Contextual Computing

Going online used to be a fluid experience. We called it “surfing the web”. We followed links from one page to another. Effortlessly skipping across borders. Through all sorts of sites, layouts, and designs. Being online was as much about the journey as any destination. The trip wasn’t shaped by algorithms. We navigated via our own choices.

Hyperlinks made this possible. A small bit of code that let you jump from one page to another. You could effortlessly dive deeper into a subject. Or find other similar pages. No searching. Or complex navigation decisions. Click, jump, read, jump again. From page to page.

Linking is the DNA of the digital age. If any kind of digital process can beat an analogue paper-based one, it will be because links are bringing things together. Building little electronic bridges. Making quick connections.

The HyperHistory of Contextual Computing

HyperCard was released by Apple in 1987. It allowed links to be placed with a document to speed up navigation. A similar idea was implemented by Microsoft for the help files that came with Windows 3.0.

The use of hyper- as a prefix here dates back to Theodore Nelson’s 1965 paper, Complex Information Processing: A File Structure for the Complex, the Changing, and the Indeterminate. In it, Nelson describes links as a way to make and connect content.

“Let me introduce the word ‘hypertext’ – to mean a body of written or pictorial material interconnected in such a complex way that it could not conveniently be presented or represented on paper. It may contain summaries, or maps of its contents and their interrelations; it may contain annotations, additions and footnotes from scholars who have examined it.”

What’s fascinating about Nelson’s idea was that he saw a difference between the kind of organisational systems required for creative thought and those that were being built for conventional business needs.

“The kinds of file structures required if we are to use the computer for personal files and as an adjunct to creativity are wholly different in character from those customary in business and scientific data processing. They need to provide the capacity for intricate and idiosyncratic arrangements, total modifiability, undecided alternatives, and thorough internal documentation.”

These hyperlinks were, from their inception through to the early years of the World Wide Web, handcrafted artefacts. They were the product of human curation rather than machine-based algorithms.

Thinking and Linking

Obsidian is a notes application that uses this linking idea. On any note you make, you can add a link to any other note in your notes library. Apple Notes allows for the same kind of linking. Same with Notion. This is baked into these kinds of apps.

If you think of your notes as discrete thoughts, then your notes library can become a tool for networked thinking. It’s like a personal width web.

Let’s call it contextual thinking. When you look at a note, your mind is focused on a thought. The links are a way of expressing the relationships you might want to explore alongside that thought.

In my Obsidian library, notes are connected to other notes and also to notes that pull together categories and the work of thinkers I keep referring back to. Revisiting a note invites the possibility of seeing other ideas related to that subject.

I can surf the history of my own thinking.

Links Everywhere

Ubiquitous linking is a way to think about what this looks like if we build it out across a whole system. Imagine if we’re not just talking about links between one website and another, or one note in an app like Obsidian with other Obsidian notes, but between anything and anything else on your computer. Or across the whole nexus of information you access and apps you use on all your devices.

There’s even a Manifesto for Ubiquitous Linking which calls on software developers to incorporate linking into all apps that use information. As the manifesto says,

“…humans work best in psychological flow. Switching contexts, even to search for information, interferes with flow while consuming precious mental capacity, brain energy and time. Activating an aptly-placed link to information is easier and faster than searching for the information — and more protective of flow.”

Although many apps in the Apple ecosystem support it, linking isn’t available everywhere. However, you can add links in many of the contexts that are important for personal productivity. It’s worth taking a moment to look through your stack of digital tools to find which ones can use links and where in your workflow you can use them.

Tasks Need Links

“Contextual computing” is a phrase David Sparks uses often to refer to the ability to jump directly from a task in one application to something in another application without having to go through your computer’s navigation menus or do any searches.

For example, click a link in your calendar app to directly open a meeting in Zoom. Or use a link to navigate straight from your task manager (Omnifocus) to a note with detailed information about the task (Obsidian, Notion, Notes).

Instantaneously switch contexts while staying in the flow of whatever you are doing by using links. This isn’t just some nice-to-have productivity hack. It’s essential to maximising our creative focus.

What contextual computing avoids is the stress that comes from searching, navigating, and trying to pull together information when you need it. No scouring through past emails or scrambling through old folders.

As David Sparks puts it, “Tasks need links.”

Principles of Productivity

Contextual computing relies on two broad principles we can apply to all sorts of situations where we want to be more creative, efficient, and productive.

The first is that it’s worth spending a little time thinking about how we want to do something before we do it. We don’t always need a detailed plan. But it helps to have a starting point. In her excellent little book 2k to 10k, Rachel Aaron says,

“If you want to write faster, the first step is to know what you’re writing before you write it.”

The second principle is that having your tools to hand, having what you need available, enables you to work at your best. This is also exemplified by ideas like Mise en Place and Knolling.

We’ve thrown a few different phrases around here. Contextual computing. Contextual thinking. Ubiquitous linking. Perhaps what’s most surprising is that we don’t have a mutually understood language for something that feels so useful and, in many ways, so available.

Tools in Service of Creativity

I’m not interested in productivity for any kind of hustle, do as much work as possible, crank widgets-for-the-sake-of-it reasons. I’m into thinking about productivity because it’s a way to be more creative. Or to make sure I have the space, time, and mental bandwidth to be creative. Another way to think about it is to imagine the idea of frictionless creativity – an approach to creative tasks that isn’t bogged down in competing priorities, unclear choices, unfinished commitments, and general ennui about which goals to pursue.

Contextual computing is one step in that direction – a way of aligning our digital tools to work better together in the service of freeing us up to be more creative.