Build reliable systems for capturing thoughts before they disappear.
If capturing a thought takes more than a few seconds, you will not do it consistently — and inconsistent capture means permanent information loss.
You need capture tools available in every context where you think — desk, commute, shower, conversation, bed. A gap in coverage is a gap in your thinking.
A single inbox that you process regularly prevents thoughts from being trapped in random places. The inbox is not storage — it is a waystation. Everything enters. Nothing stays.
Processing means deciding what to do with each item — organizing is a later step. Conflating the two creates systems that look tidy but never get worked.
If processing an item takes less than two minutes, do it immediately — deferring it costs more than completing it.
Set dedicated times to process your inbox rather than handling items as they arrive. Batch processing protects cognitive depth; continuous processing fragments it.
Record why an idea matters and what triggered it not just the idea itself.
When writing is impossible, speaking into a recorder preserves the thought. Your voice is a capture tool — and in high-friction moments, it is the only one fast enough.
A photo of a whiteboard, sketch, or physical artifact is a legitimate capture method — and for spatial, visual, or environmental information, it is the superior one.
Link capture to existing habits like morning coffee or commute time so it becomes automatic rather than effortful.
A weekly review catches anything your daily capture missed — it is the redundancy layer that keeps your entire epistemic system trustworthy.
New captures go to a hot inbox — only processed items move to permanent storage. The separation protects both speed of capture and integrity of storage.
When you resist writing something down, examine what you are avoiding. The resistance itself is data about what matters most.
Choose capture tools based on what you will actually use, not what seems most sophisticated.
Write down insights from conversations immediately — social memory is especially lossy.
Your emotions are data, not noise. Recording them creates the only dataset that reveals what your conscious reasoning consistently misses.
Surprise indicates a gap between your model and reality — always worth noting.
Record not just what you decided but why — because your future self will rewrite the reasoning after the fact, and you will never notice it happening.
Place capture tools where you will see and use them without having to remember. The best capture system is one your environment triggers automatically — not one that depends on willpower or recall.
When you trust your capture system your mind stops trying to hold everything.