2. Maximize Productivity
Goal
In this session, you will learn how to use the Networker as a convenient tool to quickly connect your thoughts, and create a network of topics just by highlighting words or expressions. We are going to hide several functionalities, so that you are going to work with the bare minimum functionalities, to prevent you from being distracted.
Record and connect your thoughts
If you need to take quick notes, for example during a meeting, or record some thoughts, and you want to capture the connections, remove all features that you won't need to work with a clean slate.
Click on the ⚙ Settings tab. Uncheck Hierarchy, Web, Custom Roles.
Click again on the ⚙ Settings tab to make the new settings take effect. This will close the Settings panel.
Then you will be able to enter your thoughts as they come to your mind. For now, simply follow this example:
In the search box, enter Manhattan.
Click on ⇄ Connect
Enter Empire State Building as a related topic. Press Enter to accept.
Click on Empire State Building to display the page for Empire State Building.
Click on ⇄ Connect, type Sleepless in Seattle as related topic and press Enter.
Then click on Sleepless in Seattle, and on ⇄ Connect. Enter Meg Ryan and press Enter.
Stay on the page Sleepless in Seattle, and click again on ⇄ Connect and enter Tom Hanks. Press Enter.
Click once again on ⇄ Connect and enter Seattle. Press Enter.
Note. If you experience any difficulty entering "Seattle" and you see the string "Sleepless in Seattle" appearing instead, switch AutoFill to Off in the Connect box. This will prevent the Networker to present you with suggestions.
The page Sleepless in Seattle should have 4 relations: Empire State Building, Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks and Seattle. If your result is somewhat different, you can delete the misplaced relations and recreate them where they originate.
Click on Meg Ryan and click on ⇄ Connect. Enter Bookstore and press Enter.
Click on Bookstore, click on ⇄ Connect, and enter Upper West Side. Press Enter.
Click on Upper West Side and ⇄ Connect, and enter Manhattan. Press Enter.
Now you can see that Manhattan has relations with Upper West Side, and Empire State Building, in addition to being a borough of New York. Some relations have been created some time ago, and you may have already forgotten them. Things start to connect. They will connect in many places if you continue entering your thoughts as they come to you.
Create Multiple Topics at once.
You can create topics even faster. Type a text, and create related topics simply by underlining words or expressions.
Click on the Connect button. In the top right corner, in the box that opens, click on the ⚙ Settings button. Verify that the box Underline Topics is checked. Then verify that the box for Notes is checked. If it is not checked, check that box. Click again on the ⚙ Settings button to close the panel.
Search for Seattle in the Search box, and click on the line with Seattle. The topic page for Seattle should appear.
Click on the Editor button in the note panel. In the editor, type the text: A city on the West Coast in Washington State, on Puget Sound.
To underline, you can either use Ctrl-U (Windows/Linux) or Command-U (Mac OS), or click on the Down arrow in the right top bar of the editor, and choose the U option after having highlighted the expression you want to underline.
Underline portions of this text. The text should read:
A city on the West Coast in Washington State, on Puget Sound.
Refresh your browser window. You have just created the following topics: city, Puget Sound, Washington and West Coast, and they are related to Seattle.
You can leave the setting Underline Topics on to enable this behavior each time you underline a word or a phrase. However, if you are planning to underline text for other reasons, or if you are pasting text that contain underlined phrases that you do not need as topics, you can uncheck the feature in the settings. When unchecked, the underlined text will not trigger the creation of related topics.
Reopen the editor by clicking on the pen icon near "Notes" and delete the note you just entered. The topics you entered are still there. There is no synchronization, by design, between the note with underlined words and the related topics. Therefore you may use this feature simply to accelerate the creation of related topics.
Next session: Click on Hands On User Guide and click on 3. Classify.