Holding things twice
Writing things down so they stay
For most of my life, my way of holding ideas was loose.
I carried notebooks. I wrote things down fast. Then I trusted memory to do the rest.
I’ve always had a good memory. Lately, it’s been harder to hold onto things.
An idea fades. A sentence slips away. A name I can’t recall. I remember the thought of something that mattered, but not what it was or why.
So I started giving my attention a place to live.
During the day, I carry a small Field Notes notebook. It fits in my pocket. It gets bent. When something catches me, a line, a question, a feeling, I write it down. No sorting. No labeling. I just decide it’s worth stopping for.
At night, those notes move.
I sit at my desk. I open Obsidian, a local notes app that lives on my computer. I copy the day into a page called “Daily Notes.” Each date gets its own space. If I wrote it by hand, it earns a second pass.
That transfer is the work.
Once the notes land there, they stop being loose thoughts. They become material. Not finished ideas. Something I can come back to.
This isn’t about control. It’s about continuity.
I’m not trying to build a perfect system. I’m trying to make it easier for future me to sit down and pick something up.
One note at a time. One small transfer. That’s enough for now.