A "Trackback" feature of a weblog is
useful to know which article refer to own article.
We can take advantage of this feature into indexcard. And this is
quite easy. I introduced how to link between cards. Just reverse of
the link. I use a red pen for emphasis. If there is many trackbacks
on a card, it indicates the card is useful.
This idea is originally from
a comment by riclav at flickr.
The picked up cards are returned in a
original position of a chronological order. This becomes hard if I
pick up a lot of card at once. If it is too hard, I hesitate to
pick up cards from the dock.
An easiest way to overcome this problem is to mark the positions of
picked up cards. If I use post-it, however, I have to mark, say 30,
every time.
I invent a a trick to use indexcard itself as position marker
(picture above). When I pick up a card, raise a card just behind.
The right-hand side is exposed to know the date stamp of raised
card. When return the picked up cards, see the compare the
timestamps, and return. This trick reduces effort to find a certain
time from the sequence of card in the dock.
If this process is fun enough, it increase a chance to review cards
in the dock. 
In the PoI system, number of card
increase with 10 - 20 per day. If I review cards of the week at
weekend, I have to review 70 - 140 cards. It is hard to do every
week for lazy person like me.
Rather, daily review become much important and easier. Following is
what I have been trying.
- When I leave office, I take out all cards I have written in the
day, by using KM2P.
- Before sleep, I pick them up, and remind what I wrote that day,
work, life, together.
- Try to remember the cards In a bed. Morning through night,
chronologicaly
- Next morning, review the cards again briefly.
- Leave "life" cards in the "life" dock, and take "work" cards to
office.
- Put "work" cards to "work" dock at office.
# Perhaps it is better to include calendar to the system. Then "search" will be much easier.
ref. : Mixture of stone and gem
This is a story I actually generate gem
from stones.
I had had terrible headache for long time. It squeezed my brain. I
couldn't concentrate to my work with it. But my health had no
problem. I talked to a doctor, colleague, and supervisors ; and
they gave same answer ; it is mental reason.
I had started reading book about brain and mental. Also I go to gym
and begin swimming to overcome physically. But nothing had changed
about the headache. Only progress I got was knowledge about brain
and swimming skill. One day, I try to track record of the headache
with my system. I had recorded about my health as daily (i.e.
Record card). In terrible case, I record the condition on
independent Record card. I search my Life Dock, and pick them up
all.
Between the Record cards, I found interesting pattern. I had never
had headache on Saturday and Sunday. Then what is different between
week day and week end. It's simple : Go to office or not. Then It
is really due to mental or human relationship? Nope. It seems
opposite, the headache cause mental depression. Mentally, o.k.,
physically, o.k. ; what is the source? Then what about food and
drink. A food won't be so different. I drink coffee and tea
frequently both in my room, and office. Then the problem is coffee
or tea itself?. Negative ; I drink same brand in both place. Then
what about water? Water? But I couldn't believe a quality is so
different.
Next day, I tried it anyway. Simply, just didn't drink coffee in my
office. And the results is obvious. I didn't have the headache. I
tried it next couple of days to confirm repeatability. And again, I
didn't have headache. I finally found a solution : Source of my
headache is the water in my office. But I still couldn't believe
this result. A water is too usual. But it was biased by common
sense. Long time I was blind due to the common sense. And only my
card system knew the truth. Now I'm free from the terrible
headache.
We find ; take a photo ;
forget ; and remember again.
What about idea in our mind? An idea is
abstract and invisible : It is impossible to take a photo.
But we have indexcard and fieldnote. We can take a snapshot of our
idea with them, like taking snapshot of scene.
ref. : @ blog, Strict chronological
order
It is frequently asked "what about
introduce Noguchi Filing to your system?". Noguchi filing system
works well to keep filing sytem dynamic. It is, however, obviously
doesn't work with the PoI system, at least for me. I knew this fact
empilically. I had struggled how to explain this for people, and
even for myself.
After jeevs gave me constructive comments at flickr, I clearly realized
why it doesn't work.
In the Noguchi filing system, number of
file added in the system is, though it is largely depends on a
person, couple of files per day, or even lesser. Plus, several
piece of files are compiled in an envelope. It reduces number of
file in the system. A review is more frequent than file addition.
It can be expressed following simple equation.
Noguchi : Frequency of adding
files < Frequency of review
In the PoI system, number of cards
increase with the order of ten, much more faster than filing system
everyday. In addition, there is nothing to compile each card ;
information is naked. For review process, I do it not in constant
like "week review" but when I need or just want it. The frequency
is once per two weeks or even lesser. If I introduced Noguchi type
review rules to the PoI system, the revised cards are easily buried
by new cards (seen picture above). This situation is expressed
as,
PoI :
Frequency of adding card >> Frequency of
review
The only difference of the two equations is the sign of inequality. But it makes huge difference between the two system. Noguchi filing system works well for the sign "<" (or "=") and not for ">>".
| Company | Type* | Cut and Grid** | Grid Spacing** |
| Correct (Japan) | p, pp, r, rl, rv, q | Associated | 5 mm |
| L!fe (Japan) | p, r, c, q | Associated | 6 mm |
| Kokuyo (Japan) | p, r | - | - |
| Oxford (U.S.) | p, r, c, q | Random | 6 mm |
| Office Depot (U.S.) | p, c, q | Random | 6 mm |
| Mead (U.S.) | p, r, c | - | - |
| Ampad (U.S.) | p, r, c | - | - |
| 3M (U.S.) | rs, rs+c | - | - |
| Exacompta (France) | q+c | Random (?) | ? |
* : p : plain, pp : plain printable, r
: ruled, rl : ruled library,
rv : ruled vertical, rs : ruled sticky, q : quadrille, c :
color
** : For quadrille card
ref. : Reports by Leopard, Gregkise, John, Ayalan, and David.
and Photo @ flickr by Alina Mikadze, and by Kaj
Any additional information is welcome
Revised 2007.01.06 08:27 : Add grid spacing
Revised 2007.01.04 00:12 : Correction for L!fe's card after Kaj's
comments.
My work on this site is licensed under
Creative
Commons License. You can freely distribute my works, including
all text on this site as well as photo on
flickr, under the license (ver. 2.0 for flickr photo).
That is, you can cite the text and photo on your blog, use for
educational purpose, save on your HDD, and share with your friends
without permission, unless you earn money or do business using my
works. All you need is to put my name "Hawk Sugano" or
"hawkexpress" somewhere together. Please read license
condition for detail.
I wish this will help your intellectual activity. 
According to the statistics of my
system, at the beginning this year, it was only 20 cards per
month. But in March, it jumps to 400 cards, which records the
maximum through this year.
The differences in February and March are,
- hipsterPDA format (portrait) to PoI format
(landscape)
- Pigment pen ; black ink to blue ink
- implementation of four card rule
- implementation of Icon and Tag rule
- chronological
order in a card box
It followed by minimum in May (besides February) when my job had been busy. Then it gradually increased until August. In the beginning of July, I introduced Flickr, and in late August, I started start this blog. The number of cards reflects my mental state as well. Main reason of decrease in September was, according to my Record Card, I was mentally depressed. After that, the number gradually recovered.
It seems the number converge and approaches to equilibrium now. The equilibrium point is about 10 cards/day (300 cards/month). If I include cards for "work", then the number is doubled, 20 cards/day. Perhaps it is comfort number for me.
As a summary of this year, as well as a sample of introducing the PoI system/method
From a curiosity, I wonder how many
cards I wrote this year. Here I use indexcards in the "life" dock as a sample for simplicity. The card system
for "work" is extended PoI and more complicated than "life".
Since it takes some time to count them one by one, I used trick to
count easily.
- Measure a weight of the cards of each month, by using a
scale.
- Divide the weight by 1.5, that is a weight of single card in
gram (150g for 100 papers).
I measured a weight of cards of each month. The figure above is a number of card per month, since February 2006. It was when I start using 5x3 quadrille card. Total and mean are summarized in a table below.
| Total (life dock) [cards] | Mean [cards/month] | Mean [cards/day] |
| 1,923 | 175 | 5.8 |
ref. : The Indexcarding PoI Starter Kit
I have been preparing to provide the
starter kit, and just finished. Now I'm ready to take your order.
You can order Correct's indexcard, dock, and Kokuyo's fieldnote via
the Service page. I accept a credit card and PayPal
account for payment . For a moment, the postal fee is 10 % off.
Please let me know if you have question. Please use comments below,
or send me an
email.
I wish your merry X'mas and happy new year!
Revised 2006.12.30 00:22 : Add photo of the packs.
ref. : Divergence, convergence,
a discussion related to indexcard @ Flickr
I call a state of my Dock like this title. I
have never think my Dock as gem box. There are gems, but not all.
And it's totally o.k.
See a Pyramid in Egypt. It is constructed by pile of stones. The
stones is useless if it is divided one by one. But if a stone is
uniform block and well organized, even though single block is
useless, it is possible to become such a great construction.
Even group of several stones, it is possible to metamorphose into a
gem. As Josh and Jamie wrote before (here and here), we are trying to find pattern between our
individual thoughts, events around us. If we could find a pattern
from several "stone" cards, the knowledge generate new "gem"
card.
Conversely, if my Dock is full bunch of gems, it means I try to
write and select only gem all time. It will be stressful. And the
system doesn't succeed to function as capturing "any" idea.
There are tons of stone card, tiny and apparently useless ideas, in
my Dock. But I don't know their true worth at the time I write
them. As Steve Jobs
said, all we can do is to connect dots (cards) backward. So I
don't trash any single card. Rather, I keep all of them for future
use.