81 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
81 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2017-03-14T15:11:17.000Z'
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title: Index cards are pretty cool (2009)
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url: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/may/09/health-and-wellbeing
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author: Tomte
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points: 65
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story_text:
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 28
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story_id:
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story_title:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1489504277
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_Tomte
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- story_13868090
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objectID: '13868090'
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---
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A few sentences into this week's column, I'm going to reveal that I am
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obsessed with index cards, and you're probably going to mock me. That's
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OK; I can cope. But first let me just remind you of the company I'm in.
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Vladimir Nabokov wrote several novels on index cards. The celebrated
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nonfiction writer John McPhee has developed a whole system of research
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and writing around them, and Ludwig Wittgenstein reportedly used them to
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develop the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Which means that index cards
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played a critical role in modern literature, journalism and philosophy.
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(And, incidentally, in the French Revolution, which some say was when
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they were invented: the new government used the backs of playing cards
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to record details of the books held in libraries seized from private
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ownership.) Impressive, no? All right. We can proceed.
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I am obsessed with index cards.
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A number of us, actually, suffer from this condition. For several years,
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the largely blog-based movement known as "lifehacking" has embraced the
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unassuming index card as an unrivalled tool for personal organisation -
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a dirt-cheap, portable medium for keeping lists, taking notes,
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brainstorming, memorising, organising your schedule, or leaving
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reminders for yourself. You might recall the "Hipster PDA" - a
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tongue-in-cheek proposed replacement for electronic organisers,
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consisting of a stack of cards, a bulldog clip ... and nothing else.
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(For more uses of index cards, see the blogger Dustin Wax's exhaustive
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summary at[tinyurl.com/cmov4s](tinyurl.com/cmov4s). And for photos of a
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truly alarming effort to organise one's entire life on tiny card
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rectangles, see [tinyurl.com/cfmttq](tinyurl.com/cfmttq).)
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To get theoretical for a moment, the cards fulfil two requirements of
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any good information storage system. First, it's easy to put stuff in:
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I'm far less likely to record a thought if I have to fiddle with a
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handheld device. Second, it's easy to manipulate stuff once it's in. You
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can't, by contrast, endlessly rearrange the pages of a notebook in order
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to prioritise tasks, structure a piece of writing, discard things you no
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longer need, etc.
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But might the power of index cards be greater still - mysterious,
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almost? I've wondered this ever since reading Robert Pirsig's novel
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Lila, in which the lead character is a philosopher who lives on a boat,
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writing his magnum opus on thousands of cards. As each thought occurs,
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he records it. Then, for hours, he rearranges the cards, grouping
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similar ideas together until a structure begins to emerge, seemingly
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independent of his will. This kind of "emergent order" is a hallmark of
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the web - think Wikipedia - but it's somehow spookier when it happens on
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paper, and involves only one human.
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The German sociologist Niklas Luhmann did something similar in reality,
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creating what he called his "secondary memory": an index-card system
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that held, eventually, a lifetime of research notes. He came to think of
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it not as an archive but as a collaborator: as in Lila, an order emerged
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from the bottom up, and when he followed cross-references through the
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system, he'd discover connections that took him by surprise. Since being
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able to surprise someone is a characteristic of true communication,
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Luhmann argued "that there was actually communication going on between
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himself and his partner", writes the blogger at
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takingnotenow.blogspot.com. Personally, I don't talk to my index cards.
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But maybe it's only a matter of time.
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• [oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com](oliver.burkeman@theguardian.com)
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