You can't reflect on a journal you didn't write

It's always the busiest seasons when my habit of writing daily notes hits the back burner. It's also the seasons when I happen to be learning at an exponential rate, and it's hard to list out everything that I'm learning.

During the past two-and-a-half months, I've learned so much about project management, WordPress, web dev, PHP, FileZilla, CSS, and a whole host of other things. I've learned things about myself and my family. I've learned things about God. But where is it written down? Where is the record where I can go back and find it if I so choose?

Those things are on a fly-by near Voyager II right now.

A few weeks back, a colleague sent a message about an incorrect link that needed to be fixed on the Grace Church website. It was similar to another request that he made several months ago. I knew:

1. I had made a note about it in Obsidian.
2. Fixing the link the first time involved getting ChatGPT to write a simple SQL query, which made it easy to search my notes.

I typed in "SQL" into Obsidian's search feature, and voila—I was able to find my notes from about nine months ago detailing the original request, the query I used, and how I fixed the issue. All I had to do was follow the steps to update the link again. Having the steps laid out saved a ton of time. And having the notes eliminated the head-scratching form of deja vu. Such experiences validate the 15–30 minutes it takes to write daily notes. It's about doing your future self a solid.

The thing about taking daily notes/journaling is that it forces me to slow down and prioritize actually documenting what's happening. It's easy to think "Oh, but there's so much to do—I'll do it tomorrow." But then tomorrow comes and I find myself saying the same thing. It's about getting out of the moment—the particular to dos and tasks of the hour—and looking ahead to the future. It's about generating compounding value for yourself days, months, and possibly years into the future.

If you don't write it, you can't remember it. And you certainly can't search it.

I'd like to be able to point to the moment in my coding journey when I learned how to SSH into a server with VS Code. I'd like to find that day when I figured out how to make a block style variation in WordPress. I want to remember the wacky things my kids said and their highly creative grammar. I would like to know need to remember the things that God is speaking—they're the key to life.

That's why notes are important. And that's why I keep picking the habit back up.