The True Value of Notes Apps: Why We Write to Forget

The True Value of Notes Apps: Why We Write to Forget

Notes apps, notebooks, bookmarking tools - these are all designed to help us remember. We use them as insurance for our ideas, a way to safeguard our thoughts and findings for the future. But here's the twist - we don't actually write things down to remember them. We write them down to forget.

The act of saving our notes, links, ideas, and thoughts provides us with a sense of security. We feel safe knowing that even if we never look back at all the notes later, they're there, stored away for whenever we might need them. It's a form of loss aversion, a natural behavior to justify the time and effort we invested in our thoughts and findings.

Interestingly, when we write things down, we may inadvertently forget them. This paradoxical phenomenon was once explained to me by my supervisor during my graduate school days. In the process of taking notes, we retrieve the information, increasing the chances of remembering. However, for fleeting notes, the act of writing them down gives us a false sense of satisfaction. We believe that by capturing the words on paper, we have successfully preserved the idea, causing us to revisit them less frequently.

That's where the true value of notes apps and other similar tools lies. They allow us to forget. They serve as our "insurance for ideas," providing a sense of mental safety that our memories were not in vain. Most of our thoughts and random discoveries aren't truly valuable; we write them down and often never give them a second thought. In fact, we could achieve the same result by writing them down on paper, setting it on fire, and letting the ashes scatter to the wind. But we ascribe value to our thoughts and findings because they took time to think up and find. We fear losing them, so we hold onto them tightly.

Daniel Kahneman, in his book "Thinking, Fast and Slow," explains the concept of loss aversion - the idea that our response to losses is stronger than our response to gains. It's a biological trait deeply ingrained in our DNA. Organisms that prioritize threats over opportunities have a better chance of survival and reproduction. In our quest to remember everything, driven by misplaced loss aversion, we burden ourselves with a million open mental tabs, ultimately eroding our ability to remember the truly important things.

But in order to let go and truly forget, we need to first feel safe. We need to believe that our memories will still be there if we want to retrieve them again. Without this sense of security, flipping through old notes becomes a disheartening experience. As Dan Shipper discovered after building an extensive collection of notes in Roam Research, it can feel like sifting through stale garbage. We realize that the majority of our ideas and discoveries aren't worth much on their own.

And so, the blame often falls on the tools and techniques we use. We switch from Evernote to OneNote, from Moleskins to Field Notes, from Roam to Obsidian, always seeking the next best thing, convinced that a new app will solve our organizational woes. But in the end, we find ourselves back where we started, safely forgetting things and yearning for the illusion of value.

In this cycle of seeking the next better thing, we often come across our best ideas repeatedly. Our notes become a record of when we first encountered an idea, rather than a source of ongoing value. Yet, we continue to hold onto them, using storage as an excuse to maintain the illusion of worth.

So, what can we do to break free from this endless cycle of seeking and forgetting? Here are three actionable pieces of advice:

1. Embrace the idea of selective forgetting: Understand that not everything you write down needs to be remembered. Allow yourself to let go of thoughts and findings that don't hold true value. Free up mental space for what truly matters.

2. Regularly revisit and curate your notes: Instead of continuously seeking new tools, take the time to revisit your existing notes. Weed out the irrelevant and highlight the truly valuable insights. By curating your collection, you'll gain a better understanding of what deserves your attention and what can be safely forgotten.

3. Focus on meaningful connections: Rather than relying solely on the act of note-taking, shift your focus to making meaningful connections between different ideas and concepts. By forging these connections, you'll create a web of knowledge that is more likely to stick in your memory, reducing the need for excessive note-taking.

In conclusion, notes apps and other similar tools serve a vital purpose in our lives. They provide us with the mental safety to forget, knowing that our ideas and findings are securely stored away. However, it's essential to recognize that not everything we write down holds value. By embracing selective forgetting, regularly curating our notes, and focusing on meaningful connections, we can break free from the endless cycle of seeking and forgetting. Let us remember that the true value lies not in the tools we use, but in the insights and connections we cultivate.