G’day from Melbourne.

This week I’ve been thinking about how scraps grow into something bigger.

Most ideas don’t arrive fully formed. They start as scraps: a line from a book, a phrase caught in passing, a stray thought scribbled before bed. On their own, they look too small to matter.

The mistake is to expect too much from them. To polish a single scrap into a finished piece, or to leave it buried and hope inspiration shows up later.

Instead, I’ve learned it’s the slow layering that makes them useful.

Small pieces accumulate. They come back when you don’t expect it. Over time they gain enough weight to become something larger. That quiet build is what I call idea accretion.

Last week I wrote about bridging the gap between capture and creation. This week is about what unfolds after that: when scraps are given the chance to layer.

Here’s how it usually plays out.

A quick jot in my journal sits for weeks. Later, I pass by it and add a line of context. Months on, it shows up while I’m working on something else and it sparks a connection. That connection flows into a draft, which becomes a deep dive thread, a newsletter issue, or even a product.

It rarely happens in one sitting. Resurfacing is the engine. Layering is the fuel.

→ Try this: each time you revisit a note, add a short line with today’s date. You’ll build a visible trail of how the idea grows.

Story 1 – Running log

On a morning run I once wrote in my log: “Training is just teaching your body what ‘normal’ should feel like.”

At the time it was just a stray thought. Months later it resurfaced and became a short Threads post.

👉 Lesson: treat everyday logs- runs, workouts, even grocery lists as potential note sources. Scraps don’t have to come from books.

Story 2 – Journal line

In my journal, I had a line: “Most notes die because they never get revisited.”

It sat untouched for months, then came back while I was drafting a Substack Note. That one sentence became the spine of the piece.

👉 Lesson: when scanning old notes, look for single sentences that could anchor a draft. They often stand stronger than long paragraphs.

Story 3 – Knowledge Vault

And sometimes, accretion shapes products.

The Knowledge Vault Notion template is a good example. It didn’t start with a plan, just a margin note from Ahrens: “Zettelkasten works best when tools fit into daily use.”

Weeks later I added a second scrap: a frustration after abandoning another tool.
Then came highlights from PARA about “return over capture.” Each time I resurfaced that first note, I added a little more until a cluster formed.

That cluster became a draft outline. Not of a product yet, but of a principle: systems fail when you don’t want to come back to them.
Months later, I realized I had enough material for a framework. From there, shaping it into a Notion template was the natural step.

👉 Lesson: when you see the same frustration or insight pop up across scraps, cluster them. Clusters often reveal the principles behind a future project.

In practice, it’s usually scraps → reflection → draft → framework → product.
Slow, steady, nothing glamorous.

Not every spark reaches that stage.
I still have a highlight on attention and creativity that resurfaces now and then but hasn’t clicked. That’s fine. Not every note has to grow. Keeping it alive in the system is enough for now.

By the time something is publishable - a deep dive Thread, a template, a product, it’s rarely a sudden breakthrough. It’s the weight of small scraps layered over time.

Without layering, notes either sit untouched or get overworked into dead ends. With layering, they gather strength slowly until they’re ready to be used.

This isn’t about the perfect app. A notebook, a folder of text files, or scraps of paper will do. What matters is returning to what you’ve captured and giving it a chance to build on itself.

Here’s a simple checklist you can use when handling scraps:

That’s all layering really is.

The hardest part of creative work isn’t collecting ideas.
It’s trusting that the scraps you capture today will still have value tomorrow.
Idea accretion is that trust made visible. Every time you add a line, cluster a few notes, or let something resurface, you’re compounding the small into something bigger.

Products don’t come from breakthroughs. They come from patience with scraps.

That’s it for this week.

Until next time,

Gav