You probably know how this goes. You have a few spare minutes, a commercial break, the counter at the coffee shop, a table where you’re waiting for a friend, and you reach for your phone. Pretty soon your attention isn’t yours anymore. It belongs to whatever email arrived while you were driving, or whatever the algorithm wants to feed you in that moment. Those moments are valuable. That little bit of downtime could go toward the things I care about and I’m curious about, rather than whatever someone else has decided is important.
In this video I share a simple workflow I call the prompts folder. It has two parts: capture it now and consider it later. To capture, all you need is a folder in a notes app you already use. I use Obsidian because it syncs across all my devices, but Apple Notes works just as well. The only notes in that folder are things I want to think about more: ideas I’d like to develop, a memory from my childhood and why it’s still so clear to me, something I want to research, or just something I want to know what I think about. Then I build as little friction as possible into getting things in. I use Drafts on every device, I can tap my Apple Watch and start talking, and things I write on my reMarkable can end up there too. Often a prompt is barely a sentence. Most of the videos on this channel started as one of them.
Considering it later is just setting aside time, at least once a week (I’d love to do it more), to pick one prompt and write whatever comes to mind, by hand or on my computer. Sometimes I just open the folder in a few spare minutes to see what’s intriguing me. If nothing jumps out, that’s normal. Pick one and start writing, and you’ll find you have thoughts after all. One byproduct is that you always have something to write about or think about. The point is to be your own algorithm and give your attention to what you want to give it to. I first wrote about this workflow back in 2023 in The Prompts Folder. And if you’d like to build a habit of reflecting on what you capture, my reflective journaling email course can help. Do you have a workflow like this? What tools do you use, and how has it helped you?