Some time ago I blogged on a system called PoIC, which stands for Piles of Index Cards, a system for creating a personal knowledge database by Hawk Sugano. You can read more about it in the earlier entry, but the quick and dirty description is that PoIC is a nifty system for helping to organize your thoughts and ideas in a way that, when properly applied, creates a sort of self-sustaining aid for creativity and project management. The system is a kind of repository for loose ideas, musings, brainstorms, rants, references, reading notes… anything that can fit on a 3×5 card. The cards are filed chronologically, aided by a simple but effective timestamp that goes in the upper right corner of each one. An equally simple set of four icons helps remind you what a given card is for (note, idea, citation, to-do). Then, when a critical mass of cards is reached (Sugano recommends about 1,000 cards) you go through them and look for trends, themes, ideas that keep recurring. Grouping these together can result in the basis for a project.
I’ve been using the system for about six months now, and I have decided that it is worth using long term, with a few caveats. My PoIC has helped me draft out one paper I intend to publish in an intellectual journal, formed the grist for a couple of blog entries here, and helped organize my thinking on some long-term ideas I’ve been kicking around for some time now.
The biggest drawback to the system, in my opinion, is that one must use it regularly, even relentlessly. It is easy for someone to think that just because some new tool makes something easier, you don’t need to do that something as often. At least that’s what my inner sloth tells me. In fact, a good tool will make you want to do something more often–and usually does.
But PoIC demands that you spend time with it. You need to keep blank cards handy and use them. Many years ago I got into the habit of doing a lot of thinking by writing in pocket notebooks I always carry with me. PoIC can provide a good place to keep the ideas I’ve scribbled in those notebooks, so I’ve started adding PoIC timestamps to my notebook entries. Later, when I’m reviewing my notebooks, I can transfer the ideas worth hanging on to (precious few) to PoIC cards.
That’s a partial solution. The real challenge is to make the time to sit down on a regular basis and let the mind play, free associate, dream, and brainstorm. Doing this solo isn’t hard, but doing it on a schedule take some getting used to. I know, for instance, that quite a few professional writers have trained themselves to where they can sit down and, from nine to five, be creative. It can be done, and probably should be if you are serious at all about any form of intellectual activity that demands creativity. I’ll check in later with more on that question in a future installment.
Too bad most of my best ideas seem to come to me when I’m in the shower.
Just wondering whether you are still using PoIC, and what you think of it?! I discovered Hawk’s blog/wiki and eventually found your entries from a two years ago, and I’m looking to see if other’s are using it with any success?
Jabus,
Thanks for the comment. PoIC is a fascinating tool, but it does have limits. I still use it, but only on occasion, so it isn’t a daily exercise for me as it is for Mr. Sugano.
My idea generation tends to go in bursts, separated by relatively little activity. So I tend to dust off PoIC when I’ve got a major idea stream brewing and I want to pin all those ideas down. Last year I had an extended brainstorm where the ideas were flowing like water for about 48 hours. Without PoIC I could never have caught it all.
As I state in this post, I do tend to carry a small notebook with me wherever I go and often my ideas get written down there first. A couple of times I’ve taken a pile of my notebooks and gone through them, using PoIC to keep the ideas that seemed worth holding on to. I’ve used PoIC to start a second article for an academic publication, and created a couple of stacks of cards for some future projects.
So, the bottom line is that PoIC can be used with profit on an intermittent basis, although I think that the more often you use it, the more useful it becomes. Since I have been jobless for the last 16 months or so, the chaos this causes does not make for the serenity or regular structured time needed to make this work at its best.
It’s interesting that Hawk’s blog spanned several years in English, and then abruptly switched mostly Japanese. I wonder where he’s at now with PoIC?
Thanks for the extra thoughts. I’m more of a notebook guy as well.
The idea of chronological capture without thought to category and then looking at what emerges weeks/months later is pretty interesting. I wonder whether one would truly see something emerge that you couldn’t have categorized as a possible “task force” in the first place?
Your idea about using it for academic articles (as needed) seems more traditional, and in a sense illustrates my above point, i.e., you already have a vague (or better) idea for a paper (=task force) and your index cards are dedicated to exploring that idea, even with tangents, etc.
Interesting blog!