#71: knowledge systems and other ways to write

tending to my information garden and publishing more research-powered whimsy

Good morning,

The week before giving birth, I found someone to organize our home library (it felt like I would never have the chance again) who spent about 3 days sorting and labeling our 1500+ books by category. It was imperfect, quick, followed no official system and he left us with a sea of post-its that we turned into little labels (I’m sitting in front of science fiction and information theory as I write this).

But I love the setup because it feels like a real, lovely human being spent some time with our little world and made it a little bit more functional than it was before. I’m now craving the same feeling in my digital life. So let’s set some goals!

Context

Last month, I wrote about reimagining my relationship with journalism. This month, I’ve been reflecting on how that translates to my current writing.

In a workshop I recently took with Amanda Montei (a brilliant writer + teacher), she encouraged us to think about the different parts of our writing process—the specific steps you as a writer take to complete a piece of work—and if there are any we struggle with.

For example, here’s what my process looks like for this newsletter:

• have a thought or come across an interesting piece of content, usually while in the middle of something else, and email it to my Evernote

• have the idea sit in a folder called “the main notebook of chaos” for an indefinite amount of time

• sit down and go through Evernote on a random afternoon

• sort things I’ve sent to myself into further folders:

  • folders on subjects I’m currently interested in

  • folders of themes under which I collect writing ideas

• let all of that sit indefinitely

• have the same thought again and remember I made a note about it in Evernote so since I had the thought twice it is probably something to write about

• sit down on another random evening and scan my notebooks to see what I feel like writing about

• have the same thought again (for a third time) and decide that’s the topic

• send off the letter that night, which tends to end up somewhere very far from the original note that sparked it

• wonder if it made any sense

• wonder how this fits into my larger writing practice

It was a fun reflection because I realized a) I really enjoy the freewheelyness of writing a newsletter that isn’t locked down by structure or schedule and I’m a pretty chaotic worker, and b) I struggle with finding a way to have these little pieces connect back to my offline work.

In other words: my process is often a true conflict between my analytical and creative sides.

The fun of working in public (i.e.: writing a newsletter like this one) is getting to play with ideas-in-progress in a regular way, and getting feedback from people about them. I’ve made so many wonderful friends through substack that I otherwise would never have met. It’s a treat!

The hard parts of writing a newsletter are being limited by the platform—the very nature of sending work out is that you tend to lose track of what you’ve sent after a while. It all melts into a relationship you have with readers and a way of thinking you get used to practicing, but the details—the archive—isn’t very useful to you as a writer.

After mulling this over for a couple of weeks and having a chat with fellow writer Ida, I’ve decided to re-engineer my process to allow both sides of me to flourish and set some new process goals.

Goal 1: Manage my own knowledge and research better (by putting some limits on my consumption and building a repository of constellations).

For the past 15 years, I’ve been a huge fan of read-later tools and bookmarking systems because being able to search your own little information universe is very fun and very helpful in the writing process.

However, lately (and yes, I know that new mom brain has a lot to do with this), I find myself being unable to remember what I read, or internalize what I’ve learned. While media literacy efforts have rightly moved us in the direction of developing the skills to find and assess information, from a wellness perspective, digestion is just as important.

Instead I read so much, bookmark so much, and jot so many notes down in a week that I find myself floating around a sea of short bursts of inspiration that end up feeling like digital clutter.

Over the years, I’ve experimented with many knowledge management tools but always ran into the same issues: they were too infinite. Once you create places to collect, the collecting never ends. This is great data for an AI-powered tool to help you search, yes, but what I’m actually craving in this season are some limits and some heavy, human-powered curation.

Some of my favorite issues of this newsletter have been the constellations I’ve written, but if you ask me now, I can’t even remember (or find) what they are!

So I’ve decided to spend this year (I like to follow an academic calendar) building a true, curated repository of constellations—all the research that has helped/helps me live my life better and learn to be a better writer, citizen, and caregiver. I have about 20 topics in mind, ranging from fertility to civic engagement and I plan to find them a public home so I can have a place to quickly:

• find resources by topic

• add new ones as I enjoy them

• share resources with people when they ask

• draw on references in other projects

• bookend the each topic with what I’ve personally taken and why

I think curating something like this more publicly will force me to limit what makes the cut and I hope my brain will feel better by the end of it.

Goal 2: Foster momentum, connection and creativity through writing and do sillier, more fun stuff.

The writing I’m doing offline these days is heavy and dense. I don’t always have the energy to bring that much depth to my public work, which is one of the reasons I’ve slowed publishing here over the last year-ish. But I miss it!

So I plan to return to publishing 3x a month (also still keeping it all free, but I deeply appreciate paid subscriptions to subsidize this work if you wish).

Here’s a little mood board of what seems fun to write.

Process notes — Like this letter, notes on how I am thinking about work, and resources that have inspired me to approach writing, work, time or life differently.

Notes to friends — I write so many texts and emails and WhatsApp messages to friends exchanging thoughts, feelings and resources in early motherhood. I wish there wasn’t such a divide between having these chats with moms vs. all my friends. So why not make them a little more public?

Something I have loved learning this month — In the spirit of journalism as a practice, I want to share more of my private googling, late-night decision-making fatigue and omg-did-you-know moments while reading books. The big ones and also the really little, honest and weird ones, like, why is my baby snoring, how do I get my dog to stop starving herself when stressed, and how do I make mom friends who actually share my interests?

Constellations — Every so often, I’ll share complete topics from the repository when I finish them. But mostly, you’ll just see me reference them.

And who knows what else!

I just want a big information garden I can tend to with love, out of which little plants and clippings can be given to you as gifts.

The internet feels like a faster, fuller, scarier place these days, and I hope this little adventure in curation, whimsy and organized research will be as fun for you to follow along as it is for me to build.

Happy Monday,

Jihii