No System

I've tried every productivity system. GTD, Zettelkasten (both analog and digital), elaborate folder hierarchies, atomic notes, the works. They all eventually collapsed under their own ceremony weight. The maintenance became the work.

What actually works is having no system at all.

One Notebook

I use a single A5 spiral notebook for everything:

• Working memory (today's active tasks and thoughts)
• Calendar page at the front (wife's schedule, monthly events)
• Random reference pages (media to consume, BJJ notes, whatever)

The spiral format does all the organizational work. The current page stays open. Reference pages exist in the background without demanding attention. No tabs, no color coding, no elaborate indexing.

Affinitization Over Organization

I don't decide where things belong upfront. I let groups emerge naturally:

• Write things down wherever makes sense in the moment
• Notice what gets used together
• Only after patterns emerge do I name them (if at all)

This is borrowed from Ryan Singer's "affinitizing" - start with unnamed groups, let natural relationships reveal themselves, then name what you actually found instead of what you predicted.

Most productivity systems fail because they demand you organize before you understand what you're organizing. They make you commit to a structure before the structure has proven itself through use.

The Rewrite Filter

Every morning (or whenever a page gets cluttered), I tear out the current working memory page and rewrite tomorrow's. This forces a question: does this actually matter enough to write again?

If something doesn't survive the rewrite, it probably wasn't important. The friction of rewriting is the filter. Digital systems make it too easy to keep everything forever. Paper makes you choose.

Counterintuitive Friction

I had a small A6 journal in my everyday carry caddy - always accessible, zero friction to reach for it. I stopped using it entirely. It became invisible through constant availability.

When I moved it to my nightstand - somewhere I have to deliberately retrieve it - I started writing again. The ten-second walk to get it creates the decision: "I'm choosing to write right now."

Sometimes you need to make something harder to use in order to make it usable. The right amount of friction isn't "none" - it's "just enough to make you choose."

What This Isn't

This isn't "just be disorganized." It's letting organization emerge from actual use instead of imposing it from theory. Structure still happens - it just happens after you've learned what structure serves you, not before.

It's also not permanent. If this stops working, I'll change it. The whole point is adapting to what actually functions, not maintaining allegiance to a system.

Why It Works

• No predetermined categories means no friction deciding "where does this go?"
• No elaborate linking ceremonies means thinking doesn't get interrupted by maintenance.
• Physical paper means natural filtering through the cost of rewriting and the constraint of space.
• One notebook means no system to maintain, just a tool to use.
• The system is: there is no system. Just a notebook and the principle that patterns emerge from use, not from planning.