I had a good friend in college who was a math major. Mostly I had no idea what his courses were about, but one I remember was “Combinatorics.” I still have no idea what Combinatorics is exactly, in the mathematical sense, but I take it that the working assumption behind saving highlights to atomic notes, which can then be mixed and matched in pursuit of creativity in knowledge management, is entirely about recombination.
One collects and re-configures and re-connects bits and snippets in the pursuit of the novel, the serendipitous, the original, the new.
I didn't want to write about “meta” topics (“writing about writing”), but there's a tool issue, a workflow issue that really bothers me. It has to do with highlights.
“If man were wise, he would gauge the true worth of anything by its usefulness and appropriateness to his life.” ~ Michel de Montaigne
Two other 100 Days of Writing projects caught my eye when planning my own.
The first is from a professor of architecture and design in Shanghai who has written more than 100 posts over many years about his teaching and writing craft. The quote from Montaigne guides his efforts to learn, to teach, and to write with reflection.