Blog food

I’m all in on Apple Notes. Part digital filing cabinet, part pile of sticky notes. If I want to remember it, I add it to Notes.

I have a note pinned to the top of my list titled Blog Food. It’s essentially an unstructured, running list of quotes and ideas I think are worth sharing or commenting on. Here’s what’s at the top of the list, for instance:

Not my circus, not my monkeys.

Pretty sure I heard that in a podcast. And, while I usually capture the timestamp and episode details, this particular snippet must be nearly 10 years old. Here’s another one:

The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions.

Antony Jay

Whoops, this one actually appears twice:

Our greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don’t really matter.

Francis Chan

I used to call this list something like Scratchpad and On Things to Blog About. One day the name Blog Food came to mind and made me chuckle (like “dog food”) and it just stuck. And the name perfectly describes its purpose: storing food for thought… for my blog.

As I practice writing and get comfortable, this humble little note could turn into quite a feast.