Contents

Why This Article?

One of the biggest advantage of electronic documents has always been that they're easy to search. One of the biggest advantage of electronic documents has always been that they're easy to search. Good ol' Ctrl-F has probably saved millions of hours since its invention. But what if you'd rather have something on paper, but you still need to be able to search it? I don't have a keyboard and a little display in the front of my notebooks, but I do have an index, and in a large number of cases it works nearly as well. The index seems like a lost art nowadays with so many references moving online. Maybe that's not so surprising: making a generally good index is quite difficult and historically has been a profession, and there's actually an organization called the American Society of Indexers. But if you just want to help yourself find stuff when you put it away in your notebook or binder, it couldn't be easier to start an index. In fact, you're the best-qualified person to make an index for yourself, because you know how you relate ideas way better than anyone else. I've found a surprising lack of resources on the Web relating to this idea, so I'm writing my own. While I've designed this guide for notebooks because that's how I use it, most of the techniques should apply to binders as well, or maybe even filing systems with a little bit of adaptation. (As a side note, the plural of index as used in this article is indexes. Indices is a more Latin form nowadays used only in mathematical contexts.)

Examples

You might prefer to look at these once you've read some of this guide, but if I put them at the end you might not know I had them here until you finished. I'll refer to them later on. (Click on an image to enlarge it.) You might prefer to look at these once you've read some of this guide, but if I put them at the end you might not know I had them here until you finished. I'll refer to them later on. (Click on an image to enlarge it.) A journal index: A dream index: A quote index: A Topic Book index (ideas, thoughts):

Influences on This Technique

What got me interested in making my own indexes in the first place was an article by Lion Kimbro in the book Mindhacker, as previously mentioned way down in the middle of What got me interested in making my own indexes in the first place was an article by Lion Kimbro in the book Mindhacker, as previously mentioned way down in the middle of this article . He also wrote a book, How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought You Think, which gave me a few more ideas. Many of the techniques are borrowed from one or both of these books, but I've added some of my own experience and provided a bit more description. My favorite idea from there, and one that I'll repeat several times here, is this: "There are no binder police." (I'll say notebook for better consistency with this article.) It's great to look at other people's techniques and learn their rules. It's also great to make up your own rules. Organization makes things more consistent and more useful. But sometimes stepping outside the lines is even better, and here, if you do, nobody is going to tell you you did something wrong. Don't wonder whether you can draw an arrow in your index if I didn't tell you to. Do it! Here's a secret: if you like, you can even do something "wrong" just because you can. It feels pretty good sometimes.

What an Index is Not

An index, as described in this article, is not a sequential list of the contents of your notebook. An index, as described in this article, is not a sequential list of the contents of your notebook. This article talks about the indexes the author uses, which consist of writing a page number next to the title of an entry with no particular order. While I don't doubt this works for the author, personally I wouldn't call it an index—it's much more like a traditional book's table of contents than an index. The problem with that approach, at least for me, is that, while it's a little bit easier to create, you have to scan the entire thing to find what you're looking for, which takes away a good part of the efficiency (and, frankly, the fun) of using an index in the first place. An index is not a list of titles. You want to extract words or concepts from your content and provide multiple ways to access it, because that's the way your brain works. An index is not an exhaustive list of every possible word you might relate to a page in your notebook. Don't hesitate to add useful keywords to the index, but only add ones you honestly think you might use to get back to that point. Finally, and most importantly, even after those rules, an index is not something that gets created only according to rules that are set in stone. Remember, there are no notebook police. If you want to write a note next to one of your entries, do it. If you want to flip the order of two entries, draw a big arrow on the page. If you want to add something that's not even in this notebook, do it!

Numbering Your Pages

This is both a boring topic and a boring task, but it's a topic that cannot be avoided. If you don't have any page numbers, you can't have an index. Unless you're really lucky, your notebook probably won't come with page numbers in it, and if you're using a binder and loose-leaf, it definitely won't. This is both a boring topic and a boring task, but it's a topic that cannot be avoided. If you don't have any page numbers, you can't have an index. Unless you're really lucky, your notebook probably won't come with page numbers in it, and if you're using a binder and loose-leaf, it definitely won't. If you're going to use your notebook completely linearly, from front to back, you can get away with numbering pages as you use them. I personally prefer to go ahead and do it all at the beginning anyway even though it's a boring job just because I'd rather not deal with it later, but you may feel differently. If you're splitting the book into multiple sections or using some other organizational system, though, you're going to have to bite the bullet and number every page at the beginning.You can get lazy if you like and only number every other page (either numbering with only odd numbers on the right side or using every number and using .5's for the left side). However, if you're picky like me, you'll probably want to number all of them. If you do go for numbering all of them, number all the right-hand or left-hand pages first, then go back and do the others—it's much faster since you don't have to move your writing hand back and forth. Update 2013/06/28: There's one other option, sometimes called the "quadrant method." See the appropriately named section on this Moleskine/GTD fan page. In any case, make sure you're turning the pages carefully so you don't skip any accidentally. If you do miss a page, that's not the end of the world either—the notebook police aren't going to fine you for being clumsy. Just number the pages in between with decimals or fractions (I have at least one notebook that goes 86 – 86⅓ – 86⅔ – 87). And if you accidentally skip a number, you'll just be missing a page number—it doesn't matter. If you're picky and paranoid about screwing up the numbering, you can do 20–50 pages on one side, then go backwards doing the facing pages, checking your work as you go along. That way you'll catch it easier and have fewer pages to correct if you decide to change them. You can put your page numbers anywhere on the page you like. Personally, I've gotten used to using the outside bottom corners, but there is not even a guideline for this, much less a rule. If you're using a binder, you have the ability to add pages in the middle of already existing pages. You can do whatever you like for numbering added pages, but I recommend using decimals between the existing pages. So if you insert a sheet between page 24 and page 25, number the front side 24.3 and the back 24.7. If you later add something between 24.7 and 25, number it 24.8 and 24.9, and so on. If you prefer integers, you can start by numbering by tens (if you're old and geeky enough to remember programming in BASIC, you'll be familiar with this technique). With a binder, you can't number only one side of the pages, because if you insert a page in the middle later, one of the pages will suddenly have a different (implied) number. However, if you trust yourself to remember to add the missing number every time you add a page in the middle, you might be able to get away with it.