My new system for keeping track of ideas

Its crazy, but it just might work...

how I feel whenever I try to keep track of all my ideas and YES i know that’s a remote control that’s part of the joke

I’m done obsessing with how to best keep track of all my ideas. I’ve got a new system now. A simple system:

Make stuff public

Share it with the world. As soon as possible.

Because then its out there and people can see it and interact with it and I’ll always know where to find it because it will be out there in my newsletter for all to see.

Instead of feeling anxious about what note taking app I should use to store an idea, why not just take the extra time now to get that idea to a place that you can share it with the world?

This post is my first attempt at the new system and if you’re reading it, I’m doing a good job.

The problem

Roam Research gives you this nifty chart to show you how all your ideas are connected. What the hell am I ever gonna do with this?

I have been obsessed with figuring out a perfect way to keep track of all my ideas since I was a wee baby. Before even saying my first word I worried, where am I gonna keep a record of saying that word? Should I use blocks? Lincoln logs which we didn’t actually have in Russia because we didn’t have Lincoln? Stalin logs? Sad.

And now as an adult, things have gotten much worse. I am routinely stuck because I am not sure where to best log an idea. Do I write it in a notebook? In a note management / productivity system of which there are MANY? Do I tag it?

Over the past few years I’ve tried them all - Roam Research (where I have 1857 notes), Drafts (850), Ulysses (200), the Apple Notes app (1000s), the Bear notes app (2500), and even Things which is a to do app that I use to store my ideas.

So that’s what - five thousand notes? And how many of those have I turned into actual newsletter entries? Ten?

That tells me I need to work more on getting stuff out into the world and less on organizing it all perfectly.

Maybe if I just put it all together, real perfect like

me figuring out the perfect way to organize everything

I thought that if I could just figure out the perfect system, everything would be solved.

But that’s a fallacy.

There is no perfect system. There’s only the anxiety I feel whenever I start writing something and then freak out about where I should put it. That anxiety then leads to me googling “best way to keep track of ideas” and going down a rabbit hole for hours, days, months and even years trying to create a fool proof system that keeps all the ideas neatly organized so I can find and use them in the future.

Roam Research was the latest and greatest iteration of this tool and boy oh boy did I dive in. I spent so much time learning about Roam and how to use it and ported over my entire Knowledge Management System into it (even that phrase - Knowledge Management System - like wtf dude who are you, Galileo?)

And then one day, a year or so later, I just stopped using Roam altogether. I don’t know why or how but I haven’t really gone back to it since. Instead I’ve tried implementing new systems in Drafts, in the mac Notes app and most recently in Ulysses, a writing app for the Mac. Oh and at some point I tried Notion? I can’t even remember how that went.

But like, why?

Oh control, ye alluring temptress

There is so much unknown when it comes to creative work - will people like it? Will I like it? Will I remember I even had this idea so I don’t start writing it from scratch in a year (something I’ve done several times)?

And so you hope, incorrectly, that if you could just get everything tidied up and organized, THEN you’ll feel okay and can start working.

But that don’t work.

Because then the system becomes more important than the actual work, which makes sense - its less stressful and the stakes are way lower. Why write when I can obsess over how to properly store all the stuff I will one day write?

Release Stuff Into The Wild And Move On

So I’ve got a new system to rule them all, a system to find them, a system to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. Imagine if Lord of the Rings was about Frodo figuring out the perfect system for keeping track of his ideas and Gandalf and Schmiegel and everyone else were like like GIMME THAT SYSTEM.

As with all declarative statements, I am sure this too will eventually be proven false. It will be too chaotic and I’ll long for something else. But for now, let’s go with this.

Case in point - this post. I wrote it as a note this morning and was like ‘shit - I gotta post this soon or I’ll lose interest.”

And so here we are.

If you are seeing this, please tell me good job so I get some positive reinforcement and keep doing it.

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