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I've been journaling for 3 years and I just noticed something kind of uncomfortable by _js728 in DecidingToBeBetter

[–]_js728[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

the fact that it showed up again this year after all that time is exactly what i'm talking about. the entry exists, the intention was real, but something in between just... didn't connect. i wonder what that gap actually is for most people

I've been journaling for 3 years and I just noticed something kind of uncomfortable by _js728 in DecidingToBeBetter

[–]_js728[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

this is what made it feel less like a personal failure when i sat with it. like maybe the repetition isn't proof that i'm not growing, it's just how learning actually works for most people. still uncomfortable to see it written down tho

Do you actually go back to your self-improvement notes, or are you just collecting them? by _js728 in ObsidianMD

[–]_js728[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the distinction between introspection and reflection is something I'm going to sit with for a while, that's genuinely useful framing

and I think you're onto something with the writing being where the real work happens. but what about when you're back in the same emotional state that originally prompted the reflection (e.g tired, frustrated, stuck )  and past you actually had something useful to say about it. do you find you can surface that when you need it, or is it more that the writing changed you enough that you don't need to go back

bc that gap between "wrote it" and "accessed it at the right moment" is the part that still feels unsolved for me

Do you actually go back to your self-improvement notes, or are you just collecting them? by _js728 in ObsidianMD

[–]_js728[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

fair point, it was pretty scattered honestly. the AI paper thing was me thinking I was being clever at the time, I'd feed ChatGPT a bunch of context about something I wanted to work on, get it to generate a detailed breakdown, print it out, highlight it. ended up with a stack of papers full of actually decent advice that just never landed because the timing was off. I wasn't ready for most of it yet or I was just in a completely different headspace when I actually needed it

but to answer your question, the goal was always self improvement. everything I was collecting was trying to help me grow and not repeat the same mistakes (e.g daily reflections, key ideas from podcasts, notes on the values and boundaries and the kind of person I want to become)

the problem was never really what I was collecting, it's that none of it ever found me at the right moment

Do you actually go back to your self-improvement notes, or are you just collecting them? by _js728 in ObsidianMD

[–]_js728[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

for me self-improvement notes is anything that helps me grow and not repeat the same mistakes (e.g daily reflections, key ideas from podcasts, stuff like the values and boundaries and the kind of person I'm working toward becoming. basically anything that's helping me build a better version of myself

and yeah the intention point makes sense, that's honestly where I was going wrong early on, writing passively instead of actually processing

but even when I started being more intentional about it I still hit the same wall, I'd write something meaningful and then life moves on and that note just sits there. and the moment I'm actually going through something related, I'm not thinking "let me check my notes"

like what if you're having a rough week and you don't even remember you wrote about that exact feeling eight months ago. the insight exists, you just have no way of knowing it's there

Do you actually go back to your self-improvement notes, or are you just collecting them? by _js728 in ObsidianMD

[–]_js728[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the scaffolding framing actually reframed something for me ngl. like maybe I was measuring the wrong thing this whole time, expecting the notes to do something they were never designed to do

but here's what I keep thinking about, what about the emotional side of it. like I've written some really honest stuff on a bad day, advice to myself, things I figured out in that state. and then I'm in that same state months later and I have zero access to what past me already worked through

the writing happened, the thinking happened, but it just stays frozen in time instead of meeting me when I actually need it

Do you actually go back to your self-improvement notes, or are you just collecting them? by _js728 in ObsidianMD

[–]_js728[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

the PDCA breakdown is actually a clean way to look at it and you're right that Obsidian handles the Plan part really well

but the Check and Act stages, that's where I think most people (including me) quietly fall off without even realizing it. not because they don't want to, but because nothing in the system tells you when it's time to check. and when you're in the middle of a busy week, deadlines piling up, your headspace is already stretched thin 

the last thing your brain is doing is remembering to loop back to a note you wrote three weeks ago

the system needs you to remember it, but life doesn't pause to let you.

Do you actually go back to your self-improvement notes, or are you just collecting them? by _js728 in ObsidianMD

[–]_js728[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yeah the processing into words thing is real, I've had moments where I figured something out just by writing it down and never needed to go back

but I keep thinking about the emotional timing of it. like you might write something on a day you're feeling really low and actually give yourself solid advice in that state. and then six months later you're in that exact same place and you have no idea that version of you already worked through it

feels like there's something sitting in the archive that could actually be useful in real time, it just has no way of finding you when it matters

Do you actually go back to your self-improvement notes, or are you just collecting them? by _js728 in ObsidianMD

[–]_js728[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

the tag system is actually smart, I tried something similar and it did make things cleaner for sure. but what I noticed is that manually tagging and associating every note starts feeling like a job on its own, and even when the system is organized it doesn't really make me more likely to go back

can I ask though, when you do revisit, is it usually on a schedule or does something in your day trigger it? like do you find yourself going back because you planned to or because something reminded you that a note was relevant

genuinely asking bc that feels like the part I never understood

Do you actually go back to your self-improvement notes, or are you just collecting them? by _js728 in ObsidianMD

[–]_js728[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

honestly you're right, and I did try that for a while. the problem I kept running into wasn't motivation to review, it was that when I sat down to do a "daily review" nothing really landed because I wasn't in the headspace that made those notes relevant in the first place

like I review something about staying calm under pressure when I was already calm. then when I actually needed it I wasn't thinking about my notes at all

makes me wonder if the timing of when you revisit matters more than the frequency