Flood Your Bible Study with Good Note-Taking - Episode 078

[00:00:00] Carey Griffel: Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and I've been thinking it's high tide, I mean high time, to get into the topic of the Flood. The problem has been in part that I just haven't been sure how I want to approach it, so I'm still working through that.

[00:00:32] There is so much good material out there about the Flood already. It's kind of hard to know where I want to begin. I'm not doing a verse by verse go through of Genesis, even though some people or AI descriptors think that's what I'm doing in this podcast, just because of its name. But if you've listened for any length of time, you know that's not really what I'm doing. Lots of places you can find that kind of thing already. Nor am I overly concerned with hitting everything in a narrative way in Genesis. There are still plenty of things to talk about in Genesis 2 and Genesis 3 and so on, so if I did a verse by verse go through of Genesis, we'd still probably be in Genesis 1, maybe just barely getting into Genesis 2? But let's be honest, we'd probably still be on Day 2 of creation.

[00:01:24] But we're going to start doing Flood stuff nonetheless. Probably we will be talking a lot about parallel flood narratives. and other ancient literature that has to do with the flood. I also will be doing some responses to other material out there, like other podcasts, for instance, Hint Hint, and things like that.

[00:01:46] We will be talking about resources and books and all of the things we usually do. So, if you guys have any particular questions, or angles, or aspects of the flood narrative that you would like to hear me engage with, Let me know. I've already put a call out for that in my discussion group and you guys have given me a lot of great ideas. Keep them coming in the weeks ahead if you would.

[00:02:11] But for today, I figured a fun thing to do would be to talk about a few bits around the impact of learning about the flood narrative in a broader way, at least for myself. But we're only going to be doing a little bit of that because I think that this is applicable to that, I'm also going to be talking about my study journey as well and the way that I approach research and thinking and study, and that will likely take up the majority of the episode. So full disclosure, today's episode is going to be a bit rambly, Though, if you're interested in my study methods, I will be laying out lots of details for you there.

[00:02:55] What I want to do is actually make a video about the way that I do my notes. I've promised Shaun this video for months now, and I really do think I'm going to get to it, but video is just not my forte. I've put off talking a whole lot about my note taking system here in this podcast, even though I really think it's very important, but of course, this isn't gonna stop me from putting out the video, and so at least I'll talk about it here, and what led me to it, and why I think it's so great. So, fair warning to you all, this episode is going to nerd out on research practices, and what that looks like for me.

[00:03:34] Admittedly, I may sound a little overly passionate about this topic, but really, I think for everyone, everywhere, You don't have to be doing a podcast, you don't have to be doing any writing. If you're just studying for yourself, do yourself a favor and get some good systems in place, because, let me tell you, you are capable of amazing ideas, and good thinking, and research practices will absolutely do you wonders, I promise.

[00:04:04] Anyway, one of my earlier episodes on the podcast was a discussion about my early confusion with reading Genesis 1. I have found really similar things happening with reading about the Flood narrative. It's interesting to me how the Flood is such a topic that inspires so many questions, so much passion, so much insistence that it has to be one way or another. And, I mean, it makes sense because we are potentially talking about the deaths of almost everything on Earth. So, yeah, that's a bit dramatic, isn't it?

[00:04:40] I don't know if any of you guys have seen the latest Flood movie that's come out. It's done by Genesis Apologetics, and with a title like that, you know what side of the flood debate they come down on. I haven't seen it, but I've seen ads for it, and it's supposed to be super highly realistic. Supposed to be really authentic, I guess. I don't know, but in the advertising, what you see is the flood, and you see the darkness, and you see the ark over there on the water. And you see a big, giant ol T Rex in the front of the frame. Because, yeah, that's what we're most concerned about, isn't it? The dinosaurs dying in the flood. Let's forget about all of the people who died in agony, and let's focus on dinos, cause that's what we care about. Okay, I'm being a little facetious here, but I do admit, when I first saw the ad, I thought, okay, so it's realistic, but that T Rex doesn't have any feathers.

[00:05:42] But really, there's this strong tendency to take this insanely violent story and turn it into this fluffy thing for kids that's focused so much on the animals, right? Isn't that weird? Isn't that interesting when, I mean, yeah, of course we should be concerned about the animals, but what about the people, though?

[00:06:03] You hardly ever see images of people drowning. Okay, actually, let me amend that. Sometimes you do see people drowning in depictions of the flood. And when you do, you know that the person showing you that image is focused either on the sinful depravity and worminess of humanity, or they're trying to scare you away from hell and into heaven. It's usually one or the two. And if you can't tell by now, I don't like either one of those approaches. Not that they can't have some relevance to us, but overall, they really skew absolutely everything that we're supposed to be doing here in this life.

[00:06:43] Anyway, so it's safe to say that many of my opinions have changed regarding the Flood and things surrounding how we should be talking about the Flood. And you know, we should be talking about the Flood because it's an important thing and I do believe it's relevant. Like it's really, really relevant. People who are into a literal global flood think that's true. And I'll agree with them. The Flood tells us some really important things, and we will definitely be getting into a lot of that in the future.

[00:07:15] Alright, but dipping into some big questions about the Flood, I suppose the first obvious thing, aside from the intriguing Sons of God Nephilim thing, of course, is the question of Global Flood? Local Flood? No Flood? Galactic Flood. I don't know. Some of you know the Galactic Flood.

[00:07:38] Now, from a textual standpoint, a lot of people think that we have to go with the Global Flood option, that there's no other choice here. But it's actually the text that allows us to not go with the Global Flood necessarily. Yes, yes, I know. If you'll believe it, I've actually read Genesis before. And you can check my sources here, but I know that Genesis says the whole earth was covered with water. But when we look at the terms, well, earth, it's really better seen as land rather than earth, because when we're talking about earth, we're thinking about this globe out in space. And that's not what the biblical writer was thinking about. The biblical writer was thinking about the literal land. Like, the dirt, the thing you stand on, the thing that you farm, the thing you build houses on, the thing you fight wars over, the land.

[00:08:42] And let's not forget the word all, or whole, depending on what your translation says. We'll do a word study of that, and it's clearly the case that all doesn't always mean all. It just doesn't. And translations are funny.

[00:08:59] Let's look at the ESV. In Genesis 8, verse 9. But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him.

[00:09:19] Okay, the face of the whole earth. Again, this makes us think of our planet. But did the dove fly over the entire planet? Of course not. And let's look at the exact same term later in Genesis in the ESV.

[00:09:33] In Genesis 13 verse 9, this is Abram and Lot discussing how they're going to split their flocks and people. Abram says, quote, Is not the whole land before you? Separate yourself from me. If you take the left hand, then I will go to the right, or if you take the right hand, then I will go to the left. End quote.

[00:09:57] Oh, suddenly it's not the whole earth, it's the whole land. It's translated with the word land instead of earth. But it's the same Hebrew. Abram and Lot weren't hanging out in space looking down on the earth. They were talking about the land. So why wasn't it translated as land in Genesis 8? Well, we know why, because there's this presumption that what Genesis 8 is talking about is the entire globe. So the ESV is okay with translating the word as Earth in Genesis 8 because of that, but in Genesis 13, it's going to translate it as land.

[00:10:39] And of course in Genesis 13, we have a context here, right? We know that Abram and Lot are going to be distributing a particular section of land. So, there's context, right? But, listen, even the Flood , we have context there, too. Because Genesis 10 gives us an idea of the land that they're thinking about. The world as it existed for them, which was not the whole world. So, if we assume that the Bible is writing to the people that it was writing to, and not necessarily to the whole wide world, then it's quite easy to see that we could have a local flood instead of a global flood.

[00:11:22] And throw in the idea of hyperbole and metaphor, and that's even more the case. Mountains to ancient people weren't just a geological formation. They meant way more than that. So, the mention of the floodwaters covering the mountains wasn't just a tiny little neat detail to help our scientists out today. The waters covering the mountains, in particular, was a detail that would mean something specific. And yes, this is just a tease for future conversations, I admit. There really is a lot to say about the details that the flood narrative gives.

[00:12:03] And that was one of the things that kind of broke my little neat biblical world apart when I began to study all of this, as these things tend to do to people, which this is not a new thing, over 100 years ago when people knew about the parallel flood stories, for many people it felt like biblical interpretation was coming apart at the seams, but there are different directions you can take with that, and those directions are things we've talked about plenty here. The point being, once you see literary and metaphorical purpose in the text, it doesn't have to destroy your trust in scripture, as the people at Genesis Apologetics seem to feel. For me and others that I know, it's actually expanded our ability to trust in scripture. The amount of value that linguistics and comparative studies have provided in the last 150 years have given a great new life to biblical studies, in my opinion.

[00:13:03] All right, one of the precursors of the galactic, excuse me, global flood idea is, of course, the famous flood stories of the world in different cultures. What do we make of these different flood myths?

[00:13:18] Okay, so this one is actually a multi layered question. It's concerned with history. It's concerned with literature. It's concerned with how old the stuff in the Bible is and who wrote it? Not to mention how they wrote it. Was Genesis revealed in a vision? Was it written from some older accounts, or what? So that's a lot of questions, and I'm not trying to give answers to everything here, because some of this stuff is stuff we'll be talking about in the future. But this isn't a simple question. We can read the ancient literature that parallels the story of the Bible. And so, when we get into that stuff more specifically, we can also talk about things like how old is that literature, and whether it's based on some ancient cultural memory or not.

[00:14:06] Now, I'm going to admit that it kind of bugs me when somebody pulls out the " what about all the flood myths of the world" card, as if it's like a slam dunk answer to the question of the global flood.

[00:14:20] Because, come on now, how much do you really know about those other flood myths? Really. Like, you personally. Now, I don't want to dismiss outright all of that stuff. Far from it. But this is one of those tropes that is passed down from person to person, and everyone assumes that it's true. Everyone assumes that there are plenty of other flood myths out there that parallel the story of the Bible.

[00:14:49] We're gonna end up questioning that entire premise, Or at least the foundations of it. And I think that's going to be a very interesting conversation, but it'll take some time because there's a lot to dig up for that. I'm not trying to stack the decks against the idea that there are many flood myths that come from an original occurrence of a global flood. Maybe we'll find in our investigation that there really are so many similarities that are best explained by that kind of ancient cultural memory. but not enough people question this, which I find really interesting. So, yeah, we're definitely going to be getting a lot into that parallel literature and finding where it comes from exactly, and what the similarities and differences are.

[00:15:36] We will, of course, start with the ancient Near Eastern literature, but this will turn into one of the topics that's eventually going to cause us to dip a little bit outside of biblical theology proper. But I think it's worth it, and I think it's necessary. And I think it's a really good question.

[00:15:53] You know what I find really interesting also about considering the Flood and the way people talk about it is this strange disconnect between Adam and Noah. It's like when you're talking about Adam, people forget that Noah exists. Oh, we all came from one man and one woman. Okay, well, if you believe in the literal history of Genesis 1 through 11, then that means that it all bottlenecked again into one family. Now, granted, there's a little bit more genetics going on with a family of Noah, because you have Noah, you have his wife, you have their sons, and you have their sons wives, so it's a little bit broader, genetically speaking, than Adam and Eve, but Noah is so clearly described as a second Adam, and all of humanity descending from this one family, right?

[00:16:50] But it's like our thinking gets compartmentalized sometimes when we talk about certain things, doesn't it? I'm not saying this as a criticism to anyone. This is just the way humanity is. We're all like this. I'm like this for sure, because I get so into Genesis that I start seeing Genesis everywhere. I can't help it. And sometimes that goes a little bit too far, just because that's where my mental space is.

[00:17:17] This is actually why we do need people to specialize, because they are the ones who get deep into the thinking on the topic. And this is also why we need groups of people who work together, who are all deeply invested in different topics, and who bring those together into one discussion.

[00:17:37] Individually, we have to compartmentalize and we have to specialize. This is the way our brains work, and it's frankly amazing how well we can think when this is effectively what we're doing. We artificially limit ourselves in the way that we think into compartments and categories and things like that.

[00:17:55] And yet, we're still capable of doing so many great things even with that, because honestly, it seems like a limitation in a way. It's like if you look at our school systems, for instance, and the academy and the sciences and the way things get so bottled into particular subjects. And sometimes this is why we struggle with certain things in technology or with other types of knowledge. Because you start thinking in certain ways, and you can't help but get bottled into the ways of thinking within that. Sometimes that's how you get some of the deepest and best thoughts about a particular topic. So it's not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it also means that you miss the forest for the trees.

[00:18:43] This is honestly why I approach my studies the way that I do. And not that I'm doing it better than anyone else, by any long shot whatsoever, but I do appreciate some of the things I've learned that I certainly can't take credit for, but that have really genuinely helped me. And I'd like to pass that stuff on to you guys for whatever it's worth. So, originally, in working on this episode, I didn't think I was going to get in this deep into particulars about my own history here, but I guess, why not? I'll tell you a little bit about how I got to this juncture.

[00:19:20] So, when I was getting my Master's in Biblical Studies at Redemption Seminary, I had started working with different types of software for taking notes. Redemption Seminary had some particular ways of doing things, which was really outside of my wheelhouse, because I'm just not a digital girl. That has changed quite a bit, but I really do naturally prefer pen and paper. I like physical books. Although, I really do admit now that they have some severe limitations.

[00:19:52] And if you're intending to do something really serious in studying deeply and widely, you're gonna need to find ways to make that efficient. I mean, you can choose not to, I guess, but you'll see where that gets you. So I grumbled and complained at having to figure out the technology, but had to really admit that they were right in making things efficient.

[00:20:14] So anyway, Redemption Seminary had me using digital tools in ways that I've never used before, and some of the other students that I was working with were working with different types of software that wasn't guided in the classes, but that also seemed really helpful, even more helpful, if we're being honest. No offense to those who were developing things at Redemption Seminary, because they were building things from the ground up and they had really good reasons for doing it the way they were doing it. So I started working with these other types of software that you can call like a second brain.

[00:20:49] A second brain is a system that allows you to structure information in a way that is Well, it's like an external second brain. You don't need to keep it all in your head because it keeps it there for you. I tried out several things. I tried out a program called Roam. I tried Obsidian, which is one that if you like digital stuff and you like my system, I suggest you try out Obsidian for that. And I've also used Notion, which was the one that I gravitated towards.

[00:21:21] And I started using these also in part because the system that Redemption Seminary had me using for their notes, well, it worked, but it wasn't designed specifically as a second brain. And I personally experienced some really unfortunate things with their system. I lost a lot of my notes. Like, almost all of them.

[00:21:44] Even though what they were using wasn't really designed for how they had students using it, it was still ultimately my fault for losing my data, but it definitely made me rethink what I was doing and the way I was doing it. What it was, was a program called Zotero, which Zotero is absolutely awesome at making bibliographies, and you can use it for making footnotes in Google Docs, so it's super useful, really easy to use for those purposes.

[00:22:14] But it has its issues and what I was doing was using it not just for bibliographies but for my whole note taking system, and that's just not what it's for. Now, Redemption had kind of jury rigged a way that made it work, and it was pretty good for what it was. But once my system crashed and I learned about the other options for a second brain, Well, they're just way better than Zotero could ever be for that purpose.

[00:22:40] And again, I place absolutely no blame on the school, really, because they were doing something very, very difficult. That being that they were getting students like me, who are so unused to using software for study, up to a point where we could proficiently use that software. And they couldn't take forever to do that. And there was a massive learning curve for many students on a number of fronts, which meant that they really wanted to limit the number of programs that a student had to learn, because it was a lot.

[00:23:11] We were learning how to use the web based interface for the class. We had to learn something that would get us to a point of being able to do bibliography and footnotes, which is what Zotero absolutely is good for. We had to figure out Google Docs. And we were learning how to use the Bible software Logos. So that's already a ton of stuff that they couldn't presume we already knew, and we needed to learn that in addition to everything in the classes. And so they didn't feel like they could add yet another program on top of all of that for study notes. But they needed something, because Logos does some of that nicely, but there are limitations to notes in Logos. So, that's why they chose to go with Zotero for note taking.

[00:23:56] Anyways, a little bit of history there, but there was a real impetus for me to figure out how to use a second brain. And then somewhere in my own personal research of learning how to do that, I came across somebody who was talking about a particular way of doing notes. And actually, it's not a new way of doing notes at all. I think I'd heard about this system long ago, but no one explained to me how awesome it is because it has some real strengths to it.

[00:24:25] There are a few different names and variations on the system. The German term for it is Zettelkasten, which means slip box. the book I read about it is called How to Take Smart Notes. And I'm going to go ahead and leave a link for it in the show notes here because it's got to be one of my most highly recommended resources for anyone. Again, you don't have to be doing a podcast or anything else to make use of this. You don't have to be writing anything. This is for anyone. Really it is. If you want to think well and think critically, then I'm not sure there's any better suggestion than these kinds of notes.

[00:25:05] And good news is there are various ways you can do them. You can do them digitally. You can do them on paper. And yes, the irony is that even though I started learning about them when I was taking digital notes and I was really going in the digital note direction, and I fully expected that I would continue to take digital notes, I thought at first I would at least play with the idea of doing physical notes to see how that was.

[00:25:30] And I did that only because the author of that book really did make a good case for that and I'll go into some of those points here. Though he was also quick to say that you can still absolutely do this digitally. So in an interesting twist of fate, right when I was finally comfortable with saying, okay, fine, I get it, I can take digital notes. This is how we'll do it. In learning how to do that better, I actually decided to go back to analog notes. And so I actually feel like I'm in this weird place between the digital and analog world.

[00:26:04] I know for a fact that some of you are out there saying, I would never in a million years do physical notes. And then there's some of you out there going, I love physical books and I hate digital books. I need to highlight my books, and I need to make written notes in them in order to understand or remember anything. And of course there's you guys who are crossovers who do a mix of those things. And I'm in this really weird in between state. I need and appreciate and use things digitally because there's no denying that it's faster, that you can access more information in a shorter period of time, and that if you want to be productive in a lot of places, digital is the way to go. So don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to get you away entirely from digital things.

[00:26:51] If you try to deny that digital is the way to go for at least some things in productivity, well, I'm sorry, but you're just flat out wrong. I know some of you are still out there going, yeah, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Except that I think you can. And listen, the good thing is you don't have to go digital for everything. You don't have to go analog for anything. But if either one of those is your jam, this will work for you. And so that's why I'm in digital analog limbo land. Because I have to use digital resources in order to access the amount of stuff that I do in the time that I have. And I also see a really massive benefit to doing things non digitally.

[00:27:35] But I have some particular constraints on that, too, because I really think that some of our non digital habits are not as helpful as we think they are. In the end, I think you really need to find a sweet spot between the worlds, and don't get hung up on only doing it one way. Because if you don't give other ways a chance, you really might be missing out on something seriously good for yourself. And, of course, I will say also that some of it is always going to boil down to the way that we individually have learned to do things, and the way that our brains have adjusted because we've done it for so long. So I get it. For everyone, there are things that will work better than others. So if something works for you, then great, keep doing it. But I still think there are a few practices that are kind of hardcore in being quote unquote best practices.

[00:28:29] Now there are a few reasons I decided to stick with physical notes in the end, instead of going back to primarily using a digital second brain. For one thing, I just spend so much time on the computer naturally, with day to day life, doing office work, recording, editing, emailing, all of the other things that I do digitally. So it's really nice to be able to do something that's not digital. If all of my notes were on the computer, it would be really hard to ever get off of that.

[00:29:03] So, that's one reason. But probably just as important is my other main reason. In fact, this is probably more important. And that is the fact that I really believe physical notes help us think. I believe that's true just in general for people and not just specifically for me. Again, I'm not saying you can't do digital notes or there's something wrong with digital notes, but big revelation here. Our brains actually are physical matter and they are connected to our physical bodies. And there's a lot of research out there that suggests that physical movement is part of the way our brains work. A really big part. That physical movement in fact helps our brains to work.

[00:29:49] Like if you've got kids and they're young enough to be learning to read, a thing that you should know is that reading development is intimately connected with physical development and physical activity. Things like cross body movement, you know, when you're reaching across your body from left to right or from right to left, that kind of movement does something to our brains. Okay, so I'm not a physical scientist and I can't explain all of that very well, but it is a thing. Bodily spatial awareness is a predictor of ability to read. So, get your kids out on the playground, throw balls, get a really big whiteboard and have them draw big pictures on it, ballet or jiu jitsu or whatever, cross body movement.

[00:30:37] Oh, that's right. This is my podcast about biblical theology, and I'm talking about research practices here and not reading readiness of kids, but you know, it's the same thing. Our brains are organized in two different hemispheres and our brains respond to physical movement in our body and cross body movement is just as important for adults and any kind of thinking activity.

[00:31:01] So that's why you're going to want to do things like stand up out of your chair every 15 minutes or have a workspace where you're genuinely reaching across desk space in different directions. Use a big whiteboard. Believe it or not, those things actually help you think.

[00:31:17] So physical slip notes help you do cross body movement as you lay them out on a desk and organize and sort notes. You physically shuffle through them. You come across completely random ideas in your notes as you reach into the box and take out a note at random. Also, you know, go out and take a walk while you're at it. That's advice I need to hear more often, that's for sure. You can bring some notes to shift through as you walk, or just listen to the podcast and bring a note card and pencil along for fleeting notes.

[00:31:50] Oh, I guess we're talking about the specifics of my note taking system now, so let's get into that. So I use the terms as they came in the book that I read, and they're related to the German, of course. Now, in a way, it is a complex system because there are a few different things that you're doing, but in another way, it's really not that complex of a system once you've figured out the pieces of it. I have tweaked things just a little bit for my own use, so it's possible that some of what I'm going to say is not actually in the book. But just what I do, because it's been a little bit since I've read the book. So, fair warning about that. And if you're using physical notes, I have a few cool tricks that I've come across as well. Probably most of those will be more visible in a video, but I'll mention some of them.

[00:32:41] Okay, so there are several types of notes that I do. One of those types is called literature notes. These are just brief notes that give me an idea of what a resource says. and I call them literature notes because that's what the book called them, but I also take literature notes for podcasts and YouTube videos, and I try and keep them very minimal.

[00:33:07] Basically, they are designed to help me keep books and podcasts straight, so these kinds of notes help me remember the strengths of a particular book and a couple of important points about it. They also help me keep track of where I have the book. Whether it's in Logos, or Kindle, or Physical Copy, or if I read it from the library, or whatever.

[00:33:29] I don't make literature notes for absolutely everything I consume, just the things that I know I need some help tracking. What you don't want to do with literature notes is write too much. It's tempting to go way overboard and put too much information down in your literature notes. But really, the only point of the literature notes is so that you can remember what kind of information is in a book, or whatever. Because in theory, you can just go and find that book again, or listen to the podcast to refresh your memory or access the data. It's a waste of time and space to put too much in your literature notes. They're meant to be brief. Your literature notes may possibly connect to your other notes, or they might not, but we'll talk about that when we get to the system of organization.

[00:34:18] Okay, the next type of note are called fleeting notes. This is the thing that is maybe really, really hard for some of us, because they are not supposed to be kept. These are not permanent, they are literally fleeting. These are the notes that you make in the moment when you're reading or you're listening or even when a thought just comes into your head. What you need to do is write those things down immediately, whenever or however they come to you, so you write it on the back of an envelope, on a napkin, on an index card, in a tiny little notebook, in a larger notebook, on loose leaf paper, whatever you have, you just need to write it down.

[00:34:58] And you need to realize that these notes aren't going to be kept. In fact, do more than that. You need to purposefully tell yourself, I am not keeping these notes. Really. One thing I really like using for my fleeting notes are those LCD writing tablets because you literally cannot keep those. But junk mail envelopes get a lot of use from me, let me tell you what. Now, you might tell yourself that you're writing in a journal or a notebook and those are your fleeting notes, but you're secretly trying to keep them. And, well look, I'm not going to tell you you can't do that. But I'm gonna say you probably will find that genuinely unnecessary. I know it might be hard to believe, but I really think it's true. You might be so used to keeping so many notes that you can't fathom not keeping them all.

[00:35:52] And you know what? Hey, if you've found a way to organize them so they are genuinely usable and accessible, then more power to you. But let's be honest, that's not most of us. Most of us who use journals or notebooks have piles of them and we have no idea how to access the information inside. We don't know what's in there. That's not good. And the value of the note system I'm telling you about right now is that you don't have that problem. Your notes will no longer be locked away in books or in digital files, never to be seen again.

[00:36:30] Okay, so for fleeting notes, you can write as many of them as you need. As you're reading, or as you're listening, or as you're thinking, feel free to literally spill your entire brain onto the paper , or whatever it is you're using. So if you're one of those people who's like, Oh, I love to highlight, and I love to make notes in my book, well, you're in luck here. Make fleeting notes.

[00:36:53] And you really ought to make a practice of writing a lot down, because writing really is a big part of our thinking. For those of you who aren't in the habit of writing down notes, this might seem cumbersome. It might seem like it's not worth doing, but keep in mind, they can be messy. They can be your unique shorthand, whatever. Remember what I said before about how connected your brain is to your body? Well, that matters here too. Write. Things. Down. Write a lot down. The physical action of your hand doing some notes is going to engage your brain. And no, you don't have to keep all of that because you're going to be summing it up for your permanent notes.

[00:37:34] Okay, so we've got the literature notes, we've got the fleeting notes, and both of those things are kind of straightforward. There are a few rules to go along with them, like the literature notes are brief, and the fleeting notes should be copious, but remember, they won't be kept. But other than that, they're kind of pretty easy to figure out. Not a big deal.

[00:37:56] But now we've come to the actual core of your notes, and these are called slip notes. Slip notes because they're on little slips of paper, like index cards. So again, they can be digital, but if you're doing it physically, you're going to be using index cards. Now, stop thinking about how many index cards you're gonna use. It doesn't matter. It's fine. Really. Don't worry about it. I know you're worried about it because I was worried about it, too. But in all of the time that I've done this, I still really think that it's a reasonable amount,

[00:38:31] Just spend five bucks at Walmart for some cards and get one of those long boxes that will hold them. I mean, you can start out with one of those smaller plastic boxes. But if you just get one of those big ones that holds like a thousand cards, it'll last you a good while while you start. I should really get some sponsors for this episode, I feel like. BT wants me to say that you should use 3M cards. So I'll give him a shout out there.

[00:39:00] So the slip notes are your permanent notes. And again, you can do these digitally just like you can do literature notes and fleeting notes digitally as well. Just like with the literature notes and the fleeting notes, there are some very important rules here. In fact, they're probably more important for the slip notes than for the other notes. And this is where it might start getting a little bit overwhelming to think about all of these notes.

[00:39:27] But the good news is, not every thought you have and not everything you write down in your fleeting notes is going to end up in your slip notes. You don't want them all there anyway. They don't need to be there, they don't belong there. Some days I make a ton of slip notes, and some days I really don't make any at all. I'm actually surprised at the relatively low number of index boxes I have managed to acquire at this point, because judging by some days, you would think I would have like ten times as many boxes as I have now. Now don't get me wrong, I still have a lot of notes, but some weeks it's significantly less than others.

[00:40:04] Okay, so what a slip note is, is your permanent note, and you're usually going to write those from your fleeting notes, and they'll be condensed. You're going to be thinking about your fleeting notes and thinking about all of the things you are learning and thinking about, and you're going to condense them in your own words. Now, sometimes you'll just write a slip note when you have a thought because you know that it belongs there. But usually what you're going to be doing is condensing ideas into your slip notes.

[00:40:37] So you're reading a book or you're listening to a podcast and you're just writing so many things down in your fleeting notes. At whatever regular interval makes sense to you, whether right after you're listening or daily or more often or slightly less often than that, but don't take too long, what you're going to do is you're going to go through your fleeting notes and you're going to decide what's important enough to keep as a permanent note and how you can condense those. This is part of your thinking process, by the way. You're analyzing your fleeting notes and you're recognizing what's important and maybe you're even having some new ideas right then as you're doing that.

[00:41:19] This is why some days you're going to have a lot of notes and some days you might not have any. You might decide that your literature notes are actually sufficient for remembering how to access the information you wrote down in your fleeting notes. Because, remember, you don't need to keep every bit of data. You don't want to do that, and you don't need to do that, because it's a way too much information. What you need is the ability to access the information again whenever you need it. I mean, it's like if you have a book, and you can just open the book to the page to find the information, Then you don't need to write all of that stuff down, but you might choose to write it down because it's an important piece of your thinking that you feel is going to connect with other thoughts.

[00:42:03] But hopefully what you've done is write the information down in your own words, which again is part of your thinking process. So again, this isn't about pure data. It's not about collecting charts and lists and information, although sometimes you do put that in your notes, but it's more about ideas than data points.

[00:42:27] And when you're trying to think for yourself, then you don't need to write everything about somebody else's thoughts. You need to write what your own thoughts are. So that's another point about the slip notes. You really want them to be your own thoughts because part of this is for you to think for yourself and not just regurgitate what somebody else has said.

[00:42:50] Now I do plenty of quotes in my slip notes still, but I try for the most part to write down my thoughts instead of somebody else's thoughts. So if somebody has a good idea or a good thought that you want to capture, you want to be able to express it in your own words. Because it's only then, if you can express it in your own words, That you've actually internalized it as a thought in yourself, as opposed to it just being a piece of data. wherever possible, instead of just writing down a piece of information, write it down in a way that it's yours. And that can be a question that something causes you to ask, or it can be an entirely new idea inspired by something else.

[00:43:33] Okay, so another rule here about slip notes is that each slip note you make should be only one complete thought. So don't try to cram your slip note with a whole bunch of information unless your thought needs that much written. And if your note is coming from a source, always document that source. That's just good practice for whenever you're going to be using it and being honest about where your idea came from. But it's also really important because you want to be able to track your thoughts and go back to that original source if you need to. So these notes are the way that you can find that resource. so come up with a shorthand documentation to put at the end of your note with the page number or whatever else you need in order to be able to find the information again.

[00:44:23] Okay, to sum up a little bit of this here, with a slip note, is it's a complete thought that is important enough that you want to keep it. So it's not every bit of information you need to know, but it's important enough for you to make it as a permanent note because you want it to be part of your thinking process.

[00:44:43] And it doesn't have to be something you agree with either. Absolutely, write down things you don't agree with, in fact, write those things down especially because they're going to be there for you to access later in your thinking process. Now I'm going to say, once you start doing this system, it's going to take you a little bit of practice. You might not quite know which thoughts are important enough to write down, and if you're doing too much or whatever, it's okay though, because you're going to figure that out as you go. I promise you will.

[00:45:17] A thing to try to do, that you'll get better at as you go, is to make sure the first line of your note is unique enough that just glancing at that line will give you an idea of the content of the note, because you're going to want these to be easily paged through.

[00:45:33] And this might be hard for some, but write in complete sentences. I mean, I do have a shorthand myself that I use for some words that I've always used, and I will use those in my slip notes. Just don't abbreviate the note, write a whole sentence. Believe me, it makes a difference when you're going through the notes quickly to have the whole sentence there instead of something that your brain is going to have to translate into a sentence.

[00:46:03] You also might be concerned with how you're going to start your collection of notes because that feels overwhelming. You might be tempted, like I was, to start your notes by putting in a whole bunch of information that you're already thinking about And it's really overwhelming and you're overthinking it because that's a lot of information that you want in your notes. You might want a whole bunch of stuff in your notes that's going to take time to build up and you don't have that time to build it up. I know you don't because you're an adult and none of us have that kind of time. When I started my notes, I wanted to put so much information in it that was important to me and to what I was thinking about.

[00:46:43] But I can tell you right now from experience. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where you start. It doesn't matter how you start. It doesn't matter what notes you start with. It doesn't matter if every thought you have is in your notes. You don't have to actually start in an organized way. I mean, they're gonna be organized, but they're not gonna be organized in the way that you're thinking about right now, probably. And that's okay. It's the way it's supposed to be. That's the way it's supposed to work. It's really strange to start out, but you'll soon get the flow of it if you give it a chance.

[00:47:17] Okay, so let's say that you have started some fleeting notes, and you've started making some permanent slip notes. The literature notes are kind of something that you can do later if you want. They're actually maybe the least important part of this, except that you do need a way to keep track of some of those things in those sometimes. I find them most useful for podcasts, to be honest, because keeping track of what kinds of information come from what episode gets really hard when you're listening to so many. But at the same time, my literature notes are the thing that gets the least updating. So this is why I really say if you're going to keep literature notes, make them exceptionally brief. The slip notes are way more valuable and worth spending your time on.

[00:48:01] All right. So again, you've got your little stack of slip notes now. What do you do with them then? Because pretty soon that stack is going to grow, and it's going to be way overwhelming, and it's going to be a big mess, right? Okay, so here is the magic trick of the slip notes, and it's really strange at first.

[00:48:21] You're going to connect the slip notes together in a sequence. Every single note is going to be connected to another note. So probably you have a set of slip notes at first that are somewhat related in thought. So this part is kind of easy at the very start. You just start giving them catalog numbers. One, two, three, four. Just use numbers. These numbers don't matter what they are. It doesn't matter for anything except keeping your notes organized and accessible and connected together. And you're also going to use those for hyperlinks in your notes.

[00:48:56] Yep, your notes will be hyperlinked amongst themselves. It's so cool. I know it's not normal to get passionate about note taking, but here we are. So, just start with normal numbers, put them in the top right corner of your index card, numbering your first notes according to how the ideas relate. Don't worry about how the ideas originally related in the book or whatever. You do it in the way that makes sense to you.

[00:49:22] A subsequent note can relate in all kinds of ways to a parent note. So your second note that you'll label with the number 2 is going to be a thought that follows or relates to whatever you chose your first note to be. Number three will follow from number two, and so on. And sometimes you have a thought that is completely unrelated, and that's okay. Just stick it in your sequence somewhere. But I think you'll find that most of the time, there really will be connections in thought.

[00:49:52] However, don't get too high in your numbering yet. Because, pretty quickly, you're going to want to start embedding notes between other notes. I've been doing these notes for years now, and I'm only up to, like, the number 32 or something like that. So, if I've got thousands of notes, how can it be that I'm only up to number 32? Well, it's because you're going to start putting notes in between other notes as well. And so your catalog identifications will start to alternate between numbers and letters. Again, this is way harder to describe over audio, but it's not fundamentally difficult.

[00:50:33] So you start with the numbers. Then if you have a note that goes after number one, but it's not number two, you're going to label it 1A. If you have a note that goes after 1A, it's 1B. But let's say you get another note that you want to connect to 1A, but you've already got 1B. Well, this new note will be labeled 1a1 and it will go right after one A, but before one B.

[00:51:05] I know you get now why I want to do a video for this because it's difficult to describe this part. This is the most complex part of the whole thing, the catalog numbering system, but I promise it's a whole lot easier than it seems, and you really can get the hang of it once you get going. Some of my notes have a catalog number of, like, I think the largest is, like, 12 alternating numbers and letters. But you get into a flow with it, and it starts to make a lot of sense to you.

[00:51:34] I'll describe the way my slip notes began, to maybe give you an example. I started my slip note box with ideas of how the priesthood connects with discipleship. Okay, so I've got my first slip box here in front of me, and my first note is actually about this whole slip note system, so that's funny. There's not really that many notes behind that one, and that's okay. Note number two, well, I have no idea where note number two is. I've lost it somewhere along the way, which is also okay.

[00:52:07] So, note number three says, how are the priesthood and discipleship linked? So I started with a question.

[00:52:17] Note number four says, the priesthood is one lens through which we can view discipleship. We who are royal priests under our high priest and King Jesus can better develop our walks as imagers of God with the biblical understanding of the purposes and tasks of the priest.

[00:52:36] Okay, so that's note number four. So that's basically like a thesis question. After that, notes 5, 6, 7, 8, and so on, a few after that, are about the qualities of the priesthood and discipleship. So, note number 5 is about kingdom, note number 6 is about creation, note number 7 is about the image, note number 8 is about covenant, and so on. I'm not going to go through all of them.

[00:53:07] Now, my note that is right before note 8 is labeled 7N. But, in this block of notes between 7 and 8, I have notes that are labeled things like 7G8A3D1. That note comes right after 7G8A3D, of course. So, the catalog system seems complicated, but if I pulled this note out of the box, I would know exactly where it belongs.

[00:53:41] The system allows me to put new notes behind any note. Now, the only thing about catalog numbers, really, that you have to remember when you're writing new slip notes, is that you're going to need to leave space in the corner to write however long of a string of numbers and letters for it.

[00:53:57] All right, so let me give you another example. Note number eight is Priesthood Discipleship and Covenant. 8A says, quote, We are part of the new covenant sealed with the blood of the Lamb of God, who doubles as our high priest, end quote.

[00:54:16] 8B says, quote, The old and new covenants will have their ultimate fulfillment in eschatology, end quote.

[00:54:26] Okay so note 8C is a note from a book, and it says, quote, Sin has ruined the Covenant. Animal offerings are now needed. Priests mediate this. End quote.

[00:54:41] Note 8d, says something about the royal priesthood. But then I had something to say about this note 8c, because I had a thought in response to this idea about sin ruining the Covenant.

[00:54:56] And so 8c1 says, quote, Does sinning no longer ruin the covenant, or is it that Christ's atonement is ongoing and still effective, end quote.

[00:55:11] Then I kept thinking about that, and so note 8c2 says, Quote, What exactly has ruined the covenant? Were animal offerings ever not part of the covenant in the ancient Near East? And how do we see this, if so? End quote.

[00:55:31] 8C3 is a newer note, and it says, quote, The author of the book in note 8C obviously doesn't know what the connection is between covenant and sacrifice. Covenant sacrifices aren't there because the covenants have been ruined. Sacrifices were there to begin with. They were part of ratifying the Covenant. End quote.

[00:55:55] All right, I'm going to spare you more of my notes here, but you can see that you can put any ideas in here, even if you don't agree with them, even if you're not sure about them, and later you can come along and think about those. You can ask questions. You can make corrections.

[00:56:11] The format of these notes is such that you are meant to go through them frequently. You're meant to look at them randomly. You're meant to encounter the idea in a fresh state of mind, where you've not been thinking about that idea already at all, and suddenly, because you've done that, you're gonna have a new idea, you're gonna have a question, you're gonna have a thought in response, and quite often it's going to be an interesting and unique thought because that's what happens when we come upon ideas fresh and randomly.

[00:56:42] So, the other thing you're going to do is hyperlink these notes together, because as you're thinking about ideas that you're randomly going through, you're going to realize that some of them in separate parts of your box connect together, and you want to know that they connect together. You're not going to move the notes, because they already have a catalog designation, and they've already got a connection with another note. And of course, many thoughts click together, and you're going to need a way to make that happen in your box. So what you're going to do here is you're going to hyperlink notes together by writing the catalog designation of the other note on the bottom or on the back if you don't have any space. But if you put it on the back, make sure you mark the bottom of your card in front so that you know it has hyperlinks on the back. That way you're not always flipping around cards to say, Oh, does this one have a hyperlink? No, you just want to have it on the front so that it's really easy to see as you pick it up.

[00:57:40] So I hope you can see what's going on here with your note system. First you're building a nice, sensible line of thought, but you get to add to that line of thought and you get to make these interconnected webs of thoughts and branches in your notes. And you can do that even without writing new notes. Because you're not writing down exactly how the notes connect together, you're making that connection with the hyperlinks. And as you do this, more and more new thoughts are going to be prodded, and they might end up as new slip notes.

[00:58:13] This is why I love this system so much, and this is why I think everyone should be using it. Because we should all be interested in coming up with really good thoughts and doing a lot of critical thinking. Quite often we just kind of rely on the happenstance of thoughts entering our head at the same time and colliding together. But the thing is, you can't keep all of your thoughts in your head in an accessible way all the same time. That's not the way our brains work. At least not consciously. This is exactly what they do subconsciously. Our brains are amazing and they do make these connections subconsciously without our naturally thinking about it, but you still have no control over that, right? This is why, however, when we're sleeping and we wake up, we can have really good ideas and things like that because our brains have been working in spite of our conscious selves.

[00:59:10] Still, in such a state, you're relying on that happenstance or hoping that your brain will make these connections. It happens more often if you're deeply reading and you've got your brain in that space. But there's a problem with that because remember how I've said before that we unfortunately compartmentalize things too much? That's what happens when we're so deep into a topic, we really can't think about anything else and we aren't necessarily connecting this deep topic to any of our other thoughts. And so with a slip note box, you're setting things up to make it more likely that your brain will make these connections consciously. And even making connections between branches of thought you never would have expected.

[00:59:55] And I just think that's the coolest thing ever. As I've said before, in order to really think, you need to have a conversation in your own head. You need to have what amounts to multiple people in your brain at once. And sometimes those other people need to be not you. They need to be thoughts that you don't even want to be having, really, because you don't agree with them. And so writing them down in a slip note means that they are there in your thought process.

[01:00:25] So that's what a slip note box can be like. It's like a second brain for your thoughts that you can actively and purposefully and intentionally engage with. And the happenstance of random associations is critical.

[01:00:42] Now I wish I could give you some advice on how this works in a digital format, but I've never used the system that way. But if you do use something like a digital second brain for note taking already, you probably already know how to hyperlink notes together. The thing I'm not sure you can do quite so well digitally, to be honest, is the random pulling up of notes to look at. I suppose it depends on the program you use and whatnot. Some of them have some sort of thing that helps you with that, but this is why I use physical notes, because while it can take a little more time to write them, I frequently look through my notes quickly or pull notes randomly. So I get a lot of mileage, a lot of mileage out of the time it takes me to write them.

[01:01:29] Sometimes I'll do a little game with myself where I'll pull several notes from different sections randomly. And I'll think about them together. And it's amazing the ideas you can get by doing something like that. It feels like cheating.

[01:01:43] Okay, so a few little things that I do. Because I pull notes out to use in episodes or just to gather some thoughts together, once those notes are pulled, if I add more notes to my box while those are pulled, I won't know that I'm missing a catalog number. And so before I've had duplicate labels for some cards because of that. so I've taken to using blank, fully colored index cards and inserting those where I take a card out. So then I know there's a missing card that I've got out somewhere.

[01:02:17] Another thing that I found is really useful is that because you aren't using any tabs to sort your cards, you still need something to stick in there, sometimes to keep a place. Like I'll pull up a few cards or I'll be working in a certain section and I don't want to take time to flip through the cards to find where they go again or to keep track of where I am in the card box. So as placeholders for where I'm currently pulling out cards or temporarily marking spots, I have found that old plastic credit or debit cards or hotel room keys are perfect for sticking in to hold a spot. Junk mail is another good source for cards like that.

[01:02:56] My third tip is some cards are so important that you'll come back to them a lot And you want to find them easily in the slipbox. But don't use tabs! Instead, just take the card, place it on a scrap paper, and swipe the top of it with a marker. You can use different colors and even color combinations, like swiping one half with one color and the other half with another color. I do that with important thoughts and sections, and if I've added so many cards that I have really long sections without a card like that, That probably means there's a really important thought in there somewhere that I want to mark.

[01:03:34] But this brings us to our last really crucial part of all of this, and that's an index because you need to be able to find entry points into your notes. As long as you have regular entry points in your notes, then it shouldn't take you long at all to find a particular thought or a series of thoughts related to that particular topic. So swiping colors at the top is useful. But I think you have to also have an index. and you probably want to redo your index every now and again. I redo mine every six months or so. And a digital index is a really good way to do this because it's searchable and you can edit it super easily and kind of give it a nice organization with sections and whatnot.

[01:04:18] And I do have a digital index, but to be honest, I actually found it annoying. Because if I'm physically manipulating my note cards, I don't want to have to turn to my computer or tablet or phone to check out my index. If I have it pulled up right in front of me, that's one thing, but I actually found that to be too much of a pain.

[01:04:39] So, I've made indexes on larger note cards, and that's cool, but really, I just want to use the ones that I've made up on my normal 3x5 cards. So I write my index on colored index cards, to make them easily found, and I have two separate indexes. One of them lists the catalog entry points in order, but I use the other set more often, and that index is organized according to very broad topics. So, for instance, I have one blue index card that has entry points for the topic of creation, another one with entry points for the topic of kingdom, another one for history, and so on.

[01:05:22] So, I have about 11 or 12 categories. And on those broad category index cards, I have subcategories with catalog numbers. So, for instance, if I want to know where to find my notes that are all about knowledge, then I will look at my index labeled the fall, and I'll find the card that gives me an entry point to the topic of knowledge.

[01:05:47] So as I'm making notes, if I make one that I know is a good entry point, I'll add that immediately to my index on the appropriate card. And as I said, about every six months or so, it feels like some of my cards are too full or I have a hard time finding topics. So I work to do a bit of a reorganize of my index. And that gives me another chance to go through my notes and see if there are any important entry points to record.

[01:06:15] And again, that sounds like a lot of work, but remember, while you're doing all of this stuff, you are engaging in ideas in a way that you wouldn't otherwise. You're giving your brain exposure to ideas and concepts and topics and thoughts and quotes and all kinds of things that your brain would not have in it if you weren't doing this.

[01:06:37] So I found my index process overall really effective and accessible. Sometimes I do have some notes that are a bit harder to find, but if someone asks me a question and I know I have a note section on it, it's pretty easy for me to find those notes.

[01:06:54] Now, all of this might sound overwhelming or hard to get into, but I genuinely don't think it is. I don't think it takes nearly as much time as people think, and I've continually been astounded at how accessible my notes are. Now, am I slightly paranoid that I'll have a house fire or something and lose all of my notes? Well, of course I am. But I've lost way more digital material than I've lost journals and physical notes. So I've decided it's worth the risk. If I've got some sort of a zombie apocalypse crisis, then yes, I'm grabbing my slipnote boxes first.

[01:07:33] Okay, I think that sums a lot of it up. Oh, and before I end, I want to make sure to go back to talking about how literature notes can be entry points into your slipnotes as well. And this is really easy. If you've got a slip note that connects directly into a literature note, you can just put that catalog number on your literature note card, or however you're doing the literature notes. So this becomes yet another entry point into your notes.

[01:08:05] Okay, so why did I decide to talk about all of this in this conversation about the flood and all of that? Well it's because thinking about the flood, I think requires a level of flexible thinking, and it requires engagement with a lot of different ideas and a lot of different perspectives.

[01:08:27] If you genuinely want to take another perspective seriously, then giving that idea some space in your notes is a good way to do that. Basically what you're trying to do in your slip note box is expand the way that you can think and the types of ideas you can engage with.

[01:08:45] Okay, so hopefully all of this hasn't been too confusing and too complex of a topic for audio. If anybody has any questions or anything, feel free to talk to me about it. Feel free to ask me those questions. You can also just go get that book that I mentioned because it does a pretty good job of laying it all out and you can see it in print so that makes it a little bit easier to see how those catalog numbers actually work.

[01:09:13] And I really hope that this makes you want to give it a try. Seriously, it doesn't hurt to try it out. Remember that not every thought has to go into your notes and don't get paranoid and obsessive about it. Just use it as a tool. It's a fantastic tool. This episode might not be everybody's cup of tea, but I'm certain there are a few of you out there who are willing to be drawn into my nefarious web of wanting everyone to think really cool thoughts.

[01:09:42] And if I've caught any of you in this trap, I consider this a great success. I do hope to have a video out about this as well, and I'll show you all of my notes and probably some things I forgot to mention here.

[01:09:56] As always, thanks guys for listening. I appreciate you all for engaging and questioning and studying along with me. If there's any questions, please feel free to shoot me a message or maybe even better, make a post on my discussion group. You can find me on Facebook and you can contact me through GenesisMarksTheSpot. com where you can also find blog posts, my artwork, and ways to help financially support me and thank you so much to those who do. I have a lot of notecards to buy in the future. And if anyone chooses to start a Slipnote box, I would love to see them! I appreciate all of you, and I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.