And just a couple more comments which arrived by email, on the filing problem, and solutions
GP Says:
I opt for the ‘disorganised piles in boxes’ approach, and a brain which alway knows that ‘I’ve read something about that somewhere, now what was it and what did I do with it…’. It doesn’t work very well, but neither has it ever crashed…
If you come up with a good system let me know!
JS Says (in ps)
PS. My colleague, Dan, (who’s very into data visualisation) mentioned http://websom.hut.fi/websom/ – which probably doesn’t help too much, but is quite cool. Dan says “if your brother wants to talk about self organising maps, I’m more than willing”.
One reply on “The Filing Problem: Some More Replies”
hey tom, and all others. finally got round to making my first comment here after a long time occasional lurking. and concerning the handling information/filing problem, i would like to say something that is probably unhelpful to a scientist with the needs you have. but i would express my opinion as an extension of WJs comment about disorganisation being the key – from my experience, if i don`t remember something and havent thought it important enough to actually writing it down in a notebook, then ultimately it wasnt that important…and even if it was then getting around the problem of not remembering is always interesting and stimulating cos theres still something there that you know you dont know to be somehow reconstructed in another way…and if you really do have to remember, then trawling back through stuff leads to you finding out new things you wouldnt have otherwise, which will obviously be related and therefore improve whatever it is you are trying to remember for in the first place. and perhaps the only thing that can stop this beneficient chain of trusting in your ability to remember something or not are acts of trying too hard to remember, which just lead to me getting frustrated and therefore mentally blocked.
but thank you tom for bringing the subject into my mind cos through your link about wikis i found what i needed to do the thing i asked you about in the e-mail i hope you got recently. so hopefully i will be populating the internet with more meanderings like the above soon
best wishes to one and all
neil