Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Outlines -- How do *you* use them?: The C-Cycle

Author:Bernie DeKoven
Posted:3/11/1999; 8:55:14 AM
Topic:Outlines -- How do *you* use them?
Msg #:3946 (In response to 3928)
Prev/Next:3945 / 3947

This is a great topic, Daniel. I hope it gets more attention.

I use the outline, when I'm not doing technography or when I am, to do what I call the C-CYCLE: coLLect, coNNect, coRRect.

When I'm in my Collect mode, I am usually just making flat lists. From time to time, I go into a coLLect mode, where I start organizing the lists. Usually, first I prioritize, make some sequential order. Then next I look for or create categories, establishing some kind of hierarchy. Sometimes, I start merging items into paragraphs, or elaborating on them, making new subheadings. And I find myself playing editing and clarifying a sentence or two or three into a paragraph or two or three, generally going ito what I call the Correcting mode. You know, just making things more clear. And while I'm doing that, I find myself frequently doing more collecting, adding new items in the list. And eventually, I find that I've written a useful paragraph here, a useful few paragraphs here, and I connect them, and correct them. And then I have an article.

For a while that article sits as a subheading to some higher level heading. Amongst which are other higher level headings, like notes from a phone calll, or notes to myself, or a list of items for my five year plan, or an outline for a strategic plan that I haven't been able to strategize on yet.

This, basically, is the same "magic" I try to make available to my clients when I do a technography session. We start blank. We create blanks to fill in. We fill in a little and create more blanks. When we get stuck or tired of one thing we go to something else. When we disagree we make a new headline or even create a table. And at the end, we wind up with some pieces that are remarkably coherent, and some pieces that are just about ready to cohere.

So my outline, personally, becomes a playground for my ideas. It's a lot more than making lists and finding ways to organize them. It's a way to keep myself open, and working, to generate possibilities, to create alternatives, to gather my thoughts and make them into pieces, to gather the pieces and make them into whole things.

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