For quite a while, I’ve had this feeling that my system of writing notes in my notebook was needless. That I was writing too many things down, and generally speaking, I didn’t refer to them. Which meant that my practice was a waste of time and energy. That was until I experienced someone else looking for something they had written down only a few weeks ago, and I instantly felt better about my system.

Once I heard the words “what app was I using then” I knew the chance of finding that information had drastically reduced. This is not a post about belittling anyone, it’s more about my realisation that too much complexity ruins everything. Multiple blogs, apps, and anything else where there is a question on where to put ‘it’ means you’ll have a harder time finding it when you need it.

I always opt for the simplest path. The one that stores everything in one place and removes as much cognitive energy as possible. We’ve all had to turn the house upside-down trying to find something you kept safe, but you can’t remember where, and the same is true for information you want to retrieve. It doesn’t matter if it’s a digital thing, or a physical thing, if you don’t know where you put it, you stand much less chance of finding it.

This way isn’t easy. There’s always a new fancy app launched, with a whole heap of paid influencers telling you how great it is (until they move to the next one next week). There are always questions about digital calendars, notebook, apps and everything other place your stuff can be stored. Ryder Carroll, the person behind Bullet Journaling, says “the more apps, the more apps” and this simple mantra should be your guiding light.

The more complexity you introduce, the more questions need to be asked at the time of storage, which leads to less chance of it being useful in the future. The more thinking you need to do, the more chance you’ll either not bother or never find it again. Whatever it is you are trying to save will fall through the gaps, never to be seen again.