Field Report #9: Excerpting Instead of Processing

A common question in relation to the interleaving of books (and other sources) is how to keep the sources once you have worked on them. People are often surprised when I say that I don’t keep any sources.

Processing texts is not an end, but only a means to generate the most productive sessions possible. I therefore measure my productivity not by how many texts I can process or how thoroughly, but by the quality and quantity of thoughts unfolded, the quality and quantity of ideas understood.

The larger our repertoire and – perhaps even more importantly – how well we are practiced with this repertoire, the more value-adding we can work with sources.

We need to learn that what really matters is not how we want to work, but what processing the source requires.

every workflow should be understood as a tool in your repertoire. All too often there is a misconception that the most important thing is to find “your own way of working”. I reduce my contemporary critique to the following: I consider it another manifestation of the modern and exceedingly narcissistic belief that one’s ego is the most important th... See more