at my notes and the insights and lessons I have already learned. Because there’s a difference between having a great idea or a goal, and actually bringing it into knowledge. That takes repetition and reviewing and implementation and tweaking so it becomes a part of my bones. So deep that I no longer NEED a reminder. That takes time. That takes patience. That takes removing the foot from the gas on purely generating new words so fast I never look back. I've generated a lot of words. A LOT. Now I’m slowing down, reviewing things, making new connections between my ideas, and I have never felt smarter and more at ease. My mental health is improved by: - The satisfaction of synthesizing: building on my ideas into something better makes me feel like a genius. - Never starting from scratch: any time I write an article I already have it half written from all my great ideas from the past. - Better quality work: feeling proud, sharing it with more people and reusing or referencing my work over time - More energy: I use less energy to remember or find things so I have more to work with - More confidence: since I feel more genius now and because I really know when something is important to me and has come up in my notes 20+ times - Sense of peace: everything is ok, it’s written down somewhere and I know I’ll find it I stand my ground more because I know what’s really important to me. I value my ideas and I take myself seriously. I feel empowered. I am learning and growing in all the right ways. I know my system may not be the everything for everyone, but it’s just too good for me NOT to share. So I’ll be sharing both my updated and improve productivity system for projects in Notion AND My system for all the other writing and ideas I have. I have an amazing wikipedia-like system to organize all my zillions of ideas, journals, and thoughts into coherence and genius. And you are welcome to learn both systems and practice customizing them to suit your own needs. That will be the focus of the upcoming Digital Organization Membership, which will be starting in June. If you want to get 50% off the price, make sure to keep an eye out next month when the doors open. Early birds get 50% off the price: ===> $30 total for 3 months of membership But the sale is only available for the first week it opens... Click here to join the Digital Organization waitlist so you don't miss the 50% special. And remember: there is immense value in rereading or reviewing your journals and notes. Don’t underestimate the benefits of slowing down to let things sink in deeper. You’ll see the benefits. Give it a try. Enjoy this email? Read past FunLetters on the topic of organizing: -10x your healing, writing this way -morning and writing routines -the wrong question to ask about forgetting good ideas Thanks for reading! Lots of love, courage & mermaid vibes,
P.S Click here to join the Digital Organization waitlist for more info. P. P. S. If you DON'T want to hear about organization click here to skip. |
Hi! I'm Sofia Wren
Fun Nonfiction Writer & Writing Coach
I help you write for your book or business as smoothly as a mermaid swims so you can reach more of the people that you are here to serve. I also share about my life and give you free links to all my articles on writing, personal development and traveling Japan. To get inspired, sign up for my weekly FunLetters!
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