Joshua Ginter shared his wonderful review of my Dash/Plus system with me earlier today. It’s great and you should check it out. He even covers the Dash/Plus app a bit too.

Yet, he ultimately decides it won’t work for the way he takes notes. Mainly because of a couple of things my original system doesn’t address. He states:

Much of the jargon scribbled across my books are semi-coherent thoughts which merely record my thinking at that point in time. They don’t necessarily need action or fit within a simple or defined list system.

And that’s true. The system as I first conceived it did not take such things into consideration. That was even a hole that affected me for a while. So, over a year ago, I added a couple of new metadata items to cover exactly that for me.

• Idea — I change the dash into a lightbulb.
• Diary/Thought — I change the dash into an asterisks.

I’ve been doing this for a long while and just never bothered to share this tweak with the rest of the world. The reason: It never really occurred to me that it might be useful to others. Crazy, I know.

The thing is that the Dash/Plus system is such a natural part of the way I work that I forget that other people use it as well. It is like breathing or blinking. Consciously, I know I do it and that others do it as well but I’m not really aware I’m doing it until I stop to think about the fact I am.

Here’s the other thing: I kind of expect that someone will take the basics of the Dash/Plus system and extend and change it in ways that work for them. Please do. I welcome it. Even better if you write about it and let me know what you’ve done so I can share it with others. I’m sorry I failed to do so myself until now.