There is no correlation between how elaborate somebody’s note-taking system is and how interesting their writing is.

At a certain point, the two might be negatively correlated as the more we pull from the ideas of others and our past selves, the less likely we are to say something new.

To say something new, we have to liberate ourselves from the dogma of others and our old ways of thinking.

The challenge for many of us isn't seeing things in a new way (our unique experiences and biology often ensure we will), it's learning how to not dismiss our perspective prematurely.

This is an inner game that a note-taking system is unlikely to fix...

To put it bluntly:

An app that reminds us to check in with friends won't magically make us a better friend.

Similarly, an elaborate note-taking system will not cure an inability to think critically.

There's some messier, human shit we need to figure out first.

We have to work on not reflexively dismissing our ideas.

We have to develop trust in ourselves, our perspective, and our voice.

We have to convince ourselves that what's true for us might be true for other people.

We have to develop confidence...

If we don't do this, we'll use our note-taking system and the sum of our intellectual energy to write the 71,625th summary of Atomic Habits.

And as precious as our own ideas are, we have to be willing to ditch them.

That's why revisiting old notes is massively overrated.

In general, our self 2 years ago shouldn't have more insight on a topic than we do right now.

Forgetting things is often a feature, not a bug

Here's a timelapse of @paulg writing one of his legendary essays.

What I see: a person with deep, unique experience and insight wrestling to string together ideas that live within him. https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1365425470318272514

So, my point:

Twitter is way over-indexed on how important knowledge management is to the process of finding new things to say.

Our bottleneck often isn't our system, it's our psychology.

We have to get better at listening to ourselves, which often happens away from the laptop

Even a good (read: simple) note-taking system will fail if we don't win the inner game first.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.