Capture everything, organize almost nothing

A thought arrives and your brain asks two questions: what is it, and where does it go. That second question is the killer.

Deciding where things belong is real work. When every capture costs a filing decision, you quietly stop capturing — and thoughts go back to the worst shelf there is: your head.

Capture and organize are different jobs. Mixing them is how both die.

Fancy systems fail the way planners do: too much upkeep, then guilt, then silence.

Everything lands in one place, in seconds, with zero etiquette.

• Pick one inbox — one notes app or one notebook, not both.
• Ugly one-liners count: “invoice thing” is a valid entry.
• Voice notes count. A photo of the thing counts.
• Tasks, ideas, worries, names, half-sentences — all of it goes in.
• Put the inbox on your phone's home screen or taped to the wall — it must beat the thought to the exit.
• Set it to open on a blank entry, not a dashboard.

The capture must be free. If it takes more than ten seconds, the tool is wrong, not you.

One inbox only. A second inbox is the first step toward a fifth.

Once a week, process the pile in one short sitting. Each item gets one of three verdicts, and there is no fourth option.

• Do: under two minutes, handle it right there.
• Schedule: it needs time, so give it a slot or a date.
• Delete: it mattered on Tuesday; it does not anymore.

Pair the sort with something that already happens — Friday coffee, Sunday evening, the train home. Anchors beat motivation.

No tags, no folders, no archive taxonomy. The inbox plus a weekly pass is the entire system.

An unsorted inbox feels wrong, like dishes in the sink. Resist the urge to file mid-week — the weekly pass handles it.

If the pile outgrows one screen, the sort is too rare or the week was genuinely huge. Shorten the gap, not the standard.

The inbox is a waiting room, not a graveyard. Everything in it has an appointment, and the appointment is Friday.