Personal process notation | Seth’s Blog

“I’ll remember it later.”

I’ll confess, I rarely do.

It turns out, it’s easier to remember questions than answers. And tools like Google Docs and photos in the cloud give us a chance to build our own personal search engine.

It takes 14 steps to construct the pages in one of my InDesign projects. Inevitably, when I return to the file after a few months, I forget some of them. I wrote myself a one-page manual in a Google Doc, and there it is, with links and screenshots, whenever I need it.

When you get a new electronic device, take photos of the manual before you toss it.

When a professional is showing you how to do something, take a video of it, label it and put it in the cloud for later.

Take pictures of all of your credit cards, IDs and important documents.

When you’re having a good day, go for a walk and record a ten minute audio sharing your optimism, confidence and possibility. You’ll want to listen to it again.

When a recurring event happens for the first time, put it in your calendar. The dog meds reminder will happen without you prompting it every month.

PS I wrote this post to remind me to do this too.

December 17, 2023