Perfect (Penmanship), The Enemy of Good
I carry around two Moleskine notebooks just about everywhere that I go — a small, pocket-sized ruled version, and a larger sketchbook version. They’re with me to capture notions, ideas, thoughts, whatever. There’s just one problem: I rarely write in them.
As a rule, I’m generally quite a neat and organized person. This is reflected in my hesitance to mar these exquisite vessels with my unkempt scratchings. Although I spent three years in high school under the strict and hand cramp-inducing tutelage of Mr. Knipe, the drafting teacher, my previously draftsman-perfect block lettering has degraded to only an archaeological remnant of recognizable writing. Such is the price of progress and years of clattering away at a computer keyboard.
When I think of the great minds of the ages – Da Vinci, Newton, and others – their flawless lines of precise penmanship put me to shame (even in the case of Da Vinci who wrote his backwards). Great thoughts deserve great handwriting, don’t they? And so I restrain myself from degrading the pages of these two notebooks with my dribbling scrawl. It’s a weird neurosis, but I’m not sure it’s one that has a psychological classification yet.
Brendon,
Was sorry to hear that you left PGP, but you seem to be moving on to more interesting things.
I suffer from a similar neurosis and have the notebooks to prove it (though none are made of moleskin). When I open them (still empty) I am reminded of something that someone once told me: “I bad idea written is worth more than a good idea that’s forgotten.”
Maybe you would be more inclined to write in your notebooks if they weren’t so nice. It’s working for me.
Ed
I would recommend bringing around 2 notebooks: one for scrap work and the other to write down your ideas after they have been shaken. A very smart colleague of mine keeps works of art for his engineering log books but has a pad of scrap paper on hand to write things down first.
I’d highly recommend you looking at Da Vinci et al’s notes more carefully if you ever get a chance to see them up close. Part of the fear (maybe) is that the ideas you write down will be proven to be stupid or useless. Maybe. It’s the art of writing things down that, with practice, will change how you think. Over time you will see improvement; take a famous painter’s chronology and see how he changed and improved with time.
Also remember some (maybe most) of Da Vinci’s ideas were impractical when we look at them today but were nonetheless creative. He had the luxury of designing physical things; in your case and the case of many others, ideas are turning to the abstract and thus hard to draw, even left-handed.
Here’s an idea: a wiki plugin that allows you to draw freehand. (Or does this exist already?)
Other ideas:
1) Regiment free writing for an hour or so every day. Like practicing the guitar.
2) Leave a few pages at the beginning for a table of contents. When you have a moment go back and fill it in and remind yourself of what you did. It will help in 10 years when you’re trying to find something you did.
3) If you think of a good idea, run with it for a few days, or leave some empty space so you can come back to it when you have more ideas along the same thread. Otherwise the book will not “flow” (blank space is of course a no-no in engineering)
4) Get a good pen that produces nice writing. The brush on your canvas is also important. I believe it will help absorbtion of the ideas when you look back at them. It’s also more pleasurable and faster to write when a pen doesn’t leave streaks and half-drawn words/lines.
5) Most ideas are already taken. Don’t let that stop you. Sometimes it’s not the idea but how you think about it.
I agree that practice is one of the major impediments for me, and not only from a penmanship perspective. My ability to write articulate, succinct prose has declined in lockstep with my decreased output on this blog.
I also believe some element here is a perfectionist streak in my personality – I often find it takes a fair amount of editing to condense, concentrate, and refine my thoughts. I think some part of me resists writing in these notebooks because the ideas won’t come out fully refined. Of course, failing to write those thoughts down results in a fair amount of attrition in the quantity and final quality of the output.
Sigh. Must do better.
I don’t write in my Moleskine very often either. But only because I’m too lazy.