I saved everything.

A sentence that moved me.

A video that taught me something.

A thought that arrived unexpectedly.

Then came the day I actually needed it. but I could not find it. Sometimes, I could not even remember saving it. Even when I finally found it after digging through folders and search results,

I had forgotten why it had mattered in the first place.

“What is the point of collecting so much knowledge if none of it can be used?”

The real problem with knowledge management was never how much I had collected. It was whether my future self could find it easily, understand it quickly, and use it immediately.

I was inspired by a YouTuber named Soul Jung and the almost obsessive care she puts into learning. That led me to Building a Second Brain, and from there I began gathering ideas about how other people organise knowledge. As usual, I refused to follow someone else’s system exactly.

So I took only what suited me, shoved it all into my mouth, chewed slowly, and spat out the system below.

1. I will no longer save everything

I used to collect anything that caught my attention, as if I had spotted money lying on the street.

Part of it came from fear. If other people knew something, I felt I should know it too. Otherwise, I might fall behind.

Part of it came from illusion. Saving something into my notes made it feel as though I already owned the knowledge. But eventually, my notes became less like a library and more like a rubbish bin where nobody had bothered to separate the recycling.

Now, I try to save only what genuinely moves me. Even then, I filter carefully. I keep the things I want to remember for a long time, or the things I suspect my future self may need. At first, I do not worry about classifying them perfectly. I place them in a single inbox.

What matters most is not information that confirms what I already know. It is information that unsettles me.

Something that changes my mind.

Something that makes me uncomfortable.

Something that forces me to look again.

We are very good at saving ideas we already agree with. Before long, a notebook can stop being a place for new thought and become a backup server for old beliefs. At that point, we are no longer learning. We are simply archiving ourselves.

2. Not “Where did this come from?” but “What will I use it for?”

It does not matter much whether an idea came from a book, a video, a podcast, or a conversation.

The more useful question is:

“What am I going to do with this?”

I divide my notes into four places:

  1. The Grocery Store
  2. The Delivery Van
  3. The Fridge
  4. The Freezer

I borrowed the language of food because it is easier to understand than abstract productivity language. You can name the folders whatever makes sense to you.

The Grocery Store contains knowledge organised by subject: learning, AI, storytelling, work, and anything else I may want to explore.

When an idea begins turning into something concrete — a blog post, podcast, video, product, or project — I move it into the Delivery Van. It is no longer sitting on a shelf. It is going somewhere.

Ideas I may use soon, but not immediately, go into the Fridge. They are still fresh, but they cannot stay there forever. Leave them untouched for too long and they begin to smell.

Completed projects and inactive material go into the Freezer. They may not be useful now, but they may become ingredients for something else later. Sometimes the notes left by my past self are more useful than anything I can find online as the internet does not know: what I was trying to do, what I misunderstood, what failed, and why something once mattered to me.

3. My future self is busy

“I’ll read this again later.”

Usually, this means I will never read it again. My future self will not understand the information any better than I do now. I will be lucky if I even remember that it exists. So my notes need to be clear enough for my slightly dimmer future self to understand at a glance.

I highlight the key sentence, then emphasise the part that matters most. After that, I rewrite it in my own words.

Short. Clear. Simple.

The point is to understand the idea without having to read the whole thing again.

“You only need to read this part. This is why it matters.”

4. Knowledge I Keep to Myself Is Not Fully Mine Yet

Saving something does not make it mine. Neither does underlining it. I need to digest the idea deeply enough to explain it in my own words, in my own voice, so clearly that someone else can understand it.

I need to connect it to my experience. Add my judgement. Then turn it into something useful. It might become a piece of writing. A better way of working. A product or a service.

Plenty of people collect information. Far fewer use the information to create something. Perhaps that is because the moment we press “save”, we feel as though the learning is already done.

But the more important question is:

“If this idea has value for me, could it also have value for someone else?”

Once a Week, Once a Month

Every week, I clear my inbox. I review the projects already in progress and decide what matters most for the week ahead.

Once a month, I step back and look further.

What did I finish?

What turned out differently from what I expected?

What did the work teach me?

I also delete goals that no longer matter. Removing a goal can be a form of progress. It creates more room for the things that still deserve my attention.

What Makes a Good Note?

AI has made organising notes much easier. It can handle the mechanical work: searching, sorting, summarising and connecting information. But the judgement still has to be mine.

What is worth keeping?

What matters enough to act on?

What should be turned into something, and what should be allowed to disappear?

Perhaps knowledge management is not really about improving memory. Perhaps it is a way for my past self and future self to work together. Today, I leave something behind. Later, another version of me finds it — and begins again.