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Indexing, filing systems, and the art of finding what you have - Austin Kleon

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A writer has to have a system for going back through old work and finding ideas.

John Locke’s system for indexing commonplace books “A good idea is not of any use if you can’t find it.” — Logan Heftel When I was working on Keep Going , I wrote about “ the importance of revisiting notebooks ,” detailing the notebook method I’d learned from the Two Davids — David Thoreau and David Sedaris — how to get down daily thoughts and mine them for material for larger pieces. At the end of the piece, I wrote: I have no index for the notebooks (unless you count my logbook ), and no way, really, of knowing what’s in them, a condition worsened by my terrible memory, and the fact that one

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