In our Thursday morning report dealing with the Philadelphia experiment, I made a passing mention to how I scribble down notes and am perpetually reorganizing them.
I didn’t mean that literally
This morning I thought it would be useful to share a couple of tools that may help you get a better – – or at least different – way to view some of the problems you deal with on a daily basis.
The first of the tools is good old Microsoft Word.
Yes it’s a word processor, but a lot of people have never gotten around to exploring one of its better authoring tools; namely the “Outline” view.
What this allows you to do is basically fill in topics, titles, and major themes. So you develop an “Outline” view that look something like this:
Now remember, this is the outline view.
What this means is any of those funny looking little ball things with pluses in them can be dragged around and rearranged anyway that is convenient for you.
More important to someone as messy as me is that when it comes to writing, it keeps all your notes at least semi-legible and they come at you in the order that needs to be written to make sense.
After you rearrange your topics to the point that you like how it lays out,flow-wise you then click the print-layout view and it is just like any other document– except your writing may be somewhat more organized than usual.
If you spend enough time on a good, solid outline, the high-quality writing becomes little more than a fill in the blanks exercise. Structure sentences well and here comes the Pulitzer.
Or, at least, so I have been told by more accomplished writers than I.
Suppose, however,that you don’t really like Microsoft Word and you want something that will do a better job of graphically prompting you.
Creativity is graphical, mostly. People think in pictures, right?
For these kinds of events, I use a program called Inspiration 9. $30-bucks at Amazon.
This lets you put together mind maps like this one:
The fact is you can also hang pictures, and other graphical elements along with HTML links and so forth into your mind map and that makes it very useful for tossing around new ideas.
Then comes the really cool part: Inspiration 9 allows you to turn that ugly little mind map of yours into an easy to write Word outline.
Or, (just because it’s early and I’ve had a fair amount of coffee) I’m going to make one little click here and turn this into a whole different looking kind of graphical presentation:
Each of these balloons can then be dragged around, but the other view is my favorite. Keeps me to a central point of thinking better.
Why am I sharing all of this with you?
A number of reasons:
The first one being that I didn’t want you think that I actually sat around with a piece of paper in a pan and doodled when I should be really working in a high output mode. Paper works but it’s messy and takes up desk space. It n eeds to be filed or scanned or I can never find it again.
The second reason is to demonstrate that yes, Mr. ure actually does have some idea of how to use a computer, although at times I understand where you might become skeptical.
The third – and really main reason for sharing this – is so that you too can enjoy some of the handy- dandy tools that don’t cost a lot of money and which can improve the operation of your “brain amplifier”.
Thus, we get to the next to last point.
Computers are wonderful things but people often get very enthralled with the clicking in the pointing and the social and all the other mishmash of stuff that goes with modern-day computing.
What makes an effective executive (Or an effective anything else) is an ability to sit down in front of a computer and before touching a key or grabbing a mouse being able to articulate very tightly what it is you wish to accomplish.
Is it input, output, of research – which is a combination of the two? I do a lot of research in order to write.
If you don’t do this focusing drill, there will be something that pops up on the right side of the browser session – which is where all the ants live and it will catch your eye.– That’s going to distract you.
First thing you know you are looking at 25 amazing things about Pres. John F. Kennedy that you never knew before. And finding yourself not getting your real work in life done.
That’s really what I wanted to mention this morning:
Compute With a Purpose. It will separate you from about 99.5% of all other humans in the world.
Just because you have unlimited bandwidth on the physical plane doesn’t mean that you should squander it on bullshit.
Final Point
If you are not using the “Sticke Notes” program in.Windows 10, you are3 missing a piece of computing that has been on my “dream list” since back when I was working on the “Hot Desktop” idea long before Bill et al.
It was an outgrowth of the old TSR (terminate and stay residentd) programs like SideKick by Borland.
Only today it is there, free with the OS, and it enables me to have a desk full of notes that hides with a click:
If you don’t use this one, you may hate trees, or something.
There… a nice, short, useful column.
No woo-woo, no prepping, no fear-mongering.
Gee I better get more coffee going…I’m sounding frighteningly close to “normal.”
I’ll get over that in time for Monday.
Pop-Ups Are Coming
UrbanSurvival is still free. But once a week, I need to do a pitch for www.peoplenomics.com where the deep thinking part of our work lives.
So starting in the next week, or three, you will see an occasional pop-up encouraging you to pop the $40-bucks a year for a membership and accss.
Our track record on macro econ and markets has been very good…and coming up I will be doing another update on the outlooks for the metals and BTCs.
Since I don’t remember to pimp my own good work (which does keep the lights on around here) I’m going to turn on software to auto-pimp my stuff for me.
Hmmm…sounds like a dating app, don’t it? Auto-Pimp. Makes more sense than Tinder, but then I grew up when you could just people’s worth by their vocabulary.
I did mention I was old, right?
Drone Wars is Coming
Or, should I say: They’re heeereee….
Hi George,
The skies over Bean Town appear to be buzzing with rotary winged military looking aircraft this week:
Probably nothing to worry about, but unable to resist putting on my tin foil hat for a few minutes, I find one particular quote from the article rather interesting:
Boston police sent out a community advisory to alert residents about a planned training exercise in conjunction with the defense department. The advisory said the training is not in response to any world events. [emphasis mine]
So then, having more than a little fun with this, and paying attention to the written word, what about ‘un-worldly events?’ (the Boston Globe added one word to the police advisory . . . “not in response to any current world events.” That simply alludes to a ‘future’ un-worldly event.
I’ll leave it to you and Ure readers to cogitate over the various possibilities.
One interesting pair of coincidences is (1) the Farsight Institute’s Time-Cross project seers have viewed an August (like NOW August) event from the sky, like a meteor or a celestial object. Add to that remote viewing exercise (2) a rather shadowy Russian prediction for an east coast U.S. tsunami at the end of this month (likely space rock initiated) that will reportedly affect FEMA zone III – (central East coast of the U.S.), and we have another dawg gawn fruit loop conspiracy theory blossoming around us.
I’m fixin’ to saddle up and head on to Houston for a few days for a family reunion of sorts. Yes, Houston, Texas. So I’ll be a long stone’s throw from ya until Wednesday.
Find a small airport nearby and I can do coffee if it’s before temps get up to medium-well here abouts.
Meantime, if I traded the market like future predictors, I’d be broke. There some data in there, don’tcha know…
Meantime, I’m trying to figure my long-range plan s to hack and collide delivery drones with pizza and beer over the ranch…figure I’d write the scenario up using my Sky NetJack nom de plume. His terrorist half-brother, Jack SkyNet may appear in a different episode.
Remember, I’m the guy who said Screw registering guns…48-hour hold and US citizenship – the New Nightmare Scenario in Peoplenomics this weekend.
Monday then…
Write when you get rich,
“…but then I grew up when you could just people’s worth by their vocabulary.”
Then there are those who will ‘just’ you by your spelling and grammar.
I’m old. So, I remember stuff from before PCs. (incredible as that may seem)
Virtual Stikky Notes are fine, but sometimes one has a “micro-thought,” so small and fleeting that the time taken to engage some technology solution, no matter how brief, would be too much. Also, two weeks ago you wrote down a phone number never thinking you’d need it again, and today you do.
The Solution: Keep a “Lab Notebook.” Anybody who works in areas where development is happening already does so.
I keep a medium-sized, spiral-bound, soft notebook — maybe 100 to 150 pages — right at my elbow. Some micro-effluvia floobydust weenyfact goes by, and I note it there.
Each day I date a new page. (Patent lawyers LOVE this!)
What this is, is, “Chronological Serial Stratification and Memory.” (CSSM)
Beats compu-notes and F.L.Y.N.s (pronounced like the name, “Flynn” — Like in Errol) every time.
Oh, yeah… FLYN means Freeking Little Yellow Notes..
On a grander scale, my office is organized according to “Multi-Modular Independent Chronological Stratification Modules.” (MMICSM)
My unenlightened wife derisively refers to these as “piles,” but what does she know?
73
A good ‘piler’ knows exactly what is in each pile! It is a memory exercise and keeps it finely tuned!
I like outlines but Word is not my cup to tea. I prefer to use Excel for those jot it down and plan things notes.
Years ago, I worked with a man who was so proficient at using Excel that it was the only program he used. He typed letters, did all sorts of numbers crunching and so forth. It amazed me.
Hey, all you US readers, Peoplenomics is well worth the money. I’ve been reading it for years and gain insights and knowledge I can’t find anywhere else and I read a lot. In the spirit of full disclosure George did not donate to my foundation for this endorsement.
I still have the Pickett machined aluminum 10 inch slide rule that cost me $75 in the early 70’s. Does that date me?
Just had a random thought. If the many-worlds scenario is correct. Could the failed predictions be bleed through from some other time-line where they are correct?
James Johnson, ex-nuke
Once in Pgh they were performing exercises. Men rappelled onto rooftops. Smoke, fake bombs, loudspeakers with screams and gunfire. All the gut spilling fury of a Ranger assault. No Lie. They swept in over my house that night 200ft up like a horde of locust.
http://www.iahushua.com/WOI/pitts.html
They practice the battles they intend to fight, so pay attention to exactly who the seem to be targets.
to James Johnson, above: why not?
I have for some time had the strong feeling or perhaps intuition that Geo does not actually type, and make typos. What he is really doing is using some voice activated writing program.
There have been a number of “typos” I have seen here that can only be explained by the use of such a system. Problem of course is a) you have to say the correct things and b) you have to pronounce them acceptably or you get a mess.
I wonder when this hidden, at the moment, protocol in action will emerge into the light here?
Hi George,
If you’re going to do Peoplenomics popup adverts, perhaps you could check if we’re logged in first. If so, skip the popup!
If creativity is graphic, then I’ll never be creative at all. I don’t think in pictures, can’t visualize, and have almost zero visual memory. I think in words and concepts without visualization and do quite well. The tools for outlining and graphing are still useful though.
Too bad you’re using MS Word. I haven’t used that since they killed Clippy! I’ll never use Windows 10 either unless forced. The ideas are good though, and they might exist in Open Office too. I like to keep things in regular formats defined by Cartesian coordinates.
The sign of a prepper is knowing how to get yourself set up without “drag”. Like spending $30…that’s a drag. Freemind, freeplane, and simplemind http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page http://freeplane.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page and http://www.simpleapps.eu/simplemind/android