A confluence of events led me to, weirdly, “personal knowledge management”, the zettlekasten, notecards, fediverse, braincalm, et seq.
As a result, I’ve decided that 2023 will be even slower than 2022 (which was, in the last quarter, pleasantly slower than the preceding years). Why slow? Because things are still too fast, too crowded. There’s not enough white space on the page, as it were.
I need more room to think and exist and have fun. My Year of Analog© is kind of a misnomer on purpose. I don’t think there is anything inherently bad with electronics or digital versions of things. It’s not the screen time so much as how the screen time is used and what I expect from the screen time. What are some examples of things that will happen in TYoA? Reading, for example:
- Fewer books
- Reading more of what I own
- Happy “Mediums” – Print, Dedicated eReader
- Better manual notes/digestion of materials
- More magazines
- More WSJ/NYT
Now that I’m not in higher ed, or a PhD program, or paying for notetaking software, I’m also excited about getting into my zettel system. I want to actually engage with what I’m reading and thinking about, find those connections, let it change me and vice versa. I have already noticed that it is helping me feel less fragmented and dis-integrated, because I don’t have pieces of myself all over the place.
Similarly, I’m using the Johnny Decimal System to organize my files so I know where things are and I can finally feel comfortable with all the stuff (that’s putting it nicely) in my files and on the computer. What I have is known, more useful, and more fun. I like computers and tech and it’s nice when it’s clean and fun.
I’m also a bit nostalgic lately for how much fun it used to be to get online. We don’t go online now so much as live with total connection. I don’t prefer that. I prefer it to be, like, a special occassion. It’s fun, frankly, to have your internet time be at a desk where you actually go sit, and intentionally look up whatever it is that you’re looking up. Then you close it down and you are whole again – not divided up amongst devices.
So 2023 will be My Year of Analog©, even though of course I will use electronics. But I’ll use them when I want, and how I want. I think it’ll be fun!
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