As part of my plan to mentally restart, this notebook is going to be quintessential. I’ve spent way too much time reading - or rather, skimming - poker books and much too little time actually learning. Even when I do pick up on stuff, I tend to only get a brief “aha”-moment, which quickly fades into oblivion. Hopefully, taking notes on what I’ve learned from day to day, jotting down stuff I need to study further and just basically keeping diary of what I’ve been thinking of, will help me retain knowledge a lot better.

I’m not very big on writing stuff down on paper, though. This has been a bit of a common theme for me in my life and is probably the foremost reason that my university studies didn’t work out so well for me; although I faithfully took notes during lectures and seminars the notes weren’t very productive, because they were mostly a combination of verbatim quotes from the professor and writing down things that I already knew. Why write down stuff I already know? I think I have a psychological barrier when it comes to admitting that there are things I don’t know, even - especially, rather - to myself. So my notes, for all intents and purposes, were useless which in turn of course lead to me not actually using them. I’ve never been very good with notes.

So in my 8 years with my current employer, the amount of pen-and-paper notes I’ve taken add up to maybe one notebook.  One. This is not to say that I haven’t been doing my job. I’m actually very good at what I do - I’ve just avoided situations where I’m dependent on notes. I’ve developed a pretty good memory and a way too remember the things that really do need to get remembered… Mostly. There have certainly been times where I’ve felt that “I wonder what it is I was supposed to do today.” And sometimes I’ve decided to start writing stuff down because I see other people doing it all the time. These experiments have usually just died out after a few days when I realize that I don’t really know how to use the notes I’ve taken.

So what will be different this time? I’m not sure. Part of the process to start over is that I have to be willing to at least try again. And writing about it in this blog sort of commits me to it in a different way from before. When in the past I went and picked up a new and shiny note book in the printer room at work, no one knew that I had a plan to follow through with it, and so no one was disappointed in me when I didn’t. Not so this time; YOU, dear reader, will know. Make sure you remind me of it.

So as I keep scribbling down stuff in my notebook, I will - if things work out - develop ideas, come across interesting questions and hopefully reach conclusions. This process will be documented not only in my notebook but parts of it will be shared with you in this blog.

I have a good feeling about this. Although, to be fair, I’ve had good feelings about these kinds of things before and it’s never worked out so far. Keep your fingers crossed for me.