In chapter 4 of A System for Writing Doto covers all the work that goes into connecting notes, and to many I'm sure it feels daunting. He talks about stretching the meanings of notes when you're starting1 because you don't have many notes yet and you need to start making connections.
My first thought when he said to stretch the meanings of notes was that you're going to get a bunch of "connections" that were irrelevant in the long term. Sure they felt good at the moment because you were adding connections to your thin set of notes as you got started with your notes, but they wouldn't stand the test of time. Doto even calls this thought out.
At first, it may feel like the connections you're making are strange, or even forced. And, at times, they may be. But, as you add more notes, the ways in which ideas relate will become clearer. The connections will make more sense, because you'll be actively building out the arguments. Pg 61
That tenuous connection will start to get more depth to it as you read and take more notes, or it won't. If it does keep developing then you've got an idea worth pursuing. If it doesn't then you have a note that wasn't that important and the lack of further connections long term shows this to you. It wasn't wasted time, just not a connection or note that's sticking with you.
It's similar to the idea I've had for years now about switching task managers. People switch task managers so often because they let everything build up in a way that means they have long lists of tasks they're never going to do but because it's in the list they can't bear to check it off or abandon it. Yet when they change to a new "better" task manager they feel free because they don't move all the cruft with them.
In the note world, you don't so much abandon a note as never see it again in the depths of your system so it fades into the background. It's not a "task" that you have to stay on top of to keep your idea of a productive self intact so it doesn't carry the weight that a missed opportunity to contribute to a productive capitalist self has.
But all of this takes time. You have to work your notes instead of always taking new notes. When you could be reading something new, you need to dive back into the notes you have and put focused intention into what you have.
In a recent episode of The Deep Life, Cal Newport spoke to this idea. He said that there are lots of ideas out there for writers. His editors toss him ideas all the time. He has a huge list of ideas within arms reach that he came up with. What few of these ideas have is weight behind them. They don't have further thought and more connections to turn them into something more than a mere idea.
So, today I remind you again that you've probably got enough ideas already. What you haven't done is spend the time making connections. You haven't spent the time sitting and thinking about your notes and digging out connections. You haven't spent the agonising time it takes to write2 to express your ideas.
But as I said last week putting the words down is the scary part. Are you ready to do the scary work?
