The Living Book: Aligning Actions for Continuous Progress
In order to make progress in life, it’s essential to align daily tasks. With only 24 hours in a day, time can accumulate quickly, but without deliberate and aligned actions, progress can be elusive, resembling a random walk.
However, aligning all tasks can be a complex task. The human brain can only hold onto a few things at a time and can only work on one thing at a time. Therefore, a tool is needed to assist in the alignment process. As writing is a way to think and reading is a significant hobby, the solution is a living document. This document is essentially a book, but it’s not static. Instead, it’s a constantly evolving, living book that can always be improved upon and picked up at any time.
Creating a Table of Contents
One of the main problems with ideas is that they can be fleeting, which is why it’s crucial to capture them. However, dumping all ideas into a single pool can make them difficult to access due to their sheer number. Restricting the number of ideas is counterproductive. A zettelkasten is not the best solution either, as it only allows you to connect to ideas you already know exist in the system, defeating the purpose.
As ideas and goals are hierarchical in nature, a tree data structure is the ideal choice. Specifically, an emergent tree is the best option. Instead of creating the tree beforehand, it’s created as soon as the number of ideas per node exceeds a threshold of 3-4. This tree becomes the table of contents for the living book. Every idea that is generated or consumed should be placed within this tree and become part of the content of the living book.