on keeping a notebook
Connections can’t be made by siloing everything off. That is why I’m an advocate for having your ideas live in the same app as your meetings/todos/journals/etc.
I keep a daily diary for many reasons, but the main one is that it helps me pay attention to my life. By sitting down every morning and writing about my life, I pay attention to it, and over time, I have a record of what I’ve paid attention to.
Austin Kleon • Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad (Austin Kleon)
That’s the essence of all this. I write in a notebook every day. But I almost never go back and look at what I wrote. Writing in a notebook is about transferring things from the world to your brain, not to your notebook. Your notebook is a lens for looking at the world, not a box to keep it in.
Russell Davies • Do Interesting: Notice. Collect. Share. (Do Books Book 36)
A lens for looking at the world
The person who creates better information flows gets better thoughts
Too often, we think of notebooks as a way-station: a necessary stop en-route to the perfected, polished work of art. But what if the notebook is the work of art? What if the process of taking notes is the point?
What if the process of taking notes is the point?
“Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up in your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter, and lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.”
— Jack London
— Jack London
Build a world. Make your projects and work a vessel for self-expression. Make your software match your vibe. Make reading your book feel like it feels to talk with you. Customize, make it bespoke, put yourself into it instead of doing what you feel you should. This has all kinds of benefits (reducing burn out for instance) but especially helps with... See more
Be an idea expander
Whatever you pay attention to is being fermented by your brain…Every tweet you read, every newspaper you glance at, every show you watch, every email you skim, it’s all feeding your subconscious things to process. And whatever it’s fed, it will ferment into ideas and reactions. So if you want to come up with better ideas, you must get extremely... See more