This article began a few years ago, starting with several random notes: a Mark Twain quote, a factoid about Nabokov, and a short description I wrote to myself about the filmmaker's creative process.

By Sam Yang - Get similar updates here

Notecards: keep it short and make it count. Notecards (sticky notes and index cards) aren't often brought up as tools to improve your thinking, but like any tool it depends on how it's being used.

The Physical Space of the Sticky Note Only Allows for the Essential

Use notecards because short and sweet is easy to remember.

Notecards force you to be concise.

They help you retain key facts and points.

Bullet points help deconstruct dense ideas for better understanding.

Each bullet point triggers a flood of memories.

Unpacking a Labeled Box of Ideas

Single lines, words, and phrases trigger much longer thoughts. Less details allow for flexibility, allowing for new connections. Cleverness is quick and to the point, brevity forces cleverness. Limitation forces clarity and impact.

Memory as a Sensory Experience

Notecards allow you to visualize, write, and touch your train of thoughts. You can also rearrange them to improve better flow and understanding. Holding an idea on a card anchors the thought to emotions and sensory experience. You deep learn.

Chunking and Stacking

Sometimes a note you take will relate to a note you took months earlier. If so, cluster these notes by theme. (Like a hashtag.) Create order out of chaos. Over time, you get better at separating the useful from the noise. Your pattern recognition will improve. It's a way of having a powerful conversation with your past self. This catalog does not only exists on paper; writing, filing, and referencing improves your memory without any added effort to do so.

Twitter is the world's indexing system. It's an external brain that allows you to access other people's note system. You can add to their sticky notes, which intertwines thoughts and creates longer conversations. Succinctness becomes an art form. You can also follow hashtags to see the world's conversation around a topic. It's a market place for discovery. However, like the curious cat, prepare yourself for the realities of what you might discover. Otherwise, do not become a thought detective.

Mark Twain Received This Telegram From a Publisher: