§Knowledge work as serious discipline

• Athletes and musicians pursue virtuosity in fundamental skills much more rigorously than knowledge workers do
• Core practices in knowledge work are often ad-hoc
  • Management science focuses on knowledge work at the level of the firm and the manager, not at the level of the individual
  • We don’t know how to measure knowledge worker productivity
  • Most people read ineffectively
  • Note-writing practices are generally ineffective
  • Note-writing practices provide weak feedback
• Evergreen note-writing as fundamental unit of knowledge work
  • “Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking”
  • Knowledge work should accrete
  • Evergreen note-writing helps insight accumulate
  • Spaced repetition may be a helpful tool to incrementally develop inklings
  • Brainstorming may often substitute for missing insight accretion systems
  • Evergreen note-writing helps reading efforts accumulate
• Executable strategy
  • Executable strategy for writing
  • Evergreen notes permit smooth incremental progress in writing (“incremental writing”)
  • Evergreen notes lower the emotional stakes in editing manuscripts
  • Spaced repetition memory systems make memory a choice