New Organization Scheme: Part One

I wrote about how I keep track of the tricks in my repertoire back in the first year of this site. I haven’t made and dramatic changes to that system in years until recently, when I upgraded in a big way.

Today I’m going to describe the basic organizational structure I use, which I think many of you will find some value in. And tomorrow I will give a deeper dive into the advanced set-up I utilize. The advanced set-up is based on the basic set-up I’m describing today (you won’t be duplicating effort if you decide to “upgrade” to the advanced set-up). So you can create what I describe today and then see if the other elements I add tomorrow are something that would be helpful to you.

For years now, I’ve tracked my repertoire in a simple spreadsheet. It worked well enough for me, but I’ve been constantly on the lookout for something that has the simplicity of a spreadsheet but with the possibility of being more robust in regards to the the type of information it can hold.

Recently, I stumbled onto something that is very, very good. Something I am now using not only to track my magic repertoire, but a dozen other areas of my life as well.

It’s called Notion. “A new tool that blends your everyday work apps into one.” What does that mean? Well, I’m not here to sell you on Notion. It can be utilized in a bunch of different of ways. I’m just going to describe this one particular usage. For our purposes, Notion is a program that allows us to create a spreadsheet that collects our repertoire of effects, but every item in that spreadsheet can then expand into its own page of information, video, pictures, etc.

The version of Notion that I’m currently using is free, and that will probably work well enough for you as well, although I’ll likely upgrade to the monthly payment plan ($4) to support the people behind it and take advantage of some of the upgrade features.

Now I’ll walk you through the basic version of my repertoire database. (You can skip this minutiae for now by jumping to the picture of Joshua Jay’s Magic Atlas).

Let’s say you’ve signed up for Notion.

On the left hand side you’ll see some sample pages already created for you.

Click, “Add a page.”

Where it says “Untitled,” write in Repertoire (or whatever you want to call it).

Then click where it says “Table.”

You’ll have something that looks like this:

Click on Name and rename that column Trick

Then click where it says “Insert Right” to insert a column to the right.

Click on Trick and click “Insert Right” again to create another column.

Click on the column heading Files and click Delete.

Click the Property 1 column and rename it Creator.

Click the Property column and rename it Source.

You now have something that looks like this.

Click the + next to Tags to create another column. Name it Notes and make sure the “Property Type” is “Text.”

If you click on Creator or Source, you’ll see that the “Property Type” is “Text” there as well. If you click on Tags, the “Property Type” should be “Mult-Select.”

So you click in the Trick column, and write the name of a trick in your repertoire. Then you tab over to Creator and put in who made the trick, then you go to Source and write in where the trick can be found.

Now you go the the Tags and create any tags you want to help you organize your repertoire.

Here are the standard tags I use:

FASDIU - "From A Shuffled Deck In Use" - These are the effects in my repertoire that require just an ungimmicked, unprepared deck of cards.

Carry On - These are tricks that require me to carry something with me. For example, Double Deception by Mark Mason requires me to have two gimmicked coins on me. Now, I'm not someone who loads up his pockets with shit before going outside. But I may take one thing with me before I leave the house in the morning, especially if I know I'll be hanging out with people that day. And then I kind of rotate my way through this list. I'll continue to take the same item until I perform it, then the next day I'll take the next item on the list.

FASLIU - "From A Shuffled Life In Use" - This is just my way of referring to impromptu effects with normal items that I don't have to make an effort to carry with me. Things that don't use cards and that I can get into at any moment.

Wallet - A list of tricks that would make sense to carry in my wallet (e.g., tricks with bills, business cards, etc.). I don't cram a bunch of stuff in my wallet, but I will keep one or two gimmicked items in there and rotate them out as I perform them.

Propless - Tricks that require literally nothing to perform.

Phone - A list of tricks on or using my phone.

Stack - Tricks with a stacked deck. Not necessarily a full-stack, but any effect requiring a stack that I can't get into in the moment of the effect.

MAD - (Marker and Deck) - Tricks that use just a deck and a marker. 

Gimmick - Tricks that require a special gimmick or prop of some sort and aren't the sort of thing I would carry around with me on a regular basis. (Tricks with gimmicked decks, for example.) 

Special - Tricks, like many of the ones I've written for this site, that are for special occasions. Meaning they require a large investment of time or set-up.

Perfect - Tricks that I think are perfect methodologically, that I can perform flawlessly, and that I have a perfect presentation for. The purpose of this section is two-fold. It allows me to identify tricks that are at the heart of my repertoire and that I would use if I was only going to interact with a person one time and wanted to have a particularly profound effect on them. And by having a section for "perfect" tricks it reminds me to make note of, and work on, the flaws in the other tricks in my repertoire.

I don’t use tags like, “Card Tricks," “Coin Tricks,” “Mentalism.” You certainly could, I just never felt the need to break up my tricks that way. Just add the tags that are useful to you. I have more than the ones I mentioned, but they’re more particular to me and not as generally useful.

In my old organization system, these tags were all separate tabs in a spreadsheet. Using tags is so much more useful because I can easily mark tricks with multiple tags and sort them however I like. I can then view the spreadsheet in many different ways. I can have it just show me all my impromptu tricks. Or have it show me all my tricks that just use and ordinary deck AND that I feel are “Perfect” effects.

But we’re just getting to the good stuff.

For the sake of explanation, let’s assume my complete repertoire was five tricks, all from the book Joshua Jay wrote when he was 9, or whatever. My page might look something like this…

Now here’s where we really take advantage of Notion as a tool. Because now I can go to any trick on the left there and when I put my cursor in that box it will give me a button that says “Open.” And now I can “open” that item into its own page.

And in that area where it says, “Press Enter to continue with an empty page,” I can now put all sorts of other information related to the trick that doesn’t fit well in a spreadsheet. I can write up a summary of the trick. I can put the details of the set-up that’s required. I can add photos. I can add videos of sleights or a performance of the trick. I can write up the instructions or link to files with the the instructions for the trick. I could make a whole other spreadsheet within this item on the spreadsheet, if i was so inclined.

Essentially you can create your own private webpage with any information you want, devoted to this trick and it just sits as an item in a spreadsheet.

Once you’ve added more information on that page, there will be a little “page” icon next to the trick in the spreadsheet.

So that’s the basic idea of what I’m using now to capture the effects in my repertoire.

Tomorrow I’ll give you some more information in regards to how I’m using Notion to track performances.