---
title: Chronological Association
tags: [Note-taking, Writing]
summary: The use of being able to place your notes within the chronological stream of your thoughts.
---

Insights develop from connections between ideas.  Because my
computer notes are arranged topically I generate many content-
driven connections between ideas, but one important type of
connection is lost: chronological association.  Because my analog
notebook is a straight chronological stream, I can immediately
situate a note made on Plato's *Republic* between a comment from a
lecture on the philosophy of time and some reflections on the
nature of consciousness.  These otherwise disparate subjects are
connected *for me* because my thoughts on them all occur on the
same day of *my* life.  If the straight chronological format were
all I did, the organization of my notes would be quite limited, but
because I utilize both systems I get the best of both.

As an added benefit, there is very little friction when I want to
write something down.  I do not need to come up with a title or
figure out where to file something.  I get an idea and it goes on
the next available line of my notebook.  Thus, I rely on my
notebook for a stream of consciousness kind of thinking (which of
course includes a lot of garbage just like *Catcher in the Rye*),
while I rely on my computer for a more rigorous and organized kind
of thinking.

I capitalize on this chronological structure when I want to put a
reference to a passage in my computer notes.  Every reference looks
like this `<J2014-07-28>`.  The `J` stands for "journal" and the
date tells me exactly where to look while also associating that
reference with other chronologically near-by references.

I like having a record of what I was thinking last year or what I
was reading when I developed my views on X, but I also need to have
the rich organization of a [Zettelkasten] system.  I can get both
by having [two note systems].

[two note systems]: http://www.dtsheffler.com/blog/2014-07-21-two-goals-of-note-taking
[Zettelkasten]: http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/2007/12/luhmanns-zettelkasten.html