“Unless it is occupied with some governing object that restrains and disciplines it, the mind will scatter itself wildly across the vast field of imagination.” - Michel de Montaigne, “De l’oisiveté” (Essais, Book I, ch. 8), first published 1580.

It’s important to work with the end in sight, says Venkatram Belvadi. He says he limits the projects he works on concurrently to only two. This is laudable, provided it can be done. I can’t do it, and neither, apparently, could the French essayist Montaigne.

In fact, Montaigne didn’t know to what end he was writing. He simply (or so he claimed) recorded his disordered thoughts.

“[The mind] engenders within me so many extravagant chimeras and fantastical monsters—so disorderly and irrational, crowding upon one another—that, having leisure to observe their foolishness and grotesque strangeness, I have begun to keep a record of them, hoping that, if I live long enough, I may one day make my mind ashamed of itself.”

If you do know what you’re working on then Venkatram’s advice, no doubt, is very sound. He abandoned his Zettelkasten, his unhierarchical collection of notes, and replaced it with a series of folders. Meanwhile, I’m sticking with Montaigne and letting my mind wonder “like a skittish and unbroken horse”. To coral at least some of the prancing about, I’ve found my Zettelkasten to be quite effective. I wonder if I should add Montaigne to my deeply irresponsible list of writers with ADHD?