When we're trying to do some research memorize things for a test, do teaching do research.
We're often faced with just a massive amount of information that we have to organize and somehow get through.
And it's very tempting for most of us to go out and try to find a technical solution for that,
to try to find some note-taking app and hope that by getting the note taking app, we're going
to be able to be better and more productive, using all this information.
Well in this video I'm going to talk about six different things.
First I'm going to talk about why starting with an app will not work.
I'm going to talk about how starting with a system is the best way to be effective and more productive.
I'm going to talk about four systems. One from the 1940s, one from the late 1980s, one from
the early two thousands and one that's brand new it's a 2022, but then I'm going to talk about
how all of those systems really at their core are very fundamentally and foundationally the same.
And I'm going to show you my mashup of those systems and how I do things.
Share that with you. And then I'm going to talk about how apps can help us with a system once it's in place.
And then finally you know at the end of the video I'm going to say like and subscribe and share
and all that sort of stuff, because that's just what we do here at YouTube.
Let's go take a look at why apps are not the place to start
…So the biggest problem that
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Now you might wonder why I think a system is so much more important than the applications you
think If I learn the app then I'll be able to learn how to be more effective.
It just doesn't work that way. So the reason that we want to start with a system is because
today these note taking apps are like super complex.
I mean, there are you can watch videos on some of these note taking apps that will consume hours of your life.
And then you kind of have to ask yourself, what am I doing? Like am I, am
I learning this app or am I actually trying to get something done?
If you have a system in place first, then you can look at the app with a new perspective and
you can say, how does this app help me with my system of information management?
Wherever you're doing. So there are a number of systems that I've used over the years, that
one very recently and one for a very long time that had been very effective.
So anytime I'm looking at any technological way of augmenting my
system, it has to fit the system that I've mashed up from these four systems.
The first is something called the Zettelkasten
Now this was in created or invented by a fellow by the name of Nicholas Lumen.
And it. a it's a German word So Zettel is four pieces of paper.
And then the costume is the box that you put them into very simple system.
You just need pieces of paper, you need a pen and you need a box to put them into.
And what you're able to do with this system is you're able to remix and reorganize these pieces of paper.
I actually extended out a little bit. I usually have colored pieces of paper So each color
represents a different aspect of information management.
And I even somewhere in here have little flags that I'll use in order to be able to sort through this.
Now I don't use this system as much as I once did because I have.
Move to more technologically, a useful system so to speak - but, for a very long time And up
until recently, this system was actually more effective than what a lot of the apps could do.
Some of the apps are really kind of based upon this methodology.
So you'll see that this is a great system that finds its way into a newer more technical world.
The next system I use, isn't really a information management system.
It's more of a lifestyle or time management system.
And that's the seven habits of highly effective people system by Stephen Covey.
And Stephen Covey wrote this book in 1988.
And it's not really about managing information It's more about managing your life and
understanding the concepts or where to put the things in your life The big things the medium
things the little things that's a quick paraphrase.
The Book is well worth the read it this copy sold 10 million this that's up to 25 million just keep selling.
And it's a very popular way of organizing and putting the why into your system so that anything
entering into your life has a place where it fits.
Now Building upon that, we have another system that I really like.
This was a book written by David Allen in 2001, and I have the book somewhere but I've got it on my Kindle as well.
And it's getting things done by David Allen, and there are some.
subsequent follow-up books to this as well. But the idea behind this written in 2001 was that
we had a lot of information coming to us and we needed to make decisions of what was important.
What was it important that could go back a little bit to the Stephen Covey book as well, but we
also needed to make sure what was our next best action?
What context Where were we performing that action?
There's a lot to it It's sometimes abbreviated as G T D.
Getting things done and you'll find that there are a lot of GDT templates and software products out there.
I use a product called Omni focus, which is really a pure GDT solution.
It allows me to organize things into projects actions next steps, tag them do all sorts of
stuff But again, let's not worry about the technology let's concentrate on the system.
And this is the book that is the foundation of the
GTD or getting things done system.
Now there is a more recent book that's come out is very very popular.
You've probably heard of this If you've seen anything on YouTube about productivity or about
building you know second brain cause it's called building a second brain by a Tiago Forte Now this book came out.
It's hard to believe that this book only came out in 2022 the summer of 2022.
It's been so impactful on how people are using productivity software, because this has
contents here, capture organized distill and express.
And that's very similar to the system I use. So I've actually used from all of these systems
I've kind of and this one included, I've kind of mashed my own together in terms of how I work with information.
Now I will say before I introduce you to the system that I'm using.
You you'll want to look at these different sources and choose a system that works for you.
And as a word of caution on this most systems aren't just build it And it automatically runs.
You'll often like any habit that you're trying to form, you'll have to sort of force it a
little bit and you'll have to revisit it and restart.
But once you get into using the system, it can be extraordinarily effective.
And truthfully it'll actually relieve a lot of stress in your life because you'll have a really
Good place to put the things that are coming at you, whether you're temporarily working to
study a subject, or whether long-term you're trying to accomplish a goal.
Let's take a look at the system that I use, which is a mashup of these four systems plus other
things that I've used over my research and my study life
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Now those books in the systems that I just talked about are fantastic It might just work right out of the box for you.
For me I needed to do a little bit more with them. I need you to mash it up a little bit.
And so I have a system that I call my Sea of Cs
You can take whatever you want from what I'm about to show you are the ideas I'm about to share.
And please comment down below if there's something you think I'm missing because
I'm always trying to adapt and improve my systems.
The other thing is there are a lot of different tools I could use on any phase of the Sea of Cs that I'm about to talk about.
And that would be a subject for maybe other videos, but let's look at the The process that I
use to work with information for research study learning and all the things I like to do.
The first C I have is capture. This is probably pretty common to any system.
We have to get the information into. Some sort of system.
It could be a note taking system It could be a box with paper, whatever the case may be.
We need to keep. now in my case that's increasingly.
And quite often going to be a digital capture.
So a lot of times I will have I have other videos here on the channel where I take physical
items and I digitize them either through a scanner or a scanning pen.
There are many ways that I can digitize information, but the key element here is not the tool I'm using.
It's the fact that I am collecting the information and the reason that I want to collect the
information is because once I've collected it, I can now begin to categorize.
The information. I can start putting tags on the information.
I can start saying, you know this belongs to this particular category in this particular
category, that's going to allow me to create those buckets of information.
So I can then move to my third C, which is to connect the information.
So once I've collected and categorize the information, I can
now start connecting concepts and ideas together.
This. is very important to me as well. Now it's really cool about a digital type of collection
system is that I can have different pieces of information that have multiple categories.
And I can all of a sudden start seeing different types of connections that maybe I hadn't realized before.
Some tools are better at this than others. But the concept here is that by connecting
information together, I can sometimes get different perspectives on the information, which
brings me to To my fourth C cognition and critical thinking.
So now I can take the pieces of information I've collected sometimes from different sources
because I've collected them, categorize them and found a way to connect them together.
I can apply my critical thinking to these different pieces of
information and decide which ones have validity for what I'm trying to do.
I can see which ones are maybe questionable and I can go deeper into that source.
I can do all sorts Sorts of things to really bring my critical thinking
skills into play on how I'm working with that information.
Then once I've done all of that, especially if I'm doing some sort of research or a teaching plan.
And if I'm learning as well is I want to create something out of the information because the act
of creation and creativity is a fantastic way for us to really interact and
understand the information at a deeper more meaningful level.
So my next see of course is that creativity. Now I can even go
further and expand this and share this with a community.
So if you're into a specific area of research, or if you're into an area of learning, I always
recommend that you look at maybe building a community around that particular topic or joining
online communities that relate to that particular topic.
And I think by looking at all of these different Cs, I create an entire environment that allows
me to understand what I'm looking at, understand the research that I'm doing and understand
the act of actually sharing and showing what I'm doing with the world and with the community.
…When it comes to information, the Sea of Cs is to capture the
information, to categorize the information, to connect the information, to apply cognition
and critical thinking skills to the information, do use creativity and create something with the information.
And to share it with a community in order to put it into the world.
Now that's my system It's all based upon the different things that I just showed you.
But hopefully if you can find any use for some of the things that I do
, let me know I can also show you the tools I use for all of that.
But again this video is not about the tools. It's about the systems themselves
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Now any system for managing information whether it's one that we've learned from someone else,
one that we've created on our own or a combination of other people's ideas and our ideas.
Any of those systems can definitely benefit from the use of the appropriate technology to support them.
It's really the premise of this entire channel using technology to learn and teach better.
However, the key word there is appropriate technology.
We want to make sure that we first have the system and
we works for us and it's a system that makes sense to us.
And then we can add the appropriate technology for each phase of that system and not get so
caught up in trying to learn some application, hoping that.
the knowledge of the technology will result in the information management.
First we have to understand how we're going to work with information.
And then we find the appropriate tools to do that work.
And that's why I say it's not about the app. It's about the
system and the app supporting that system.
So as I promised at the beginning of this video here at the end I'm going to
say subscribe like share do all those YouTube things.
Thank you so much for watching and we'll see you in the next video…