In case you’ve ever wondered how I do productivity porn, this is pretty much it.
Did you ever hear that theory about how anorectics develop their obsessive-slash-controlling relationship with food because they feel like they have no control over most areas of their lives, so focusing on and limiting their food intake gives them a comforting sense that they have something that they make feel big and important under control? (I can’t find too many references to this online—it may have been one of those lies they taught me in high-school health class, like “Smoking is dangerous” and “You shouldn’t drink.”)
I do that with knowledge. My obsessive notecarding relaxes me immensely, and turns out to be bigtime useful when it comes to actually writing an academic paper. I don’t do it routinely—only for big projects like my BA thesis—but when I do, it feels fucking great.
Top: Source card. Roman numeral indicates the source number, the card itself contains a proper Turabian-style footnote for the work I’m taking notes on.
Bottom: Note card. Upper-left: the Roman numeral indicates the source, the letter one of the broad topics the note refers to. (A list of which I keep in a notebook. “A” is for “Historiography.”) Upper-right: a set of keywords to remind me what I was thinking of when I took the note and make it easier to find, say, everything Benjamin said about time in this particular essay later on. Center: note or quotation. One idea per card. Two at the most. Never more than two ideas per card. Bottom center: page reference, for citation and context purposes. Bottom-right: a number indicating the card’s sequence in the notes for the particular source.
I just turned myself on a little again.
Wow! I had almost the exact same system when I was in college. The only difference? I color coded my cards according to general topic. I was a history major, so often my papers covered several years or decades. In that case, I would color code according to year. I have boxes and boxes of cards from my honors thesis. When I wrote the actual paper, I literally covered my floor with the notecards, in the order that I wanted to present the ideas. Then I numbered the backs (in case I dropped them or something) and the paper pretty much wrote itself. Obsessive? Yes. Obnoxious for my roommate at the time? Oh, yes. Effective? Most definitely.
