Hey there, welcome to Gav’s Note.

Some evenings I look at my notebook and smile at how simple it has become.
Not tidy. Not minimal. Just lived in.

There was a time when I thought good thinking began with structure.
Folders, categories, templates, taxonomies. If I could organise everything, progress would follow.

I was wrong in a quiet but costly way.

I built systems instead of habits.
I designed knowledge architectures before I had knowledge worth storing.
I worked on my notes system more than I worked in it.

I eventually learned that clarity is an outcome, not a starting point.

This note is written for that earlier version of me.

Maybe it meets you somewhere too.

I spent my early years trying to reverse engineer other people’s setups.

Someone online had a beautiful graph view.
Another wrote threads about PARA.
Someone else swore by atomic notes.
Apps promised a second brain.
Templates promised insight.

I copied all of it.
My notes system looked serious.
My output did not.

I wish I understood sooner that borrowed structure always collapses if it is not connected to lived work. Systems do not make thinking happen. Work does.

Notes are not the point. What they help you become is the point.

It took me years to see that the only notes that mattered were the ones I actually used in writing, decisions, and conversations. Everything else was decoration disguised as productivity.

Systems grow from real work, not anticipation.

You do not need an architecture.
You need a place to support the work you are already trying to do.

A small notebook, a few places to return to, and consistent movement are more than enough in the beginning. Structure arrives when you notice friction and solve it. Not before.

I chased completeness.
Now I chase continuity.

I built a notes system.
Now I build thinking.

The difference is subtle when you read it. It feels very different when you live it.

Start small.
Store what matters to you.
Expect mess.
Return often.

You cannot think your way into a perfect system. You have to work your way into it.

If I could send myself one note ten years ago, it would say:

Your notebook is not an archive. It is a workshop.

Many people treat note taking as identity.
I did too.

I wanted to be someone with well crafted systems.
It felt like a creative persona.

But personas do not produce anything. Work does.

When notes become identity, you optimise collecting instead of creating.
You chase input instead of insight.
The notes system grows. You do not.

That is when overwhelm creeps in. The system becomes heavier than the thinking it was meant to serve.

A good Personal Knowledge Management(PKM) system suits your life when weeks are messy. It should survive distraction, low energy, lost attention, and uneven output. If the system collapses when life gets busy, it was never serving you.

My turning point came when my notes system felt like a museum. Things were stored but not alive. Pages carried pressure. Thoughts waited but were not developed.

I changed one thing.

I shifted from filing to returning.

I questioned:

Those questions rearranged everything.

Folders mattered less.
Movement mattered more.

Notes became tools instead of trophies.
Connections became actions instead of links.

I stopped trying to manage information.
I started trying to make meaning.

That was the beginning of real PKM.

A few things I tested this week.

I reduced the inbox friction in my Commonplace Journal. I am writing straight into a page even if it is rough, instead of categorising first.

I reviewed three old notes and updated only one. That one turned into a short piece of writing. The other two stayed dormant without guilt.

I noticed that my best notes are small. One sentence reflections hold more power than thousand word essays that are never returned to.

I realised again that productivity is less about capture and more about retrieval.

A conversation with a friend.
I hear myself quoting something from an old entry. That is the signal the note is alive.

A small decision at work.
I pull up something I wrote months ago. It gives me clarity. That is the loop in motion.

Writing this newsletter.
Most of the draft was born from fragments in my journal. That is how systems earn their keep.

This is what I missed early on.
A vault is not there to be admired. It is there to be used.

When notes begin to serve your thinking instead of your identity, the system becomes a place you live in rather than manage.

There is freedom in beginning without the pressure of perfection.
The best systems are shaped by the work you care about, not the one you imagine you might do.

The early lesson I missed was this.
You do not need a perfect system to start.
You need a place where your thinking can grow.

This week’s deep dive looks at Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death and its uncomfortable relevance for creators today.

Postman argued that the medium shapes the mind. The faster and more entertaining the environment becomes, the harder it gets to hold a thought long enough to do anything meaningful with it.

The piece explores what this means for our daily creative practice and how small choices in input and environment give us back depth.

Follow me on Meta Threads (@gavin.create) for this Saturday’s full deep dive.

If any part of this note met you where you are, I would love to hear which line stayed with you.

Until next time,
From the desk of Gav.