Pile of Index Cards System

Pile of Index Cards System (PoIC)

This is a note taking system using index cards.  I’m copying this down because the original website and wiki for the PoIC system are gone and most other sites just refer to it with a now dead link.

How it works
Hawk describes four types of cards in his system:

The Record Card. He describes it as “a diary, note, account, health, weather, cook, any kind of records about us belongs to this class.” I’d say this is the incoming “stuff” of the day: appointments, notes to follow up on, etc.
The Discover Card. Hawk describes the Discover Card as “Things from my brain, mind, spirit, anything emerge from inside me, are classified into this class.” This is the result of a mind dump. Don’t worry about classifying when filling out a Discover Card. Just get whatever is on your mind out and onto paper.
The GTD Card. Here he combines the title of a project and several actions that pertain to it (here’s a look at the template in English). This reminds me of the “Hipstper PDA Template” I used religiously about 10 years ago.
The Cite Card captures other people’s ideas that warrant attention. He says, “Important here is distinguishing ‘your idea (Discovery Card)’ and ‘someone else’s idea (Cite Card).’ Source of the information must be included in the Cite Card. A book, for example, author, year, page(s) are recorded for later use.”

In essence this is a Commonplace book broken up into card sized chunks.

Speculation:  You could probably make a digital version of this system much like Cyberzettel.com using Wordpress.

 

Zetttelkasten as memoir

You could dedicate a zettelkasten as a sort of non-linear memoir.  Most of our memories are about an event or a scene.  You could use a zettelkasten to record one scene or memory from your life for each “slip” or card.  These could later be assembled for publication if needs be, or left as vignettes for retrieval via cross indexing.

This is different from journaling, diaries or blogs which are all linear time-wise.

Example:  My father, a child of the Great Depression, taught me, as a lad, to always check the coin returns on payphones for change left behind.  I later did this when walking through a restaurant lobby and my mother and grandmother were appalled my grandfather was amused.  Note: I made quite a bit of money in change over the years.

Adding Analog Directory Category

Thinking about adding a category “Analog” to Indieseek.xyz.

It would include paper things like:  paper journals, fountain pens, other writing implements, office supply p*rn, typewriters, analog zettelkasten, notebooks.

Also things like analog watches and clocks.

Other stuff?

 

Added: 30 August 2022

Analog

  • Paper Journals
  • Paper Notebooks
  • Pens
  • Pencils?
  • Office Supplies
  • Typewriters
  • Paper Notes?

Eliminated the blog page.

I changed the front page of this site from being a standard blog front page with 5 descending posts, to a page with an index of all categories and tags.  That blog page is now hidden.

Linear posting really isn’t a part of a zettelkasten.  There should be many different points of entry and time, date and posting order are not very important.