How to Remember Your Life.
A world where everything you have ever watched, read, and known is kept safe, forever.
We forget almost everything we hear, read, and watch.
According to this excellent Wikipedia article about the Forgetting Curve, memory has an average half-life of 1 day. That means every day after we consume a piece of content we remember 50% less of the detail, until there is only a far off notion that we saw it at one point.
This is an average, more or less true for different people with respect to different topics.
However, in our modern times with digital file and note-taking systems in our pocket we have the power to externalize our thoughts, memories, good ideas, bad ideas, dreams, and knowledge to make sure that it’s never forgotten.
Why Would I do That? Aren’t People Who Forget Stuff Happier Anyways?
Maybe, I guess.
But since I personally spend a huge proportion of my time reading and watching YouTube the thought of that going into a black hole makes me uncomfortable…
Also, cliche time - “the more you learn the more you earn”.. yawn. But seriously, the more ideas you have in your head, the more and better creative ideas you can have.
There are countless examples of people: from actors, directors, and writers, to scientists, doctors, and engineers, who benefit greatly every day from keep good written records.
Picture this: You, a family doctor, go to medical conferences every year to keep up to with the latest ideas in medicine. First up is a lecture from a specialist about how reading more non-fiction contributes to a lower risk of dementia by age 70.
In the setup, the specialist mentions, “as we all know sitting in front of a high definition monitor lessens eyestrain over long periods of use compared to lower quality screens..”. To you this fact is amazing, it would never have come up in the normal course of your work or schooling. You decide to note this for later use.
Then a patient comes into the office complaining about serious eyestrain. You’ve seen this patient before and know you’ve tried everything to help them out. Taking another look at your notes archive and… wait a minute THAT CONFERENCE PAPER! You ask the patient about their computer monitors… and find out that they are all old and blurry.
That’s just a hypothetical example but this same pattern happened several times during my previous semester in school. Notes on research were used and reused for multiple essays and reports. This allowed me to maintain a 90+ average in all similar assignments but more importantly to complete them in 40% less time than other students with worse outcomes.
Damn That Sounds Alright! But Also Like it Takes Forever..
Not really! Full disclosure I took the following from Diago Forte’s excellent book Building a Second Brain. While there is a deep and intricate web of software that one COULD use for this purpose, Apple Notes and Google Keep are good enough for 90% of people (including me).
The Code Method: Capture, Organize, Distill, Express.
Capture
The first step in the process is to immediately open a new note whenever you hear, read, see, like, create, or want to remember a new piece of content.
If you are reading a new book, dedicate a new note for it. Same for individual news article.
This step is meant to be easy to start ASAP in order for it to become a habit. Just start writing, voice-to-text, or take a picture.
Organize
When you have some time (preferably at the end of every day if you use the system often) take a few minutes to organize your notes into a folder structure (yes Apple Notes allows you to make folders in the app).
The following is what you top level structure should look like:
Projects
This is where notes that relate to anything you are actively working on go. Things for my YDFM article of the week go here for example.
Areas Responsible
This is where notes for anything you are responsible for in life (but not specifically a current project) go.
If you are a parent notes like: how to organize a birthday party, good presents for under 3, 5 cheapest car seats, would go in this folder.
Whenever you undertake a project search this folder for useful notes and put them into the project folder.
There tend to be a lot of these so it’s a good idea to make subfolders (ex. Taxes, Parenting, Kid’s School) and even subfolders therein.
Resources
In this folder goes anything that you read, is interesting, but that does not have an apparent future use.
News articles that you really like, YouTube tutorials for things you aren’t working on, character you enjoy from fiction books, funny lines of dialogue, recipes etc.
Whenever you start something searching this folder is a great place to start. You probably won’t be able to source a whole project (yet) but it gives a list of places to start searching.
Archives
This is the dumping ground for things that are finished and no longer being worked on, are not interesting, and you feel as though probably won’t be useful in the future.
In case you need it for someone else be sure to keep the same folder structure the projects or information is being kept in.
For example, this is where notes from my 1 semester of engineering live. Good content but I have no idea what they would be used for in the future. They are there in case I need them.
I need to reiterate that part of what makes this system work is moving things between different folders according to how they are being used.
Distill
So you’ve started a new project and gone into your Second Brain. You found a few notes that seem relevant at first glance and it’s time to put them to use.
Hold the topic of what you are working on in your mind and copy out the relevant clippings of each note into a new note for the project.
Then go through all your note clippings and make little bolded summaries of each.
Whatever is not specifically useful for the current project is then removed from the project note.
The original notes ARE NOT TO BE EDITED for the purposes of a given project.
Express
This is the start and end of the knowledge management cycle.
When putting together a deliverable, (a report, presentation, or product), you are working on intermediate steps. Sensitive data aside, the designs, processes, and thinking are your intellectual property.
These can be reused to reduce or eliminate rework on the next project you work on. 5 minutes here, 20 minutes there adds up very quickly to weeks and months saved over time. The dramatically increases your production throughput.
That’s it for the knowledge management process.
Needless to say going through it does take some time, but it’s an investment. Minutes saved per day adds up fast to hours per week, and days per month. More production means you’re more valuable and thus worth MORE MONEY.
Finally, for most of us our information is our life and living. Only a very small number of people actually build buildings, reap harvests, or have some other physical role in producing the goods and services that make the world go around.
If you aren’t collecting, saving, and cultivating your vault of knowledge production, that life energy is gone forever - even if you got paid for it. It’s the same thing as going on vacation and not taking pictures because, “whatever, I’m enjoying the moment and that’s all that counts”. We all know that isn’t true.
Everyone will have their own interpretation of how, where, and when to use this system and that’s awesome. There are faster and more structured ways to organize information, but for most people this is the one that won’t fall apart from the time investment.
That’s it for this week everyone!
Sincerely,
James R. Davies
James, you are a marvel! I love reading - and trying to understand! 😄 your posts!!