I have a hard time following one thought from beginning to end. My mind likes to flit around, jumping from one idea to another. I go on tangents and down rabbit holes. Even when I make an outline, I tend to add to one section, wander over to another, come back to the first, get very t back. Think about another. Come back to the first. And so on.
When I have an idea I want to write about, I like to start with a drawing. Because I can just scribble words on a blank page.
I like starting the drawing on my iPad because I can just scribble where it's on the blank page and move them around to where they feel like they're close to other ideas. I might start with a mind map or even just something more freeform.
and then gradually figure out the topic, the examples I want to share, the order that I want to write things in. I turn the sketch into an outline.
and then I write the sentences. I might eventually turn into paragraphs.
So my iPad is for thinking about the thought. Just catching it out. My phone is for writing. I find writing to be a bit more comfortable on my phone than on the iPad. But maybe that's just a matter of getting used to it.
and I use my phone because that way I can write in the little bits of time I have here and there sometimes it's easier for me to dictate things like when I'm watering the plants
In which case I use OpenAI Whisper to transcribe the recordings. And then I try to copy the segments into my outline.
it's not straightforward because as I mentioned my mind likes to jump around so I have a lot of false starts and tangents and I tend to think about things out of order in a different order from how I want to actually write them I also tend to rephrase things
but maybe i'll get the hang of this workflow someday if i'm dictating then i really do end up having to edit that on my computer because editing on my phone is a pain maybe someday i'll figure out the interface for it or i'll figure out a good llm prompt
to get it to accept the dictation commands or reconcile or fit my ramblings into the outline while still cleaning up the false starts and misrecognized words while still keeping the rest of the flavor
the specific way I speak but for now it's more of a way to capture a thought and figure out what I have to say not necessarily
be the raw material. So get this for me back, of course.
When I write, especially when I write about Emacs, I often run into these little temptations to digress. An idea that is tempting to explore. Emacs is full of all these little rabbit holes.
I'm very slowly learning to break those up into their own posts or maybe even just save it as a to-do so that I can finish the thing that I'm writing before I get distracted by figuring out something else.
Coming up with ideas is not the hard part. It's finishing them without getting distracted by the hundred other ideas I come up with along the way.
Work in progress. So what could make this better?
I wonder what would happen if I got used to a little more structure when I draw a thought like dividing
my template into introduction, three examples and a summary. Will that stop me from having
these ideas that balloon into 27 things to write about? Maybe.
Can I mix dictation into these maps by using voice input with text boxes to quickly capture a longer thought? Can I become more adept at using hyperlinks to
Break a section like put more detail in a section in another page like a fractal Or zooming in On the computer Can I get more used to
saving an idea as a to-do through ore capture so that I can resist the temptation to go do that first
Is this the way my brain works? Generally when I'm writing, can I write in smaller chunks that I can fit into my attention span and then figure out how to build those up?
drilling up or drilling down
This is the way my brain works. I think it's only going to get more fragmented instead of less. So I gotta work with it. Can I share more short snippets? So that...
short and shallower, shorter shallower snippets so that I can get stuff out there instead of waiting until I've completed a more complex spot