collecting the dots

A nice phrase for the ideas in building a second brain, zettelkasten, philosophy of tiddlers, etc.

Creative research is all about collecting the dots. It’s more common to think of “connecting the dots” but the truth is that you can’t connect the dots you can’t see. And we can only hold a tiny number of things in our brains at once. So a space for collecting (and organizing) the dots is a crucial foundation for thinking, creativity and more.

– Building a digital garden

A digital garden is a space for 'collecting the dots.'

"But ideas aren’t summoned from nowhere: they come from raw material, other ideas or observations about the world. Hence a two-step creative process: collect raw material, then think about it. From this process comes pattern recognition and eventually the insights that form the basis of novel ideas."

This quote from the wonderful piece by Ink and Switch: capstone, a tablet for thinking.

– Building a digital garden

See: connecting the dots.