Recording Your First Note

Mastering Note-Processing: Lesson Two

Leo Tolstoy was able to write War and Peace because he didn’t try to write anything else. His power of focus enabled him to get one thing done and that one thing bordered on the creation of a world. Then he went on to create more worlds, one at a time.

Focus under pressure, which is to say, attending to what matters most in chaos, is not merely a gift. It’s a discipline and it’s one that we can support with the right tools.

At the end of Lesson One, I promised to show you how to write the perfect note. Looked at from one point of view, you could accuse me of a bait and switch. Neither you nor I will ever write The Perfect Note.

But from another perspective, perfect doesn’t have to mean complete and flawless, some heavenly or Platonic embodiment. It could mean something more simple: suited to the need of the moment.

That kind of note I can help you write and will. I’ll show you how to use tools that help you focus.

Quick Review for Context

In Lesson One you learned how to set up three notebooks: A journal (J), a planning notebook (P), and a commonplace book for quotations (Q).

We saw that any system that works will overcome three challenges. It will enable you:

1. To write a note when the noteworthy idea enters your mind.

2. To find the note when you need it.

3. To do something with the note when you find it, such as, write something fresh and compelling, deliberate over an issue, go fishing, or contemplate an idea.

Never forgetting the third challenge, in this note I will show you how to write Your First Note in a way that immediately solves problems 1 and 2 and prepares you to bravely meet challenge 3.

What You’ll Find in This Post:

In what follows you will discover an introduction to writing Your First Note in which I reflect on the varying levels of readiness thinkers bring to their note-processing, the reason Your First Note deserves and even needs its own post, and the four questions you will answer as you write Your First Note: Where should you write your note, where can you find ideas to write about (hint: three places), how should you write your note, and how can you find your note once written?

At the end, if I can think of anything good I’ll write an inspiring conclusion that convinces you that you have discovered the greatest thing since Briced sleds because it will bring you peace of mind, the perfect body, and an irresistible personality that makes the world so fall in love with you that they send you all their bitcoin through snail mail.

But if I’m unable to accomplish all that, at least you’ll know how to write Your First Note.

Introduction: Levels of Readiness

Hamlet famously said, “The readiness is all,” a motto I live by. Unfortunately, being Hamlet, he doesn’t stick around to explain. We frequently discover that readiness comes in levels and degrees, so we could use a little more instruction.

For example, you may be so ready to write Your First Note that you are champing at the proverbial bit, your only anxiety directed at the moment when the gate opens, thought-energy flowing through you like blood through the veins of a stallion.

On the other hand, you may so fear the blank space for Your First Note that you’ve lain awake cursing me for making you wait for this post.

More likely you are somewhere in between, more or less indifferent to the timing of the post but interested to see whether it will make a modest contribution to your writing career or at least to your experience with processing notes. I share that interest.

If you find Note-Processing easy, you can probably skate across this post. Even so, I suggest you still read it because, being full of mischief, I am going to secrete into this lesson some practices you’ll want to skim like cream from the surface (It’s not really only about Your First Post, just don’t tell anybody our secret).

If you are impatiently cursing me, I hope this post justifies the wait.

If you are in between, I hope your porridge turns out just right.

Above all, I hope you’ll find something useful. I aim to provide you with your next step, whether you are a master, a journeyman, an apprentice, or a novice.

Why Your First Note Deserves Its Own Post

I’m about to get going, honest, but before we get to the practicalities, let me explain why I’m writing a whole post about Your First Note.

For one thing, it offers challenges unique to firsts (let those who were born first or gave birth to a first born say, “amen”).

For another thing, there are lessons to be learned when you write Your First Note that will apply to all your notes (let the parents of multiple children say, “amen”).

When you finish this lesson, you will have written Your First Note. You will also have learned so much about writing notes that you will be able to bear fruit like an apple seed grown to a tree.

Furthermore, it’s easier to concentrate on one thing than on many. By devoting this whole post to only Your First Note, we can give all our attention to the one thing needful and avoid distractions.

Starting With Caricatures

Do you remember when you (or your children) were very little and you first started coloring. Coloring books for little children use thick black lines. As children age, those lines become thinner and thinner. Eventually they disappear and the artist draws her own lines to set the limits of a given shape or object.

That is a synechoche for all learning, an example that serves as a type for every art. My instructions during this lesson are thick black lines, overly formulaic, inflexible, simplistic, caricatures. As you proceed through these lessons, you will, as it were, draw your own lines, add color and shade, make your own judgments, and do things your own way.

However, this post is about Your First Note.

Not for Publication

As I said above, Your First Note will not express the Platonic Form of the Note. It will, however, be suited to your needs at the moment. It will be a practice note, for your eyes only.

Practice notes are not the same as a finished product. That’s important and I don’t want you to miss this point. How can I emphasize it enough?

I know! I’ll shout:

YOUR NOTEBOOK IS NOT FOR PUBLICATION!

Could you hear me?

Let me now whisper it:

Your notebook is not for publication.

You are not writing your notes for anybody else to see them. Your notebook is (yes, I’m about to use this term), a Safe Space.

It’s for practice. It’s for you. It’s for experimentation.

IT’S NOT FOR PUBLICATION!!!

So, if you accept the importance of attending to Your First Note so you can handle its unique challenges, concentrating on one note at a time, and if you can accept that we are going to begin by practicing with caricatures, let’s get to the practicalities.

By the way, I should mention if only in passing that your notebooks are not for publication.

Writing the Note

If you are new to note-writing, you are probably asking, “What should I write?” You might even think that is the first problem you have to solve. And indeed, it is a good question.

There before you sits the blank but formatted page, the almost tabula rasa, the dreaded white space demanding your attention. What can I say?

Believe it or not, while it’s a good question, it’s not your first problem, which is why it creates so much anxiety. It’s a little like knowing that you have to get dressed so you try to decide what to wear.

Of course you have to decide what to wear. That is a problem and it can cause great anxiety. But it isn’t the first one.

First, you need somewhere to put your clothes. Until you have a closet or a dresser, you can’t solve the problem of getting dressed because you won’t be able to access your clothes when you need them.¹

Similarly, what your note will wear (what you will say) is not the first problem of note-taking, it’s just the first problem you usually feel. To solve it, you have to ignore it for a moment so you can prepare to solve it.

That preparation is psychological and practical, or, for a shorthand, psycho-practical.

In what follows I will show you practical ways to solve the psychological problem of filling in the blank page. Because, really, many of our psychological problems are actually practical problems for which we have no ready solution, and that causes anxiety, dementia, and homesickness.

What then are our practical problems? Allow me to put them in solution form, which is more optimistic. In what follows you are going to find where to write your note, where to find your note, how to write it, and how to find it.

With those four solutions, you will find noting so easy that you’ll think this was much ado about noting.

Sorry.

Where to Write Your First Note

Your first psycho-practical problem is simple: you need a place to record your note.

“Ah good,” you think, “I have already solved this problem. I set up my notebooks like a good student.”

Indeed. Problem solved. Now we can proceed to the second problem, which is where to find your note.

“But wait!” you shout. “You made me set up Three Stupid Notebooks: J, P, and Q. I can’t write my note in three different places.”

Good point, I calmly respond, encouraging you to breathe slowly.

Decision-Fatigue is a Real Thing

In fact, you have identified the source, not of a note, but of a psycho-practical problem that probably disrupts more writing careers and experiences than any other: anxiety or, more precisely, decision-fatigue.

You can’t write Your First Note until you have a place to put it. But three places are offering themselves. You have to decide.

This is terrible!

It gets worse:

What if when you decide, you write your note in the wrong place. This is your First Note! What could be more awful than putting Your Very First Note in the Wrong Place?!

You think, “Is this for my journal or for my planner? Is it an insight or a plan? Is it a reflection or a next step? Might it be for my commonplace book? Are these my own words or Franz Kafka’s? Which notebook do they go in? I can’t decide! Aaahhh!!”

When you should be writing, you are distracted by a decision. You don’t want to be making decisions. You want to write!

That is no small thing; it is microcosmic. It seems tiny, but it touches everything.

We noters get into a zone, the words are flowing with the whiskey, the thoughts are chasing each other like puppies de-kenneled. And suddenly some uncertainty dams the flow, the momentum is lost, our lives are ruined, and the world is impoverished.

Writers and note-processors suffer from decision fatigue far more than we realize.

“Where then should I write my first note? Tell me.”

Well, first we need to…

“No, shut up and tell me. Stop prevaricating. Stop mumbling and jumbling. Stop preparing and stalling. Tell me right now or I will stop reading this post!!”

Ok, fine. But, like Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life, I have to tell you,

“You're not going to like it, George!” [click on the line for a special treat].

The Unlikeable Answer

Because the answer, after all this prevaricating, mumbling and jumbling, preparing and stalling, is: It doesn’t matter.

Wait, come back. Let me explain!

I don’t mean it absolutely doesn’t matter. I mean it doesn’t matter which notebook you write it in and where in the notebook you write it.

Your notebooks are set up, so you have already reduced your options to three specific places. You have a closet and a chest of drawers. This is your first garment. Put it where you want; you can clean up later.

In other words, if you have a note to write, pick up the nearest notebook and write it. Don’t be distracted by any other decision or you’ll lose your socks.

“You mean, just open the notebook and write on whatever page I open to?”

Yes, stop thinking about a problem you have already solved!

“What if I open to the index?”

For Your First Note, worse things can happen. But you probably won’t, so stop being distracted by decisions and just write your note.

“What if I open to the TOC?”

Perhaps you remember how you started shouting at me just a moment ago. This is me returning the favor:

STOP BEING DISTRACTED BY DECISIONS YOU’VE ALREADY MADE AND WRITE YOUR NOTE!

You have set up three notebooks. Any one of them is as ready to receive your note as a bassinet on a birthday.

Don’t worry about all the things that can go wrong, when the very worst thing that can happen to a note is the same as the worst thing that can happen to you and me: to die without being remembered. And that is much more likely to happen if you worry about all the things the can go wrong.

You already limited anything else that can go wrong to a fixable problem when you set up your notebooks.

You already limited the available locations to three notebooks.

Furthermore, you already put in place a method by which you will be able to find the note later on.

Don’t be distracted by anything else from the one thing.²

Where to Find Your First Note: Sources

Great. If I have finally convinced you that IT DOESN’T MATTER WHERE YOU WRITE YOUR FIRST NOTE, we can get on to writing it.

Let’s get practical. Pickup your notebooks, choose one without looking, and now that you know exactly and precisely where to write it (wherever it ends up), let’s get that first note written.

“But wait,” you scream. “I don’t have a first note. I can’t write something I don’t have.”

I have to tell you, you have real and legitimate concerns, but I wish you would stop yelling at me. You’re making my tinnitus worse. I get it and I’m on your side.

We’ve built a pantry where you can store your thoughts. Now we need a field where we can grow them or a plain where we can hunt them or a lake where we can fish for them. Ideas don’t come from out of the blue. They have sources.

So let’s talk about where you can find ideas to turn into notes.

Ideas will descend or ascend to you from three places:

• Your mind

• Something written (eg. a book, article, essay, etc.)

• Something spoken (eg. a movie, lecture, discussion, etc.)

Each source will be recorded somewhat differently, but to go into too much detail on the differences at this point would be to throw you back into decision-fatigue and turn a caricature into a Van Gogh. Don’t worry, we’ll develop in later posts and in more detail the differences between how to record notes from the different sources.

Right now, the main thing I want to do is give you permission to use any source you come across for Your First Note and to explain each just enough to make clear that you can do it.

Notes From Your Mind

The first source for Your First Note could be your mind. In other words, you’ve been thinking about something and you’d like to record the present state of your thoughts. Please remember now the law I laid down earlier:

Your Notebook is not for publication.

When I am recording thoughts from my mind, I think of it as a status report. This is the status of my thoughts at this moment in time. That way, I have room to explore further, to change my mind, to interrogate my ideas. They can be as unformed as this one:

Notes From a Spoken Source

The second source for a note is a spoken source, like a lecture, documentary, TV show, video interview, etc.

Later lessons will go into much more detail about how to refine your note-processing of ideas but I’ll write a little bit below about how to record Your First Note from a spoken source.

Notes From a Written Source

The third source of a note, and this will be most common for the voracious readers among us, is a written source.

Once again, the most important thing is to simply write the note. All the other decisions can follow your writing of the note, so I’ll go into it below under “How to write Your First Note.”

How to Write Your First Note

Well done. You have worked out the two preliminary challenges: you have a place to record your note and you have a place to find your note.

Now it is time to write it.

Writing a Note From Your Mind

I said above that when I write a note from my own thoughts, I treat it like a status report, not a publishable text. If Your First Note comes from your mind, that’s how you should write it: as you are able to express it at this moment.

Let’s say you have been thinking about penguins lately and have begun to wonder why they dress in black and white. Your First Note could be as simple as, “I wonder why penguins dress in black and white.”

Or maybe you’ve thought about it a little more, so you have an opinion. Write it! “Perhaps penguins dress in black and white because they aspire to become butlers in a Victorian country house.”

Whatever you want to record, grab the nearest notebook and write it in the content section.

Since it is a status report, I try to note the date in the upper left hand corner after I write the note. I don’t do that before I write it, but I try to add it afterward.

To be honest, I don’t worry about this all that much because my notebooks all have date-identified addresses on their spine. It doesn’t usually matter all that much whether I thought of something on June 23 or June 5th.

If it does matter, I’ll probably realize that when I write the note. For example, my wedding anniversary is June 16. Perhaps I wrote a note on that very day and it matters that I did so. In that case, AFTER I write the note, I’m almost certain to date it.

Writing a Note From a Spoken Source

If you write Your First Note in response to a spoken source, the first thing to do is make sure you aren’t driving! If you are driving, the only thing you can do is note the time stamp of what you are listening to and return to it when you aren’t driving any more.

If you are listening to something and want to write a note, I strongly recommend that you not try to write it word for word. Repeat or summarize the point in your own words to the best of your ability.

Also, don’t write too much. You aren’t trying to repeat or even remember the point the speaker makes. You are writing and responding to what it triggered in your mind. The speaker already said what the speaker said, so you don’t need to!

Now, if you want to record your note as a quotation, you can certainly do that. In that case, since you aren’t in danger of losing the thought, you may go ahead and find your commonplace book (Q) and add it.

Otherwise, write your thought or response to what the speaker said in the nearest notebook and smile at yourself for a job well done.

Above I told you you might want to insert the date when the source is your own mind. For a spoken source, you’ll want to include both the date the source was posted or delivered and then add a time stamp, which will take the place of a page number if you ever want to refer to the source.

Let’s say, for example, that you are listening to a lecture or watching an interview on Youtube. The first thing you want to do is write the note as it occurs to you and ignore any other distracting decisions.

Then and only then, add the date of the lecture or posting in the margin to your left, and add the time stamp immediately under the date.

2.14.1913
12:34:29

Here is an example of a note I wrote in response to a short video with seven points, each of which I noted. Because I wasn’t just noting a single point, I didn’t time stamp it.

If I thought it mattered, I could have time stamped each point, but I didn’t so I didn’t.

Also, I got sick a couple days after writing this.

The time stamp for a recording is easy enough: note how much time has elapsed on the recording.

A live lecture is a bit different. In fact, I would not usually add a time stamp for a live lecture, but if you want to, either note the time of day or the amount of time that has elapsed since the beginning of the lecture.

I’ve even been known to write notes during a TV show or a movie. In that case, I don’t care much about the date of broadcast or streaming. I just note the show and the time elapsed in the episode.

Sherlock IV, 1 (Season IV, episode 1)
22:50

Let me emphasize that I am not trying to complicate Your First Note, but to show that you can find the source of your first note in any spoken medium and once you do it’s pretty easy to write. You’ll adjust slightly how you record it, but it won’t matter much.

Having written the note and noted its source, now use the margin to the left and insert a key word or a question.

Let’s say your note is, “Joc Pedermusk claims that penguins wear black and white so they can adapt to the rapid changes in temperature they undergo when they jump off the icebergs.”

In the margin you will already have written the name and date of the podcast and the time stamp.

Pedermusk Speaks
1/18/2018
14:92

Now write a key word or question, such as

• Pedermusk on penguins

• Penguin vestments

• Why do penguins dress in black and white?

• How do penguins survive rapid temperature changes?

If you look back to my note, you’ll see that I wrote the words, “exercise, nutrition, stress” in my margin. I could have added “sleep, nasal breathing,” and other key words, but the ones I wanted to note were the ones I wrote in the margin. It’s my notebook. You can’t tell me what to do!

That’s it. You wrote the note when you were ready because you had a place to write it. When you were done, you identified its source without being distracted from your note by the need to do so.

If you don’t remember this point, this long post will have the opposite effect from the one I am seeking: I am not trying to complicate your note-processing; I am trying to help you see that you can write a note from any source. The differences are minimal and you must not let them distract you from writing your note!

Writing a Note From a Written Source

If you are reading a text in any format and want to record something you encounter, you will do it much like you would a spoken source. However, because the text is more stable in time and space than the audio, you might have more options as you write.

For Your First Note, locate the spot in the notebook where you are going to record the note and write it.

I will mention three kinds of note you will commonly write, but it’s important not to turn this into a crisis when the iron is hot. Later we’ll take a closer look at how to practice and refine each. Again I must repeat, I am giving you permission to write any of the three when they strike you. Write it in the notebook you pick up when you reach for one and don’t worry about potential errors.

The three common kinds of note you will write when you read are quotations, responses, and ruminations.

Quotations

You might read something you want to record word for word. In general, that is less helpful, but so what. Sometimes it’s a good idea. If Your First Note wants to be a quotation, write a quotation, word for word. As above, feel free to take the time to find your Q notebook if you want, but don’t lose sleep - or your quotation - over it.

Responses

You might read something that triggers a response, either affirmative or negative. For example, you might have read in some obscure document that recording quotations is generally less helpful, and you thought: “What idiot would say such a thing?”

In that case, your response is your note: “Some moron claimed that writing quotations is never helpful. I think the person who said that is careless with his words and should never write anything again as long as he lives.”

Or you might write: “Some guy claimed that quotations are less helpful (but he didn’t say what they were less helpful than). I’m not convinced.”

Or even: “Some guy claimed that quotations are less helpful (but he didn’t say what they were less helpful than). I don’t know what he meant.”

As you can see, you might have any number of responses to a given text and all of them are valid.

Ruminations

Sometimes you’ll read something about, say, penguins that wear red hats, and it will trigger tangentially related thoughts about red hats or red things or reds or things birds wear or penguins or Aaron Judge or the Yalta Conference that started on February 3, 1945.

In this case, let your ruminations and contemplations take the original thought in the direction it wishes. “John Climacus claims that penguins that wear red hats get more headaches than those that don’t. One time Aaron Judge couldn’t play because he had a headache, which was like the time Churchill got sick right before the Yalta conference.”

In each case, quotation, response, or rumination, you should write the note in the content section and add the reference somewhere on the page. I like using the left hand margin, as described above, but I am not married to it. You could also write at the bottom or even in the content box with your note.

Here is a picture of a rumination I began about World War II. Notice where I write the references:

Let me remind you not to worry about “doing this right.” I am not restraining you but giving you permission.

If while you think about penguins with red hats you are reminded of Aaron Judge being traded to the Florida Marlins, then you should write your note about the thought you are thinking.

So there you are. You have a place to put your notes, a place to discover thoughts that become your notes, and a way to write your notes. Perhaps by now you have even written Your First Note. If so, congratulations!

Now give it a title. For Your First Note the title hardly matters, but we’ll go into how to write a title more in later lessons. Today, just grab some words that you think might help and write them at the top of the page.

What about visual or sensory sources

If you are an artist or a biologist (same thing), you might be wondering how to write notes about a picture or a meal or something that approaches you in a non-verbal form. I have one thing to say to you:

Go to your room.

Just kidding.

In this case, I treat the source as though it were my mind but I acknowledge the artist or the location.

Let’s say I see a beautiful tree and it makes me wonder if I’ll ever see a poem as lovely as a tree. So I write that in my journal. I’ll add a date and maybe a location.

3/24/94
Hwy 57, N of Green Bay, between Champion and Sugar Bush

“Saw a beautiful tree. Will I ever see a poem so lovely?”

Or let’s say I see a painting and it makes me wonder if I’ll ever see a tree as lovely as this painting. Same thing, but in this case, I’ll add the painter and the name and location of the painting, if I know them.

2/3/25
The Hay Wain by John Constable, National Gallery, London

“Reminds me of the paintings dad hung in his office.”

As you can see, you can write a note about anything read, anything spoken, anything thought, and even anything experienced.

What your page looks like

Now that you have written Your First Note, your page is starting to fill up. In the content box, you have written the note. At the top, you have added a title. To the left or somewhere else, you have identified the source (if there is one), and, to help you get around, you have written key words and/or questions in the margin.

How to Find Your First Note

There’s just one problem left. Eight years from now when your Future Self invites your neighborhood penguin over to celebrate the 8th anniversary of Your First Note, you’ll want to find it! The note, I mean.

You aren’t done writing your note unless you have made it easy for your Future Self to find. Take care of your Future Self and your Future Self will take care of you.

But you have outsmarted time and shown true love to your Future Self: you are ready and you know what to do! You have an index and you have a Table of Contents.

The last thing you need to do, then, is add Your First Note to your TOC and index.

The TOC is simpler. You wrote a title at the top of the page. Go to the TOC and add that title and the page number.

The index is a bit harder because it requires more judgment. Here’s what you’ll do for Your First Note:

1. Identify and underline one or two or maybe three key words in the post.

2. Turn to your alphabetical index in the back of your notebook, and add each word along with their page numbers to the index.

And you are done.

Conclusion and Coda

You have quite a few more questions about note-processing. Me too. But the great thing is, you’ve written and indexed Your First Note. Not only that, you’ve been introduced to the psycho-practical tools that make writing much more bearable.

Soon you’ll be recording notes all over the place about all kinds of things. Soon after that, you’ll be writing more consistently, either as an aid to contemplation or for the eyes of the world.

You’ve seen how “the readiness is all” and you’ve proven your readiness. Perhaps you’ve experienced what I began to note in this undeveloped note a few weeks ago:

You learned that the First Note carries a lot of weight and you’ve made it strong enough to carry that weight.

You’ve located both where your notes go and where you to find ideas that can become notes (your mind, spoken words, written words, and non-verbal experiences).

You have drawn a note from one or more of those sources and you’ve made sure you can find your note when you go on a date with a penguin.

You’ve covered a lot of ground! Nice job. Look how handsome, charming, and rich you have become!!

In future lessons, we will learn more precise ways to source and record notes, how to apply more psycho-practical solutions to ensure we can write notes, and more refined ways to ensure we can always find what we are looking for. One of the things I’ll show you in the next post is how to cross reference your journals.

Remember, we are learning how to use these tools so we can produce more fruit, write more posts, and make our modest but meaningful contribution to the people we love.

I don’t want to drive away any readers, but you may as well as know that, in seed form, you now know pretty much all you need to know about writing notes. From now on, it’s just a matter of mastering each tool a little bit more and then seeing what to do when we reach their limits.

For lesson three, write at least one note (a few if you feel ready) and prepare for lesson three in a couple weeks!

1. Another problem you’ll have to deal with is knowing your purpose: why are you getting dressed or why are you taking notes? Like so many things, we’ll discuss that more in later posts, but its a bit of an advanced lesson at this point.

2. A qualification for the perfectionist:

I admit that J and P are better suited to this purpose than Q because you’ve set Q aside for quotations. But you have to remember something important: these are your notebooks. If you write something other than a quotation in your commonplace book, it won’t reduce your grade.

I also admit that you probably would be better off writing on the next available page rather than on some random page in the middle, but it doesn’t matter (did I say that earlier?): you’ve already set things up to make the note easy to find.

Here’s what matters: whether you are ready. When the idea comes to you, do you have something on which you can write your note and something with which you can write?

It may seem counter-intuitive, but the first challenge for note processing is not having something to write, it is where to write it—and you have are ahead of them game: you have located a place for your first note.

Our goal is to bring peace of mind to our writing lives while increasing our output, first in quality, then in quantity.