2 Technical knowledge

A lonely crow disturbs the otherwise peaceful silence of an ancient Corsican night. A Spanish-born Roman citizen passes the evening with his two best friends: pen and ink. After being exiled from Rome by the dictator Claudius, Seneca the Younger spent eight highly productive years on the island of Corsica, publishing various consolations on anger and death. Writing, as Seneca proclaimed, is how one should exercise oneself. Not a single night would pass without him writing in his journal. As he explained to a friend, “I scan the whole of my day and retrace all my deeds and words. I conceal nothing from myself, I omit nothing. For why should I shrink from any of my mistakes, when I may commune thus with myself?” The sleep that would follow his self-examination felt particularly satisfying.

2.1 No input, no creative output

2.2 Gathering knowledge

2.2.1 Diversify what goes in

2.2.2 Moderate what goes in

2.3 Internalizing knowledge

2.3.1 Knowledge management

2.4 Acting on knowledge

2.4.1 From notebook to memex to genex

2.4.2 From note to action

2.4.3 A note on note maintenance

2.4.4 From interruption to action

2.5 A workflow example

2.5.1 A five-step workflow

2.5.2 The workflow in practice: Coding

2.5.3 The workflow in practice: Learning new programming languages

2.5.4 The workflow in practice: Writing