Fractal journaling and random revisit

I use Obsidian’s unique note hotkey to write individual thoughts as they come up throughout the day. This automatically creates a note with the prefix YYYY-MM-DD HHmm to which I may append a title that describes the idea.

Every few days I review these journal fragments and compile the salient thoughts. I then review these reviews monthly and yearly. Each time I pull out the most useful things, and draw connections where relevant. Yearly this takes the form of "40 questions to ask yourself every year". The result is a fractal web of my life that I can zoom in and out of at varying degrees of detail. I can trace back where individual thoughts came from, and how they bubbled up into bigger themes.

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making /obsidian • writing stephango.com

"I've been using Obsidian's note hotkey to capture daily thoughts, compiling them into reviews every few days, and then reflecting monthly and yearly. This process creates a fractal map of my life, allowing me to zoom in and out of details, tracing how individual ideas evolve into broader themes. It's fascinating to see how these reflections weave together over time!"