If we want to build structures that feel alive we will have to get past the idea that “form follows function,” a mechanistic notion that mainly considers physics, and start thinking of life and order as essential properties of structure. This new view will take into consideration the wholeness of the structure, not just how…
All space and matter has some degree of life in it. This is the proposition that Christopher Alexanader makes in The Nature of Order, Book One, the Phenomenon of Life. This life is observable and testable. There seems to be a nearly universal agreement among people when they see particular works of architecture, art, elements…
Notes should express only one concept. This makes them modular, so that you can cluster notes together like Legos to create complete thoughts. This should help make links between notes more coherent. SOURCE Andy Matuschack Evergreen notes should be atomic SEE ALSO Evergreen Notes Are Notes that Are Alive
Between 1972 and 1981 patients having the same type of gall bladder surgery were studied to see whether or not natural settings had an impact on recovery. Twenty three patients had a window with a view of nature. Twenty three patients had window with.a view of a brick wall. Those with the view of nature…
A study by Texas A&M found that interaction with plants and green spaces had demonstrated benefits across six quality of life constructs. The paper gathers research on an even broader array of benefits, including: One of the undelying focsuses of the paper is how green space can be incorporated into architecture and ubran design in…
Having a connection to green space can have powerful benefits for one’s physical and mental health. For instance, patients with a view of nature have better outcomes than patients with a view of a wall. Interaction with plants can help to improve all six quality of life areas: Because of these benefits an increasing number…
Anne-Laure Le Cunff observes that the French have a phrase cultiver son jardin intérieur – or caring for your interior garden. It’s a way of saying that the mind is like a garden. There is more to the comparison than simple metaphor. The garden is one of humanity’s oldest creations. And there seems to be…
Two ways to go about knowledge sharing in the workplace are through narrated work or through observable work. The concepts are similar but there are important differences. Observable Work = Work in Progress Keeping your work-in-progress and other files on a company shared drive is one way to make your work observable. People can not…
The process of picking a topic and finding supporting research is a trap. At the best you engage in a high degree of confirmation bias, seeing only the information that supports your premise. I remember in college many times writing a paper only to find near the end that the research was pointing in a…
Niklas Luhmann observes that in order to think in any constructive way he must write down his thoughts. This seems to be one of the main purposes of his Zettelkasten note-taking system – capturing thoughts and refine them by writing them down, reflecting on them, changing them. In addition to capturing thoughts in his notes,…
When you first start on a writing project you don’t know what the structure of your project will be. As you do research, collect ideas, and clarify your thoughts, the structure will emerge. Using a tool like Tinderbox lets you test your ideas and see what kind of structure provides the best fit for your…
A traditional story or novel is made up of crises or decision points where one or more characters determine the eventual outcome. In Jose Luis Borges’ 1941 story “The Garden of Forking Paths” the main character travels to a small village with winding streets which promise to take him to a labyrinth. This labyrinth is…
The gardening analogy to hypertext and online writing has been around for a long time. Hypertext pioneers such as Cathy Marshall and Mark Bernstein saw that the new medium demanded a different set of skills and process than from traditional publishing. These skills were much more like gardening than production work. But the text that…
The Cornell notetaking system uses a college-ruled notebook with each page divided into thirds. These sections are for points that the lecturer makes, questions about these points, and a final summary of everything on the page. Ideas are captured in the largest section of the page, each idea getting a couple of lines with ample…
Frand and Lippincott suggested eight tactics for processing information whether it was digital, analog or based on experience. The tactics are based on the “knowledge spiral” proposed by Nonaka and Takeuch. Note that items 1 and 7 are similar in that they establish a set of criteria for the type of information that goes into…
