A note on notes

A notebook is not a second brain. It is a place to put a sentence so the day can continue. Some notes become essays. Most do not. That is not a failure of the system. It is the system working.

The useful habit is modest. Write the thing while it is still specific. Date it. Leave it where it can be found. Do not decorate the process until the process exists.

Later, a few lines will still make sense. Those can be rewritten in public, slowly, without pretending they arrived finished.