Using Zettelkasten and Tinderbox to Document a Literature Review

As a designer, I developed a design process that I trusted in times when I was thrown a gnarly problem and wasn’t sure how to solve it. Trusting in my process gave me something to do toward a solution. It was working the process, never some brilliant stroke of insight, that got me through to a place of originality and creativity.

As a scholar, I must develop an academic process that I can trust for the gnarly problems I’m thrown (or more likely, that I create for myself). To develop this process, I have sought to understand how others discover articles, read them, take notes about them, reference those notes, and write something original and creative as a result.

I have realized lately that a process is emerging. I am trusting it and it seems to be working. In reciprocity for all those who have shared their processes for me to discover, I have decided to share a bit of my own. Warning: this is very rough. I sat down and recorded four parts over the course of an afternoon. There’s no editing, no retakes, just me talking through what I’m doing right now. It’s highly boring and at the same time, I’ve sat and watched many similar videos as I was trying to find my own path and found them invaluable.

The tools I mention in these videos are:

• my iPad Pro and the app GoodNotes for a reading environment,

• my Bullet Journal as a place for temporary note-taking following the rule “read with a pen in hand,” which I learned from this book, and

• Tinderbox as the software supporting the Zettelkasten method of note-taking

Nearly 45 minutes of walkthrough follows in the following four Youtube videos… enjoy?

Restorative Environments

To create a map of restorative space on UW's campus, I’ve been researching what makes space restorative and I've come across the following framework from the Rachel and Stephen Kaplan. Big caveat before reading: Work in progress alert. I am constantly learning and reshaping my understanding of these concepts.

Rachel Kaplan is a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan. Stephen Kaplan, also a professor emeritus at UM, passed away this summer. Together and individually, they’ve authored many seminal works exploring how and why access to nature matters to human health and well-being.

Researchers Stephen and Rachel Kaplan, Photo Credit: University of Michigan

Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15(3), 169–182.

So, what exactly is getting restored by a restorative environment? According to the Kaplans, it’s attention. They argue that attention is a limited, deplete-able resource and certain environments, nature being the best example, can fill that depleted attention reservoir right back up (they call this attention restoration theory). In order for an environment to restore one’s attention, it must have the following four qualities at once: being away, fascination, extent, and compatibility.

The first quality is that the environment gives a sense of being away. For an environment to be restorative, it must feel like you have escaped or withdrawn from your ordinary (attention depleting) environment.

The second quality is that the place you escape to must be interesting, it must have fascination. Fascination is tricky because there are fascinating things that are not restorative, for example a train wreck or some trollish Twitter thread. Fascination in the Kaplan’s sense is a magical (that’s my word) quality of an environment where your attention is held but not drained. To better approximate this non-draining quality of fascination, some use the phrase soft fascination (like a walk in nature) as distinct from hard fascination (like a riveting television show).

In addition to being away in a fascinating space, the third quality a restorative environment must have is extent. That is to say it must feel like “another world” entirely from the one you’re escaping. To have extent, this “other world” must be explorable without being overwhelming. Places with extent strike a good balance between 1) having lots to explore, and 2) giving you the freedom to do so, while 3) also having enough structure so you feel safe, without 4) feeling like they’re full of restrictions and rules. It should be noted that the extent doesn’t have to involve physical space, it can be an internal experience, too.

And then on top of everything, the fourth quality a restorative environment must have is compatibility. There must be a rightness to how you want to use the space and what the space is for. If you found a spot that met the other requirements (it was away from it all, had soft fascination, and plenty you were eager and safe to explore), but wasn't made for that purpose or didn't accept your presence there, it wouldn't be restorative. Indeed, it might be quite stressful or frustrating. To be restorative, the space has to work for you and you have to work for the space.

Introducing Contempla-tech

Mostly, I lament the unintended consequences of technology that make our devices and apps addictive and distracting. I feel vulnerable to their promise of connection, social validation, and self-betterment. While I am wary of the creepy advertising, mysterious algorithms, and indicators that my conversations and search history are being monitored, I still carry my device everywhere and often find myself mindlessly poking at it in hopes of a reward.

I have become especially complain-y and pessimistic about the viability of apps and devices that promise to make us more mindful. I have little hope that their values will survive uncorrupted in a market that requires them to vie for our attention, data, and reward-driven habituation. Yes, it’s complicated. Tech is good and bad and many points in between at the same time. But mostly, for me right now? It's pretty bad.

To balance my perspective, I have challenged myself to discover bits and pieces of technology that enable me to live a life I want to live — specifically, a life with more integrity and presence. By and large, these won’t be features a design team thought up and built, they'll be minor and unintended aspects of our apps and devices that invite, enable, or facilitate contemplative experiences without meaning to. Right now, I'm calling these features "contempla-tech" as in "contemplative technology.” As I discover examples, I'll document and share them here. Here's the first one.

Setting a password with intention

In 2014, I began setting a New Year's intention (as opposed to a resolution) at the recommendation of my friend Frances. I also decided to change my password to that intention so that I'd be reminded of it every day. It's worked beautifully. I've set five intentions in the years since and they’ve been a transformative force in my life. Typing out my yearly intention each day regularly reminds me of it, and I’m not sure how committed to it I’d be otherwise. If I had software that took away my need to type passwords, I would feel impoverished. Those pauses where I must type my password to continue have become an opportunity to remind myself to become the person I want to be.

An Invitation

Has technology surprised you by fostering slowness, presence, mindfulness, or compassion in your life? Was it intended or unintended or maybe a both? Please tell me about it.