A Acronyms

ACEPOS

- Absolute Cosmic Eternal Perfect Ontological Structure. Something we try to avoid in this notebook system. The structure maps YOUR brain, not the universe. Don't even try. Madness that way lies. Leave it to the standards comittees- it's not your job here. (Unless you are using your notebooks to engineer a standard. In which case, you already know about the madness.) A term I made up on the fly, while writing this. I kind of like it now. ``ACEPOS.'' Heh! At least it's not as cheesy as ``Universal Cosmic Habit Force.''

ACTS

- Act-Communication-Thought System. My own personal hybrid between GTD, and the notebook system described in this book. I do not describe the interface between the two; It isn't all that complicated, and is of little interest to most readers of this book, I suspect. Keep in mind that the notebook system here is anti-ethical to GTD: GTD promotes action, this system DE-motes action. If you DO maintain GTD as you perform this system, you will have to realize that you are going to VASTLY reign in the GTD. Your action pages will dramatically dwindle. On the other hand, your Someday/Maybe's will baloon out vastly- no small wonder than that as part of the interface, I've absorbed the someday/maybes into the subjects' speed lists. If people write to me asking for elaboration on the ACTS notebook-GTD interface, I'll write about it. But for the most part: GTD just whithers in the presence of this system. See ``The Question of Computers'' for some software ideas that, if implemented, may open up the possibility of having both doors open at the same time. I think my most common use of the GTD system was for looking up books at libraries, getting to web pages to look at, doing my chores, keeping dates, and as a mechanism to remember when to refill my blank papers and what not.

A/S

- Abbreviations/Shorthand. Where you will keep your shorthand notes and abbreviations so that you can write quickly, and yet still be able to figure out what you were talking about a few years later. Each section has it's own A/S, and there is a global A/S across all subjects as well. Global A/S should have a page for names, and some hash pages for common abbreviations.

FF

- Final Fantasy. I wrote ``This is the way!''. I was quoting ``Final Fantasy Tactics''. You perform ``jobs'', and your characters say things like ``I had a feeling...'' and ``This is the way!'' Never mind. SOOOo totally not important, save in some sort of strange schizophrenic holistic universe way. In which case, THIS ENTRY is the CRUX of this entire book. ``This is the way!'' You be the judge.

GKI

- Global Knowledge Infrastructure. Like PFT, something that happens to be a subject of mine, but I like it, and I used the acronym in the book, so I get to advertise the concept here. Heheheh..! I'm tricky, aren't I? GKI is the study of who knows what, and where. It's the study of how fields grow and fall. It looks at things like the CIA and Corporate knowledge bases and public understanding and universities and says ``What does that mean? Who's got the information? Who's got the knowledge? How is it spreading? Where does it come from?'' Ideas such as Anarcho-Science, studying the motion from University/Gov/Mil/Corp to the public sphere are interesting. How Computer Science makes more progress in the publc and corporate sphere than it does in the university system. Something to pay attention to, especially if you are interested in a Democratic society. And know too: That there are enormous fields, VAST fields, that are completely untouched. Why? Because there is no profit in them. But there IS profit to the public. It just has to study these things..! The government's not going to do it. The corporations sure as hell aren't going to do it. We have to do it OURSELVES. See ``PFT.''

GMOC

- same as ``GSMOC.''

GSMOC

- the Grand Subject MOC. This is a map of every subject, and the central strategy point. Every subject that is not obsolete (archived) appears on the GSMOC. Frequently runs multiple pages, with the front page being a map onto the other pages.

GSR

- the Grand Subject Registry. A two page (or more) list of all of your subjects. It comes right after the GSMOC. It lists all subjects- even those that may not appear on the map. You use it to attach flags and other metadata to subjects identified by NAME.

GTD

- Getting Things Done, by David Allen. Incredible book. Integrates best ideas from time management in ways that no other book does. Most books just give you a piece of wisdom here, a piece of wisdom there. This book puts it all together for you. Not really about notebooks, because he focuses on ACTION, not THOUGHT. The GTD system and the system I describe are REALLY at ODDS with one another. Regardless, I still found utility in his GTD system..! Read it! (Lookup also: ``ACTS'')

I

- Index. An alphabet based index. (Can contain numbers and glyphs as well.)

M

- Same as ``MOC''. NEVER same as ``GSMOC.''

MOC

- Map of Contents. A visual map, frequently multiple pages (though not uncommon to have just 1 page, for little-reached subjects), of some domain. Generally, this is either a SMOC, GSMOC, or a piece of one of those two. But rarely, within the notebook system, independent of those two. The function of a MOC is to integrate, after all, so they tend to be all-encompasing (within a subject, or for the GSMOC.) The first page of a series of MOC pages is generally a map of the reminder of the pages, and how they fit together.

MTK

- Mental Techniques. Not related to notebooks, but like PFT and GKI, ... you've read it before. So anyways. This is stuff like forming theoretical architectures of thought and using them to think fast. And memory techniques. And any other sort of mental gymnastics or study thereof. Read ``The Memory Book''. Great book. Cheap. Far better than any other memory course I've ever seen, far better than the multi-$100 courses I've seen out there. I could tell you many humorous stories. But I'm not going to. Not here, anyways. Read the Internet Memory HOW-TO; It has many of the Memory Book techniques in it, if you are impatient. But the book is better.

PFT

- Public Field Technologies. This isn't related to notebooks- it just happens to be something that I've had as a subject in my notebook. Regardless, I am evangelical about the topic, and I DID use the acronym in my book, so I'll take this space to advertise it. There are SOME THINGS that are just so incredibly cool, and have to do with benefiting the WHOLE PUBLIC- *if* people are interested in them, and want it. Self-help books are sort of a well know thing, but tools for mental techniques and for keeping notebooks are not. And that's all in the personal arena. Communities can help themselves too! Learn about Ithaca HOURS and stuff like that. There are ALL sorts of things that people can do. Refer to my list in the middle of the book and learn about those things. This whole book, about notebooks, is an example of a Public Field Technology- IF it actually turns out to be good for something, and IF people actually band together and study it. If PFT's ``work'', then we'll have a radically different- and FAR more Democratic (in the REAL sense of the word) world in the future. The Internet has such revolutionary potential, and its great to see it turn Kinetic. PFT's are divided (by me) into roughly two spheres: The scale from personal to global, and the sphere of group collaboration, communication. For example ``Visual-Verbal Language'' is a PFT, but doesn't really have a good position from individual to global integration. So there you go.

PJ

- Project. Pages connected to a particular project.

POI

- Point of Interest. Usually multiple pages devoted to one, limited subject (delimited by the title.) Found within a Subject. Bound by a TOC, generally. Placed on the SMOC.

P&P

- Purpose & Principles. This is a very special page in each subject. It is usually just one page; I have never had more than 1 sheet per entire subject. It describes the BOUNDARIES OF THE SUBJECT, and how to delegate, and in some cases even split, issues that transcend the edge. It features ``inclusions'' and ``exclusions'', either in text or by diagram. P&P's, like Speeds, rarely live within the subject's paper layout (following the tab for the subject). Speeds are collected into the carry-about binder, joined with every other speed. Similarly, P&P for all subjects are collected into a special tab (labeled ``P&P'') at the beginning of the common-store binder. You refer to the P&P whenever there is a question about whether something belongs to a subject, or not, and you are trying to decide where it goes.

REF

- Short for ``Reference''. Reference items are annotations of books. If you can, just write in your books and be done with it. But if it's a library book, or a borrowed book, or a web page, you're going to have to keep your co-writing and your side notes on your own pages. And then you put them in the ``REF'' section. The ref section is unusual in that you don't do normal page numbering, and you don't even do normal TOC-ing. You do your page numbering to match the way the text is organized. And you assign the reference number not by the number following the last thing you wrote about, but by the number connected to the reference on your references list. Your references list is like your Speeds, but it captures references. When you actually get around to reading a particular book, you take the number of the reference to be the first number in the page sequence. It doesn't matter if it's the second book you read in the subject- if it is number 7, you will number the pages starting with ``7'', not 2. See also ``RS''.

RS

- Short for ``Research''. Research is like reference, but usually focused towards an end, and not tied to a particular source reference. Don't feel like you need to have a REF articulation for each reference you touch. Just make sure you note the REF#'s in the RS, so you can find it later, and dance from book to web page to person to book, and keep a linear flow in your RS#. Have conventional TOC's over material, and, like everything else, appear in the SMOC.

SMOC

- Subject Map of Contents. A map of contents over an entire Subject. Ideally, points to every single resource in the subject domain that is not in an archival stage.

TOC

- Table of Contents. I frequently wish that these things would just DIE. Sadly, our computer software infrastructure and UI notions don't seem to understand how to deal with anything that isn't text well. We don't even have tools to make MOCs quickly and well. So we are stuck with these archaic information destroying beasts. Basically, these are just an index of titles connecting them to page numbers. Icky icky icky icky. Use a MOC if you can. But you frequently need a TOC as well, if for no other reason than to see what to number your next item. (There are ways around this- just keep a record of ``next numbers''.) Still, it is comforting to have TOC's over your POI's and Ref's and RS's.

V

- I frequently use as short for ``Version''. Generally it's a lower case ``v''.

VER

- same as ``V''.