Be Sure You're Shaving a (Real) Yak

The computing term yak shaving has two different definitions:

1.Any apparently useless activity which, by allowing one to overcome intermediate difficulties, allows one to solve a larger problem.

2. A less useful activity done consciously or subconsciously to procrastinate about a larger but more useful task.

One thing that frequently falls into this category is adopting a note-taking system, such as Zettelkasten, which I repeatedly have heard about and not adopted.

Such systems can fall into either of the above categories, depending on how you're approaching them.

I do not deny that the Zettelkasten approach could be useful. I just don't see a need to use it all the time and haven't bumped into a context in which I could find it useful.

Indeed, I have employed note-taking systems of different sorts over the years, and do have a general method for tracking my projects, but I have always been of the mind that it need only make the information findable later, in case I need it. Overall, a uniform method of tracking projects and information associated with them, and an automatically-generated list of all files on my computer are it.

That said, it was encouraging to read Sasha Chapin's thought-provoking post on "Notes Against Note-Taking Systems," which advises, among other things:

Getting lost in your knowledge management system is a fantastic way to avoid creating things. Or calling that friend you're estranged from. Or doing anything else even mildly threatening. It's also a fantastic way to convince yourself that unpreparedness is what's between you and creative work. If you believe you're unprepared, know that you will never transmute into the perfectly prepared person that you think exists in the future. Unfortunately, you have to start with the person currently in this chair. That's all there ever is.

It can be a great idea to find or develop an organized method for taking and tracking notes about an important topic -- and even to expand (or redeploy) such a system later on, but messing around with this without the need to do so is a waste of time in more ways than one.

-- CAV