I steward Productive Pastor, a podcast and community of ministry leaders focused on how productivity and strategic ministry in the average church. I write about practical approaches to ministry productivity. I also write emails about church stability/development and my own theological musics in our current social moment.
Don't underestimate a pile of notecards | Self-Publishing with Chad Brooks
|
Hey Friend - Just wrapped up a chapter of editing and typesetting. This one was a bit intense because I had more footnotes to add than any other chapter. If anyone has done academic writing, or other kinds, you know the citations can be tedious. When I was wrapping it up, I realized this pile of notecards in front of me was the beginning of the book I am working on. Not only was it the beginning, but shifting into an analog way to save ideas and reading last summer broke down the wall I had in front of my desires to one day write more. Ryan Holiday, most famous for his writing on stoicism famously develops his books using a giant crate of quotes from books. This YouTube video shares it really well. I've used a tool called Readwise for years to save digital highlights and other quotes. I review a handful every morning (and tomorrow I'm hitting a 365 day streak!). So I started using my Readwise review and saving the quotes I liked on 4x6 note cards and threw them into an old box. What bothered me was how this random pile started growing more and more. It had no organization behind it. While this was going on, I kept searching more and more on YouTube about Holiday and his notecard system. The robots of the internet started showing me videos on a system developed by a German Sociologist named Niklas Luhmann called Zettlekasten. It used notecards and organized them with a dewey decimal like system. In addition, Luhmann created an index and method for reading a book with a notecard for broad ideas. This was all it took. I pulled out my giant box of random cards, used ChatGPT to work on a categorization system that matched my reading interests, and started reading every book with the system in mind. 6 or so months later, my main card box is approaching 1200 cards and my index has around 400 tags. All the books I am working on are primarily outlined using notecards and filled up with ideas I've already categorized. Reading notes get filled in as well. This little pile of notecards in front of me is the result of the last 6 months of note-making, building my own zettlekasten and learning to build ideas from each other. The system even allows me to save all of my Bible reading and notes as well. I made a YouTube video about that part of the process earlier this year. If you want to write one day, start taking good notes today! Chad |
Hey. I'm Chad Brooks.
I steward Productive Pastor, a podcast and community of ministry leaders focused on how productivity and strategic ministry in the average church. I write about practical approaches to ministry productivity. I also write emails about church stability/development and my own theological musics in our current social moment.
A few years ago, I was in prayer, thanking God for taking me through a challenging season of life. While doing this, I realized that in times of significant personal turmoil, it isn’t odd for the same time to be spiritually enriching. I’ve been reflecting on that idea since then. One day, I made a big map of all the high times and low times in life, and then started mapping spiritual seasons on top of it. I discovered that in several instances, a difficult patch of life had been preceded by a...
I travel for work. I’m on the road 2-3 days a week sometimes. I average 28,000 miles a year. I travel. A lot. In my travels, there is this gas station I stop at a lot. It’s the only “good” gas station on a 60 mile stretch of interstate here in Louisiana. Technically, you could call it a truck stop, because it offers multiple diesel pumps and the inside is fantastic. Sit-down food options, plenty of caffeinated beverages, and all the other things you might want. But it is a horrible GAS...
After 20 years of working at a church, I have seen countless approaches to my own ministry productivity. Now, I am in an admin role and boots on the ground since I work within the denominational system. I've been thinking through some shifts over the past month, and I realize these are applicable to a broader spectrum. Especially if you are stepping into a staff-sized church of a few hundred people. I am low-key curious about how this would have affected my last full-time ministry gig when I...