Journal
Capture before sorting — the daily block as your inbox
- You keep a daily block and consistently split capture from sorting. ·· Success criterion: You create one daily block across five days without sorting as you write.
- You mark actions as TODO with a recipient (@name / @team). ·· Success criterion: In your blocks, every action carries a TODO marker with a recipient.
- You run the weekly processing ritual. ·· Success criterion: On a set day you pull every open TODO into wiki pages and archive the rest.
We flagged it in the last retro — notes living in five apps, and the moment someone asks where Tuesday's status stands, half the team goes hunting too. So we split the writing from the sorting. Everything lands in today's entry. Sorting happens as you read, not as you write.
Why notes fray across five apps
Four weeks ago our team notes sat in Slack threads, Notion subpages, Apple Notes on someone's phone, Outlook drafts and a whiteboard file in Figma. In the daily standup we noticed three people had written down the same client objection — in three places, with three slightly different wordings.
I know I wrote it down. I just can't remember where.
Capture time per note was running at about 40 seconds, because everyone decided which app the thing belonged in before writing it. That decision is the friction. That's what we wanted gone.
5 rules we run the Journal by
- Capture before sorting. Into the daily block first, then decide what it becomes as you read.
- One daily block a day. The date is the title, everything else is content — meetings, calls, half-thoughts, links.
- Action via TODO. If there's something to do, a TODO marker goes in front of it. Otherwise it stays a note, and that's fine.
- Properties instead of folders. Tags and Properties (#kunde, status::offen) replace folder trees. We have zero subpages.
- Processing as a weekly ritual. Thursdays, 30 minutes — pull TODOs into wiki pages, archive the rest.
Before/after — Slack/Notion/Notes/Outlook vs the daily block
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Client objection: Slack thread | Daily block 2026-05-04, #kunde-acme |
| Idea on the commute: Apple Notes | Daily block, same entry, tagged later |
| Action item from standup: Outlook draft | TODO @lena in the daily block |
| Meeting notes: Notion subpage | Daily block, moved into the wiki on Thursday |
| Searching across 5 apps | Full-text search across every daily block |
Capture time per note: down 58 per cent (from 40 to 17 seconds, measured over two weeks with a stopwatch in the standup channel). Notes lost in the inbox: none, because there is no inbox any more — only today's block. Inbox-zero rate after four weeks: 92 per cent of Thursdays we kept the weekly ritual going.
What we didn't have to change
Slack stays Slack for conversation. Outlook stays for email. Figma stays for whiteboards. The Journal replaces the notes part — what used to sit in Notion and Apple Notes. Three apps fewer to hold in your head, not zero.
An honest question — where is your note from yesterday lunchtime?
If the answer is in Notion, or a Slack thread, or Apple Notes, or an Outlook draft — then you have the same problem we had. The friction isn't in the writing. It sits in the decision of where to write.
I don't miss sorting as I write. I just miss the feeling of being productive sometimes, because I've tidied up.
Try it for a week. One daily block a day, everything in, 30 minutes of processing on Thursdays. If it doesn't hold after four weeks, you've got four weeks of notes in one place and you can move them out. It's the cheapest test we know.
- Keep a single daily block a day for a week — the date as the title, everything in, without choosing a filing place as you write. Mark every action with a TODO and a recipient, and at the end take a Thursday slot to pull the open TODOs into wiki pages.⏱ 5 min
💡 Open the block first thing in the morning and leave it lying open — then the half-thought from a meeting drops straight in, instead of landing in a fourth app.
Model answer: By the end of the week you have five daily blocks, each with the date as the title. “Call Acme back” has become “TODO @lena call Acme back”, and a loose idea has become a note with #kunde. At the Thursday ritual you pull the open TODOs into the wiki pages and archive the rest — and you find any note again via full-text search in under ten seconds.
What does “capture before sorting” mean?
Where does a TODO fail most often?
What is the Thursday ritual for?
One inbox. No sorting as you write.
Write first, sort later. Your second brain takes the day as it comes — a companion that asks for nothing but today's block.
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