At a wedding, about a month ago, I had an interesting chat with someone with the same surname as me. Not that unusual to meet another Kotecha, but rare enough to see if we are related or not (we aren’t, in case you are that interested).
This led to an email being sent to me from Blinklist, telling a story about someone who chronicled their entire reading through short little notes, pruning said notes and then categorising them. Because quite frankly, no one can remember everything they learn. Having a system to retrieve ideas and data, that is personal (not just quotes from someone else) is a brilliant idea.
The article was a far more comprehensive articulation of this article that I read using Pocket (an app that I highly recommend for gathering articles to read on the tube and avoiding free article limits). However, it was focused on academic focused reading. While I’m still an avid reader, I’ve recently been reading the FT or the Economist as my first port of call, with my regular rotation of fiction, non-fiction and philosophy lying around the flat being here and there. One thing I have done since 2009, is not miss an episode of Hardtalk. No seriously, I haven’t. I’m that much of a BBC fan boy, especially the World Service.
And so I had decided to review all the episodes of Hardtalk, for at least a year. While it means that I won’t be pruning my notes as much, it will still require focused listening and note taking, tagging correctly (so I can look them up with a search rather than a index system) and get me writing a bit more regularly.
It’ll stay in the main blog section for the time being, but don’t expect much from them. Just thoughts and ideas that I have while listening. No plans to be ground breaking. The first six are already written, and I’ll publish them over the next few days. If it turns into anything more, I’ll give it’s own section on the website.
If you want to see the original story, check it out here. Otherwise, stay safe.
HP KOTECHA 