Hypercompendia

Several months ago I downloaded the fabulously organizational software program from Eastgate that is Tinderbox and promptly started a project that was basically my "to do" list.  Unfortunately, I have a tendency to avoid a "to do" list even if it’s magneted (yes, I love to make up words) to the refrigerator door.  The associated guilt is just too much to handle.

There’s another project ripe for the Tinderbox environment though: literary submissions.  In this, the prime time for reading, I’ve found myself sending out stories via online submissions and email, no longer as willing to plaster a couple dollars’ worth of stamps as the cost of rejection. While it’s easy to look up these submissions online, and there’s usually an acknowledging email, both processes that can be categorized on the mail program and the browser favorites, I think it’s time to maybe realize that it’s a job that Tinderbox could better structure given all the dates, stories, places, and feedback that is starting to look octopusal (another one!) in my mind.

Okay, so here’s the deal: the project’s been added to my "to do" list, but seeings that this is time-sensitive, I’m going to make myself sit down and get started–though first I’ve got to clean a couple of those "to do’s" off my schedule, such as "plant beans."

I think I’m treating Tinderbox as a software to be learned rather than using it for its purpose, that of organizing notes.  Here’s what I wrote down on today’s list to do (It’s Monday, I feel obligated to write a list):

Laundry
Bills
Graham & Zoee – BD cards & money
Lengthen jeans (I grew!)
Add clarifier to wines
Call: Dr. Ouelette (J)
          Atty. Wall
           Dr. Norberg (S)
Cover couch (this has been here for two years)
Make drapes (this one for five or six)
Paint barn
J’s pc – sound, email, hard drive
Clean cellar for furnace man
Trim bushes
Weed hill garden
Call:  Fran
           Betty
email Ronnie
Ck on IRAs & pension stock distribution
Order chops & supplies

You can see that what started out as a plan for today, became an overambitious plan for the week, and is in truth a plan for the summer and likely into  next spring.  Many of these items have been the lone uncrossed-out task that becomes heavier with guilt as each time it is snuck into a new list.  Sometimes, when I clean off the corner of the table where there’s a stack of "must-do immediately’s" –like this past weekend when friends came for a meal–I find a bunch of old lists while sorting through and tossing out at least half of the "must-do" items–like expired coupons and applications I half-seriously thought about filling in.  Some of these have appeared on each and every list.  Sometimes I find something that’s been forgotten that I really, really want or  should take care of doing.

So I start a less elaborate, a more specific, short  term Tinderbox project besides the slowly growing one that has the higher degree of appeal because it holds my more creative mind.  But this one, I’m sure, will somehow be just as fulfilling and with hope, more actively engaged.

Knocked out five projects off my original Map: one done, down & dirty; one that really required nothing from me but to read and learn and didn’t require a reminder to do that; and three that also ask no more involvement from me than as a spectator. 

What I’m finding is that Tinderbox is very easy to manipulate–at least at this early stage but I think it best to get the skeleton of the overall project list set up so that major overhauls such as this are kept to a minimum before the lists get large or the arrangements not as I will eventually want them.  One thing I’m working on is the overall values of the containers and the notes by both numbering and color coding the main receptacles. I like that Tinderbox makes everything look less overwhelming and, well, pretty.  Psychologically that works to serve as both invitation and satisfaction as work progresses.

I’ve been reading both Mark Bernstein’s The Tinderbox Way and the manual for the program but I’ve been typing some information on Notes and sticking them in their motherships (more properly called containers).

While I don’t want to go too far in the wrong direction driven by enthusiasm but lacking know-how,  it seems safe enough to make up individual notes for each piece of relevant information such as files (though I haven’t dropped them in yet) and websites, both direct and indirect.

As I learn the flexibility of Tinderbox, I’m convinced that it’s going to become an integral part of organizing my life’s projects and better, it will keep things upfront and accessible so nothing will become lost in the shuffle nor forgotten and unworked upon.  I particularly like the color coding and options for sizing to highlight the more pressing or next step to be taken for each individual project.

Using the example of purchasing a camera, Mark Bernstein steps us through the qualifying factors to show a comparison study of different camera availability based first on price and resolution and from there, building into a Tinderbox mapview what turns out to be a visual graph or chart that tells a story.

With color and size of note boxes assigned for the variety of styles, sizes, and other features, Tinderbox can be reliably used as a fairly accurate simple visual with no text detail necessary at this point. 

This is going to be another amazing Eastgate adventure!

Haven’t had a chance to just sit and play with the project, but I find myself thinking about more things that are relevant to the sixteen different containers (each holding a particular project I’m currently or about to start working upon) and making little notes and sticking them in their compartment.  I can visualize the concept of what I’d like this program to do for me and I don’t want to just forge blindly ahead without knowing what’s likely the best way to go about it so I’m not getting too elaborate with the note boxes nor the messages just yet.

One thing I have started is including weblinks to many of the projects that relate to the topic.  These could be resources or the whole reason for the project, for example, the changing over from weblogs to websites that need by done before November when my Typepad contracts are up.

I’m seeing Tinderbox as a reminder calendar, a log, a planner, and an all encompassing view of whichever project I’m working on as I’m working on it. 

Neat, huh?

Got this in the mail today and I’ve just had a chance to read the first few pages of this supplement to the Tinderbox experience. 

First impression?  The author (and designer of Tinderbox) Mark Bernstein is much too modest.  This program rocks! I don’t know exactly what I’ll be using it for, but I’ve already put it to use to control and compartmentalize the rash of creative ideas I brought back with me from Hypertext 08.  I can see this as an ongoing project and have ideas as well to use the program to consolidate my writing efforts into some semblance of form whereby the straight narrative, the Storyspace ventures, and the imminent forays into Inform and flash will be completely contained within a project file that will include all links to files, websites, images, etc. that will pertain to each piece of work, complete with submissions and of course, those damned rejections as well.

The neat thing about Tinderbox is that it is a creative way to corral the wild horses of a creative mind.

Well now that I’ve figured out my little error in jumping in without knowledge but with loads of enthusiasm, I’ve corrected my "Summer Projects" plan easily enough to begin again with the proper form.  In truth, I am a student who learns life by figuring it out step by step on a need-to-know basis. Directions are all well and good, but the lessons that stick are those that have been reasoned out.  Besides, software technology can be an overload of information that is quickly forgotten until used to a purpose. There’s also that old "Mother please! I’d rather do it myself!" syndrome (from the old aspirin commercials I believe?).

What bothers me in the mapview below is what has always bothered me about my hypertext writing experience: the neat little rows and perfectly aligned columns.  I wonder if I truly have the freeflowing form of mind that can depend upon the program to do its job (and more skillfully than I) in organizing threads and a confluence (there–now I’m starting to use this word I must’ve heard a hundred times in the past month!) of ideas.  It may just be my nature of control freak, and I may need to learn to give over that responsibility to the software and let it perform its own magic with my creative input.  We’ll see. I can already imagine the links that will tie these boxes together, as all are involved with hypertext in some form, from reading to writing and developing hypertext (and new media art form) projects.

Anyway, here is the new version (I was never this neat with my blocks as a child):

Well I was just having the devil of a time putting notes into notes. The manual says it’s easy, Mark said it was easy, and knowing how easy Storyspace was to learn, I too knew it would be easy. 

Only the little buggers refused to stay put and kept popping out.

So I knew it was something I’d done incorrectly p.m. (pre-manual) to start off with and realized that after working with Storyspace, I just assumed the toolbar item I clicked upon was creating notes (failing, of course, to bother reading the clear description that appeared).  Not so; it was creating agents.  And agents are a whole ‘nuther thing.

So, mystery solved, and I think only because I came from Storyspace into Tinderbox was this faux pas on my part committed. That, and an ingrained tendency to not follow directions, or what I call the "aw, g’wan…try the fresh pineapple in making jello" syndrome.

Having mucho fun with the program in setting up my "summer projects" list though I’m having a bit of trouble creating ‘children’ and tucking them inside the womb of a compartment.  Time to consult the manual. 

It’s another case–as it happened with Storyspace–when I wonder why I didn’t get Tinderbox sooner.  A project immediately came up that it was so well suited for and when I say immediately, I had the base set up on the flight home from PA.

It’s also proof of technology improving upon traditional; two more projects presented themselves after the layout was done (hard copy of my Storyspace postings–and in chronological order instead of reverse–and finishing up the susangibb.net sites so that I can make the transfer soon).  Tinderbox makes it so much easier and a lot more fun to amend and add to an overall plan in its flexibility.