The value of notes is in writing them, not reading them

I don’t understand the recent obsession second brains, zettelkastens, PKM, and connected thought tools like Roam and Logseq and Obsidian.

The writing of notes is 90% of the value for me. It crystalizes my thoughts and hammers the information into my brain. The other 10% comes from “hmm, what did we talk about the last time we had this meeting?”

Are there really people out there who build sophisticated connections between their notes via backlinks? And then surf their knowledge graph to make new discoveries? And keep doing that for months or years after the initial excitement and novelty wears off?

If you exist, reach out. I want to talk to you. Because it smells like productivity porn to me.

(Yes, I’m aware that this blog is kinda sorta exactly that. But that’s because other people read this. For my own notes, I throw crap into text files.)