JOTS
JOTS is a name I came up with for the system I use to capture and organize as many “domains” in my life as possible. I take the old adage “If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it” seriously, keeping track of some things that matter, and some things that could matter some day (and possibly a few things that don’t matter, I’m a bit of a data hoarder). Though its likely that there’s a dedicated app for each of these domains that would do a better job at managing that one thing, often times there’s importance in how the different domains in our life overlap, so this system hopes to be home to them all, and make available all the possible ways of recording, presenting and investigating them.
What does JOTS mean? Jot means “the smallest bit”, similar to what Zettelkasten users (Obsidian is popular Zettelkasten tool) call “atomic notes” (“one unit of knowledge and one only”). The common phrase “jot it down” refers to “making a quick short note of something” which is part of what JOTS provides: it allows to quickly capture and organize short (and sometimes not so short) pieces of information.
JOTS isn’t just a term with meaning, it’s also an acronym. My original idea was “Joe’s Obsidian Tracking System”, though I realized later that it could have many similar meanings:
- I’m standing firm on the “J” standing for “Joe’s”, I put a lot of work into this!
- Besides “Obsidian”, the “O” could also mean: Organized/Organizational, Orderly, Optimal/Optimized, Overarching, Outstanding (really like this one), or Obsessive (probably most truthful).
- The “T” could also mean: Technology, Tool, Telemetry, Task, Toolkit, Template or Tactic. All relate to the type of system this is, though none of these fits better than “Tracking”.
- “System” was the first idea I had for “S”, but other equally valid options include: Solution, Service, Suite, Strategy, Structure and Scheme.
So, if you’d like to think of this as “Joe’s Outstanding Tracking Strategy” or some other variation, that works too!
