Couples therapy for you and your notebook

At the edges no. 12

I’ve seen a few posts about people deleting their digital notebook, so-called “second brains¹” as some people call it. Joan deleted seven years’ worth of notes and felt free. Sacha warns against using systematic note-taking to avoid creation.

But systematic note-taking isn’t the problem: It’s our emotional relationship with information. Negative patterns often lead to self-defeating behavior.

Here are some of the anti-patterns I’ve observed:

Note taking without intent.

Your work and goals should shape what you consume and collect. Information is only useful when it’s actionable.

If I didn’t write, I wouldn’t keep an Obsidian vault. Once I asked what my notes were for, it changed what I saved and what I ignored. I started keeping more data, quotes, and personal stories—the kind of raw material that strengthens an essay.

Deciding what to keep is an exercise in taste.

It clicked when I created a separate notebook just for work. Having a notebook with a singular focus made it clear what belonged and what didn’t. Now opening that vault helps me switch into manager mode, and I don’t get distracted by unrelated information.

I reach for notes after outlining an article. I open my work vault every day and use meetings & project notes to set my intention for the day. I know what notes to save because I have a clear sense of when I’ll use it and how.

Digital hoarding

Collecting notes without intent is just digital hoarding. A quote from ‘I Deleted My Second Brain’:

For years, I had been building what technologists and lifehackers call a “second brain.” The premise: capture everything, forget nothing. Store your thinking in a networked archive so vast and recursive it can answer questions before you know to ask them. It promises clarity. Control. Mental leverage.

But over time, my second brain became a mausoleum. A dusty collection of old selves, old interests, old compulsions, piled on top of each other like geological strata. Instead of accelerating my thinking, it began to replace it. Instead of aiding memory, it froze my curiosity into static categories.

You don’t need to capture everything. Some ideas are better left forgotten.

Good notekeeping includes pruning. There is a point of diminishing returns. When a note is no longer actionable, let it go².

Lost in the system sauce

Note-taking systems are a great opportunity to do some deck chair moves and pretend you’re being productive.

I’ve tried PARA³, I’ve tried no folders, and I’ve tried dozens of folders. It waxes and wanes, and ultimately, it doesn’t matter. As long as the notes are helpful to you, that’s all that matters⁴.

Modern note-taking apps are cursed by their inspiration. Tools like Roam and Obsidian were inspired by Sönke Ahrens’ book, “How to Take Smart Notes,” and his “Zettelkasten” — a note-taking system that revolves around paper cards and a numeric indexing system connecting them. This system easily translates to hyperlinks, but it misses the point. We have search bars.

Don’t get trapped by taxonomies. You don’t need a complex set of tags, folders, data-views, and two-way wikilinks. All you need to do is include keywords so you can find what you need when you need it.

Tricking yourself into thinking note-taking is writing.

I’ll admit, I’m guilty of this one. This is the exact kind of behavior I am trying to rid myself of when I set my New Year’s resolution. Notetaking is a means, not an end. It’s easy to get lost collecting, organizing, and refining notes—without ever shipping anything.

Work isn’t useful until it helps someone else. Writing in your notebook does not count.

Treating notes like work instead of play

Note-taking becomes more fun when you treat it like play. Don’t take it too seriously. Mess around. Give notes weird titles. Be like the kid in school who used seven different marker colors. Doodle, draw, diagram. Use your notebook to think, not just to record.

Notes as weight, not fuel

Ever opened your notes and felt dread? You keep telling yourself you’ll organize them one day. But every new entry adds to the pile.

Now imagine this: you’ve just spent a couple of hours cleaning your house. It’s immaculate. You feel proud and relieved. You feel lighter, calmer. Notes can feel that way too.

When I’m feeling down and burnt out, I have found that cleaning and organizing a physical space makes me feel better. Similarly, when I’m feeling stuck, going through notes, rearranging them, removing clutter, and finding new patterns can help me get unstuck. Your digital gardening should leave you feeling energized, not drained.

When I’m feeling burnt out, organizing physical space helps. Notes work the same when I’m feeling stuck. Rearranging them, tossing old ones, spotting patterns—it’s like clearing a mental fog. Digital gardening should energize you, not drain you.

Replacing your primary brain

One quote from 'I deleted my second brain’ stuck with me:

"A quote would spark an insight, I’d clip it, tag it, link it - and move on. But the insight was never lived. It was stored"

Writing things down can short-circuit the experience of living them. But this cuts both ways: The ‘Zeigarnik effect’, happens when holding thoughts in our short-term memory causes increased stress. Whenever I feel like I have a lot of tasks on my plate, sketching out a quick to-do list helps. Leverage your notes to clear your head for deeper thinking, then use that space.

On the other hand, we can use notes to bring back the feeling we had before, and reignite inspiration. I’ll leave you with a quote from Kendrick Lamar, about how he sees his notebook:

Take it home, Kendrick

"I have to make notes because a lot of my inspiration comes from meeting people or going outside the country, or going to the corner of my old neighborhood and talking to a five-year-old little boy. And I have to write them down and then five or three months later, I have to find that same emotion that I felt when I was inspired by it, so I have to dig deep to see what triggered the idea.. It comes back because I have key little words that make me realize the exact emotion which drew the inspiration."
- Kendrick Lamar

1. Coinage from Tiago Forte, because “Build an online notebook” would not have sold nearly as many copies.

2. I resent that I found some helpful notes from three years ago while working on an upcoming draft. Like that one time a friend asked me for a MagSafe charger in 2023, buying my box of wires gave it a new lease on life.

3. Project, Area, Resource, Archive. Another Forte-ism.

4. Counterpoint: I am currently using a variation on this system for my work vault: The CTO’s hidden notebook.