I studied mechanical engineering at Rice University. Dr. Pol Spanos taught my statics and dynamics classes. He was a brilliant engineer with a huge smile and an endearing Greek accent. I found the material quite difficult, yet he had a way of bringing joy to my state of impending failure.<\/p>\n
He gave me two quotes that have shaped my life. The first spoke to preparation. \u201cWhen you go on an elephant hunt, it is best not to take a pop gun.\u201d He said this on the first day of class, addressing a handful of juniors\u2014including me and my pop gun\u2014who signed up for his senior level class. It is best not to skip steps. His second quote was repeated every class. \u201cBe a master, not a slave.\u201d[1]<\/a> His frequently urged us to derive solutions from first principles rather than rely on the answer in the back of the book. Dr. Spanos preached hard work, not shortcuts.<\/p>\n My 31-year professional career has followed his advice. I have been on a few big elephant hunts where solutions were both critical and elusive. There are no shortcuts. Rely on the work that brought you to this point and boldly follow through.<\/p>\n The advice has carried over to other aspects of my life, good or bad. I change my own oil, mow my own lawn, and wash my own windows. Those are the fundamentals that lead to elephants like replacing the half-axles on my F150 or designing and installing an in-floor radiant heat system. My compulsion for doing the hard things can putting my efforts on the wrong side of efficiency if not sanity. Upon reflection, doing the hard work can sometimes be misguided.<\/p>\n This is why I found Mortimer Adler\u2019s book, How to Read a Book<\/em>,<\/u>[2]<\/a> to be life-giving. The book is practical, providing a common-sense methodology to read with an end in mind. My way is the same regardless of the book or my interest. I need to do the work, from the preface through the epilog. If the reading gets difficult, then it is time to lean in. \u201cBe a master,\u201d right? Adler has given me permission to take the shortcut. His steps for Inspectional Reading encouraged\u2014even dared\u2014me to skip 132 pages of his main text. Sometimes, the proper tool is a pop gun.<\/p>\n Armed with my pop gun, I went after my next elephant: S\u00f6nke Ahrens\u2019 How to Take Smart Notes<\/em>.[3]<\/a> I read the table of contents. I read the back cover, the preface, and the introduction. Of course, I read the chapter called, \u201cEverything You Need to Know.\u201d That shortcut couldn\u2019t be more obvious. The story of Niklas Luhmann and his slip-box was compelling. I gave myself maybe twenty minutes for the balance of the book, including the diagram in the back. Done!<\/p>\n That got me thinking. What other shortcuts has my current professor, Dr. Jason Clark, encouraged me to consider. I must admit, I can play the old man at work, railing against this AI tool that gives answers without understanding. I cautiously launched Copilot, a choice made from the higher ground of it\u2019s not ChatGPT<\/em>. I asked how to set up a digital Zettelkasten<\/em> using Obsidian and was met with a ten-step guide. Step 8 is, \u201cUse Obsidian\u2019s graph view to visualize the connections between your notes. This can help you see the bigger picture and discover new connections.\u201d[4]<\/a> Copilot just threw me in media res<\/em>\u2014in the middle of things.<\/p>\n Here’s the backstory. I was working in London in 2013 and hired a young engineer from our Azerbaijan office. Above all else, Seymur had an intellectual curiosity and attention to detail. My new mentee was too good for a pop gun. We began the hard work from first principles. No shortcuts.<\/p>\n One afternoon, I saw Seymur working on an image that resembled a spider\u2019s web of nodes and connectors. He called it his mind map, a way of organizing files, emails, and papers. It looked like extra work (which must be good!). Three months later, his mind map incorporated some of my historical work that we used for training. In six months, I joked that he could find my stuff faster than I could. I was impressed with how he could consult the mind map to recall work that I had originated and yet forgotten. I wished I had started my own mind map back in 1993.<\/p>\n Seymur\u2019s demo was 11 years ago. Ahrens, with the help of Copilot, has encouraged me to make a do-over and give the slip-box, Zettelkasten, or mind map a try. Logging notes into Obsidian will take a bit of discipline, but I\u2019ll give it a try.<\/p>\n And I didn\u2019t have to read the whole book!<\/p>\n [1]<\/a> Words matter. In engineering, a slave is a device that is controlled by another device. I do not mean to imply that people have the ability or desire to choose a life of slavery.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Adler, Mortimer J., and Charles Van Doren. How to Read a Book<\/em>. Revised and Updated edition. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972.<\/p>\n
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