The true value of taking notes is not for recall later, it’s to give you the safety to forget. The act of note taking creates safety by providing insurance for ideas—if you need this information again you can find it later and therefore don’t need to worry about keeping it in your head.
This is counter to how most gurus and app developers sell the value of note taking practices like Zettelkasten where the value is in using your second brain for insights later.
I find that this is largely true for most notes. Will I actually come back to this idea? Who knows, but there is value in the act of scribing it and, in the case of this website, publishing it for others to see. However, my long term goal for notes is to build partners of communication.
Read Notes apps are where ideas go to die by Matthew Guay.
See also:
- Creating AI for notes let’s you revisit ideas and find connections when you don’t quite remember what you were looking for
- Zettelkasten attracts people overly concerned with their tools and process rather than practicing