The Graveyard of Abandoned Notes
I have tried every note-taking app. Evernote, Notion, Roam, Obsidian. Each one promised to be the one. Each one ended up as a graveyard of abandoned notes. The problem was never the tool. It was the system.
Capture
Step one is capture. Anything interesting goes into a single inbox — a quick note, a screenshot, a voice memo. No organization, no folders, just capture. The goal is to lower the friction of saving ideas to zero.
Process
Every day, I go through the inbox. If something is not useful now or in the future, I delete it. If it is useful, I rewrite it in my own words. The act of rewriting is where learning happens.
Connect
I link related ideas together. This is where the magic happens — when a note about writing meets a note about psychology, new insights emerge.
Create
I review linked notes and ask: what does this pattern tell me? That becomes a blog post, a talk, or a decision. Information is not knowledge. Only processed, connected, and applied information becomes knowledge.