Collecting My Thoughts

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Well, here it is then: the crux and substance of my note-taking-system-in-the-making, 'The Twenty'. I've collected three of the layers of note sorting in portable form, using my old Filofax, which I never really utilised in the manner intended by its inventors, anyway. To the left is a notebook for jotting down ideas and found information on the hoof; below that are the current index cards for the two current binders, on the right. As mentioned before, to the right of the Filofax is my deskpad: as Phil pointed out in his comment on my previous post, an excellent Exacompta item [still made in France by the original company], which works in tandem with the Field Notes [or whichever type of daybook I'm carrying at the time], organising note fragments to add to the binders and thence to the index, which is kind of an overview: each of four index cards referencing five note cards in one binder: so very duodecimal! I love it: it appeals to my inner geek OCD Civil Service/librarian mentality.

Many moons ago - I'm not sure if I've mentioned it before - I took and passed the Civil Service exam, as I was looking at getting an EO [Executive Officer] post in The Valuation Office where Jane worked at the time. Unfortunately, my sketchy - read jazz - approach to a career path was not looked upon favourably by the interview panel in Liverpool and my application was refused, although my exam result was near perfect. As it turned out, though, the nature of the VO and its operations were soon to be 'modernised' and all of the things that would have floated my boat - crocodile clips, filing stuff, paper maps, treasury tags and things in triplicate and so forth - disappeared in a cloud of badly implemented computing guff. Hey, ho, but there you go: at least I can keep enough of my shit grounded in the analogue realm [blog posts passim a lot] to keep me happy. I'll keep you posted on progress. Next up, Dark Oxygen...

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