Tried the KJ method.

Hatena2011-10-13 Jiro Kawakita’s “Idea Method”

• I found it on my wife’s bookshelf, so I casually picked it up and flipped through it, and I couldn’t help but say, “Wow! If you are interested in mind-map and photo-reading, you should read this book.
• On the door of each chapter, you’ll find the story of that chapter like this
• 
• Although this book was written before mind mapping and photo reading were created, it is interesting to read it and think, “Oh, this is about soft focus in photo reading, isn’t it?
• I think it is well known that the KJ method is a bottom-up structuring method where you write things down on cards and then put them together, but the key “putting it all together” part, the story of spreading out the cards and “looking at them rather than reading them,” “just glance at them anywhere,” “eventually (omission) you will feel close to each other. The pieces of paper will become familiar to each other,” and it’s exactly like the whole “look at them without reading them, and important keywords will emerge” thing with photo reading.
• Compared to mind mapping, which is a top-down structuring method, the KJ method is a bottom-up structuring method, and the book says quite a bit about why top-down structuring is a bad idea. Roughly speaking, new ideas are born from finding connections between facts that would be split up by the preconceived categorization structure that many people assume, so categorizing the collected fact cards according to preconceived ideas is meaningless. Of course, if the purpose is to find “new ideas,” then mind maps are meaningless, but if the purpose is to understand existing concepts or the contents of books, then mind maps are not a bad way to go. I think we should use them in different ways depending on the purpose.

Hatena2011-10-20 Tried the KJ method.

• I did KJ method type A (or something like that) and then mind-mapped (or something like that). I tried to buy information cards, but my wife said, “Sticky notes are better, they are less bulky and stick to the paper. They are much smaller than the size of a business card.
• 
• summarize summarize summarize
• 
• I lined them up in a croquis for mind mapping.
• 
• I would have circled the cards as they were, but space is limited, and I thought the cards themselves were missing something necessary when I looked at them again from a macro perspective, so I redrew them in a mind-mapping style.
• 
• In the mind map method, which is a top-down process starting from the center, instead of a clear center, the ability to draw connections between the ends strongly depends on the creator’s ability to be inspired. On the other hand, in the KJ method, which summarizes from the bottom up, the connections at the ends are clear, but whether or not the center is clearly organized strongly depends on the creator’s ability to organize information. So both have their advantages and disadvantages.
• In this case, I used books as a source of information, so the information was originally structured to some extent. Next time, let’s try to summarize fragmented and unorganized information using the KJ method.

---

This page is auto-translated from /nishio/KJ法を試してみた using DeepL. If you looks something interesting but the auto-translated English is not good enough to understand it, feel free to let me know at @nishio_en. I’m very happy to spread my thought to non-Japanese readers.