How do you build a snowman?

A boy who was what we can call the attention paradigm of any psychologist responded to this question in a very focused way.

“Ok, if I want to build a snowman, I start making a plan, like any superhero would do. For that I would use a picture or a draw to know how I want the snowman to look. What do I need for that? Then, I would gather the materials to build it. I may change the plan according to the materials I found, you never know. Finally, I would put everything together, one thing at a time. And voila, you have a snowman.”

A girl, not the ideal example of an attentive child, had another approach.

“I run directly where the snow is. I touch it, I feel it. Then I like to play with it in any possible way—making balls and throw them away, making angels in the snow, sculpt little animals, jumping on it… Doing this, at some point, the snow is going to take the form of a big ball or two, and you are going to feel that a snowman is possible. You may start with a little one. Or maybe you want to go directly for the biggest snowman ever. Or maybe you want to try more than one. What about a snowman family! ”

How do you build a snowman?

For tools like Roam Research—and similar personal knowledge management apps— there are also two basic approaches. I’m going to call the first one, ‘slip-boxing’, and the second one, ‘memoing’.

Slip-boxing thinks in boxes, is structured, planned; likes ideas and order. If the boy in the story was going to use Roam, he would use the slip-boxing approach.

Memoing lets ideas, sensations, feelings, emotions—experiences!— flow and accumulate; likes freedom and associations. If the girl in the story was going to use Roam, she would use memoing.

How do you build your database graph?

I’m doing a little survey to see if there are enough people interested in this course about memoing, hupomnemata, and everything about self-writing.

If you are interested in tools for thought, here it comes a more playful approach. Starts in two weeks.

If you haven’t see this video, it’s becoming a meme between the #roamcult. Interesting.