In engineering fields, controls is one of those classes you either love or hate. Sometimes called feedback systems, controls theory, or a variety of other names, it is the study and implementation of methods of, well, control based on feedback from the system. If I say words like “root locus plot” or “bode plot,” and they instantly spark memories for you, you know what I’m talking about; if not, you missed out on some great lab projects that make for very long hours, which in turn leads to sneaking weird references into papers written at the end of those long hours. I’m one of the people who…enjoyed is not quite the right word, so let’s say I found it interesting and rewarding instead. A lot of that had to do with my professor, who not only taught the subject for twenty years and genuinely enjoyed teaching, but also implemented controls theory in the real world for forty years before that, including on programs ranging from advanced military helicopters to the space shuttle. It was in large part because of his teaching that I took a controls track for my specialization in that degree program, including a masters-level controls course.
Then, I graduated, and the only controls of any kind I did for several years was a bit of work tuning preexisting Kalman filters. (By the way, if you’re ever in a new job and someone asks you to “go clean the Kalman filter,” it’s a joke, and knowing that will earn you some intellectual credit.) When some junior colleagues were working through their own controls projects after those years passed, I found to my chagrin that I could barely remember some of the terminology, much less solve the problems without going back and re-learning everything I forgot. This is hardly an experience unique to controls, or unique to me, but I got to thinking about it recently in the context of writing, the things we hold in our heads, and the ways writing and memory can work together and be used deliberately to work better in our service.
What prompted us to first write things down? The question is arguably trickier to answer than the origins of language. Oh, we can point to artifacts and findings by archeologists and paleoanthropologists to say the earliest writings usually had such and such contents, or were made in such and such circumstances (usually religious or bureaucratic), but that’s just based on what limited written material has survived to be discovered by modern researchers. What I’m referring to is trying to put ourselves in the heads of the earliest people to write something down. You already have language, so do you find a way to write it down because you want to preserve something you’ve put into words? So you can convey it to someone or somewhere else without going there and doing it yourself? It’s probably not a question we’ll ever be able to answer, especially since it doubtless occurred innumerable times before it simply became a default that everyone understood that things could be written down to whatever end. Personally, I think that writing probably developed as a memory aid before it became useful for communication and the numerous other tasks to which it is now turned.
However, writing things down to remember them is an imperfect tool. We discussed this at some length in our review for the Book of Memory (which I still highly recommend), and in some of our reflections on innovation and invention. Knowing that you’ve written something down and can reference it if you need to is not the same as simply knowing the thing, and knowing that something is written down, somewhere, is a step further removed. The knowledge is not as accessible. I could attempt to write down everything so that I never “forget” anything, but the writing it down is insufficient. It must be organized, so that I can reference it without digging through the entire contents, it must be preserved, so it doesn’t fade over time, and it must be accessible, so that I don’t have to go digging for it. Even if all these problems are addressed, knowing that the information is written down is still not the same as knowing it, because I won’t be rereading what I wrote all the time. Writing everything down, or as much as possible, is a blunt instrument. Or, perhaps a better descriptor: it is an unskilled application of the tool of writing.
If writing is a tool we can use to aid our memories, then it stands to reason we can use that tool well or poorly. When I was younger, classes often encouraged me to take copious notes, and I acquired a mindset that more notes equaled better notes. I tried to write down everything, and the result was that I learnt less and had more material to review later, such that I might as well have just reread the textbook for review. Instead, it is better to be strategic about employing this writing tool. Sure, you can just swing a sledgehammer at a wall during a demolition project, like they do on those television shows…or you can use saws, crowbars, razor blades, and drywall knives to efficiently remove just what you want to remove with less effort and less mess while setting yourself up better for the construction effort to come.
Strategic employment of the writing tool does not just mean intelligently selecting what is written down, although that might be the most important consideration. It also encompasses the format in which the information is captured, the organization of that information, the medium in which the information is stored, and even the location of the information storage. The best way I’ve found to really understand and internalize what I mean by these factors is to consider the checklist.
Now, I have been known to be a bit derisive of checklists and “checklist monkeys.” In space operations for established systems, checklists are often extremely detailed, and there’s one for just about every possible operation or circumstance. Operators don’t really need to know or understand anything about the system they’re operating; they can simply follow the checklists. Check conditions, reference checklist, follow steps, eat banana, repeat. Deviating from the checklist is discouraged or forbidden, usually accompanied with significant penalties and liabilities. As far as I’m concerned, if you can reduce an operation to such a detailed checklist, you should probably just automate it, because you clearly don’t need an intelligent, thinking individual to fill that role. A properly applied checklist, though, can be an incredibly useful tool. Say, for instance, you have a tool you don’t use very often. It can be a physical tool, a digital tool, or something in between, of whatever complexity – doesn’t matter for this example. Now, if you use a tool all the time, you become deeply familiar with it, and you won’t really need to reference anything unless you’re trying to do something unusual with the tool. However, if you’re not using it very often, it’s easy to forget how to use it, especially all the little shortcuts and intricacies you figure out through protracted use. That can make using the tool incredibly frustrating, because you have to relearn it each time even though you can remember being able to do more with it more easily. Checklists are a perfect solution for this circumstance, because you can put those sorts of shortcuts and workflows into a checklist, and keep that checklist somewhere with the tool. That way, every time you go to use the tool, the checklist is right there for your reference. This wouldn’t be an attempt to document every possible thing you can do with the tool, just enough to get you started back up again. It’s a memory aid, not a memory replacement.
In some respects, I’ve come to see bulleted lists as the best form of notetaking. I remember learning all these different notetaking styles: outline form, cornel style, etc. The simple bulleted list is superior to these for most applications because it is quick to make, quick to reference, and encourages brevity. I’ll sometimes add a bit of structure, with staggered bullets, but I don’t go into a full outline style with the formal symbols and their roles. It overcomplicates what is better kept simple. But this is an aside.
Let’s return to the point, if we can remember what that point was in the first place (good thing I wrote it down). Our memories are fallible, no matter how we might seek to train them. The more plates I try to keep in the air at any given time and the more scattered my focus becomes, the more acutely aware I am of the limitations of my own memory and how easy it is for things to fall off if I don’t find a way to keep track of them. Simply writing them down is insufficient to be useful to me. I need to be strategic about how and what I write down, from lists of things to do to instructions to remind myself how to use a tool I don’t use everyday or where I left off in a project that I can only work on intermittently. There are probably other tricks to use from the Book of Memory, but I may have forgotten what they are.
