For The Record- 28. June. 2025

On aspiration, accumulation, and the stories we tell ourselves about "someday."

I had seen about a billion masterclass/cohort FAQs before the one finally stopped me in my tracks.

"There will not be a replay," it said. Whatever might happen during the live session was so worth it that you had to clear your calendar and be there live. And look, I get it; creating scarcity makes for good revenue.

But it was the second part that hit. "No one watches them, anyway," it said. The idea that no one watches these, that they instead become one more artifact on an ever-growing pile of digital detritus, might've been borne of a sales tactic (maybe taught in its own masterclass?), but it's also largely true. There are a lot of people out here, each with their personal pile of "someday."

We swear to ourselves we'll follow through but never do.

We're good at that; the stockpiling of courses, links, and clips. We used to cut out pages of magazines and newspaper articles. We'd organize them in binders (or piles) primed and ready for a someday that would never come. Aspiration is a great way to procrastinate!

Eventually, they'd either get tossed in a fit of pique or left for someone else to deal with. Today, we have souped-up apps and space age-y names like Personal Knowledge Management ("PKM" for those in the know). There's a whole ecosystem of people that, for the right price, will walk you through how to use or optimize them.

The apps themselves have cool names like Obsidian and Notion and even optimal methods on how best to use your newfound 2nd brain. Zettlekasten sounds like an adventurous stretch of the Autobahn but really is just one such name. And again, there's an entire ecosystem of people who will be happy ($$$) to set you up.

Nothing sells like helping people feel smarter. It's all very performative.

We like the stories these products tell about us.

In my case, more than a few people were happy to walk me through it all for free, and to them, I owe a genuine thank you for their time and an apology because their efforts were wasted on me. Evernote felt clunky. Notion (for me) might as well have been a blank sheet. Pocket was procrastination, but with a cool UX. Obsidian felt like homework.

Wasn't this all supposed to make life easier?

The good news is that these are tools, and users can shape them however they want. Unfortunately, in my case, that shape looked exactly like the gigantic mountains of glass at the recycling center I used to pass by on my way to work. Bits of to-dos and tasks just sitting there, all dressed up, with nowhere to go. At least the glass was sorted by color and looked interesting. No one will ever say that about a notion template. The bad news is that —at least for me—none of these lived up to the hype. The new capabilities never came, nor did any kind of "unlock."

So, I ditched all of those and went (almost) fully analog, capturing most ideas on the backs of teletype paper. I use the Apple Notes app on my phone and am relatively good at deleting old ones. I use the Notepad function on my home PC to park ideas and stave off distraction; worst of all, I have a ton of emails that are simply pages worth of links.

Do they still work? Are they relevant? The odds aren't good.

You may be asking, "Why is he telling me this?" or "WTF does this have to do with records?" Both are valid, and I'll get there. Stick with me.

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