[Weekly Retro] A notebook and a pen
#276 - Mar.2026
Hi there!
Here is a quick idea for the weekend:
"If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking."
One of my first posts on this blog was about writing notes and sketching as a way of thinking. Carrying a notebook and taking notes has been one of my stronger habits during the last 13 years. It has become somewhat obsessive! (I always buy the same brand of notebooks and I recognize spending too much time and energy thinking about what is the best pen to write with...).
Today, I feel that carrying a notebook and pens seems odd. It looks so impractical when digital tools can do a better job organizing information, automating meeting notes and sharing with others. While I take tons of digital notes too, my notebook is an important piece in my toolkit.
Taking hand-written notes continues to have "something" that keeps me coming back. And I'm not referring to the scientific evidence that writing by hand engages other areas of your brain improving retention, but I'm almost talking about the spiritual experience of writing this way (I told you that I've become obsessed). It creates a certain level of awareness. Self-awareness. The slow thinking that is much needed today.
Yes, it feels unsexy. Old school perhaps? An anti-pattern for productivity? So, why keep doing it?
Well. I don't really know. What I do know is that:
It helps me when Im creatively blocked.
I recall things better if I write them down.
It's like an anti-stress pill (try doodling!)
And when I go through my notes from previous years I realize how much I've changed. It helps me learn more about...me.
¡Saludos!
✍🏼 Tip on taking hand-written notes
Over the years, I've been testing many ways of creating an INDEX to find things better in my notebooks (no, there is no "search option"). I haven't found any better technique than this one. The trick is making a small mark in the very edge of the page that you want to add to your index. In the first page of your notebook, keep all references aligned to these marks. When you want to find something, just blend your pages and you will quickly where you want!
📖 Word of the week
AI brain fry
Which we define as mental fatigue from excessive use or oversight of AI tools beyond one’s cognitive capacity.Participants described a “buzzing” feeling or a mental fog with difficulty focusing, slower decision-making, and headaches.
From a recent study published by HBR arguing that certain patterns of AI use are driving cognitive fatigue, while others can help reduce burnout.
Julie Bedard
🧪 Tools I'm experimenting with
I write by hands but I still capture a lot of digital notes too. Continuing my personal experiment from the last couple of weeks, I'm added automations, skills and agents to my Obsidian vault. Giving Claude's agent explicit guidance to use Obsidian CLI makes each operation much more accurate vs. using direct file operations over the .md files. Searches are more efficient and you can leverage Obsidian's tagging and classification operations. Adding this to your Claude.md file or agent prompt seems to work well:
🖋️ Quote of the week
“Chance only favors the prepared mind.” – Louis Pasteur
