Why I Weeknote

Inspired by Marco and others who were taking up the weeknotes practice, I started posting weekly updates under the #weeknotes hashtag last year. Since then, I’ve published 85 posts. According to my analytics service, the most popular of these posts gets maybe a few dozen hits. So if hardly anyone is reading them, what’s the point of writing them?

I’ve been thinking about this, and here’s what I’ve come up with:

• Reflection. Taking time each week to reflect on the week’s events is a kind of meditative practice. It gives me a chance to take a break from the constant go, go, go of the week and to slow down for a little while. (Writing in general does this, but I am not a prolific writer.)

• Memory. This blog is as close as I have to a diary or journal. I hope that at some point in the future it’ll help me remember things that I would otherwise have forgotten.

• Reminders. Reviewing the (sometimes very fragmented) notes I make throughout the week, I often find there are things that I wanted to spend some time with—an article, a book, a topic to dig into—that I just didn’t have time for in the moment. If something I missed is still interesting at the week’s end I put it on my to-do list.

• Specialness. There have been times when I pull up my notes on Sunday or Monday and find just one or two bullets and I think, nothing happened this week. But as I circle back, day by day, I invariably realize that things did indeed happen and I’m always able to find something worthy of attention. My life is not boring after all.

• Preciousness. The idea of specialness is important because it serves as an important reminder that time is finite and I need to cherish every moment—trite and saccharine as that sounds—even the seemingly dull ones.

Looking back helps me to live in and appreciate the moment, and that’s why I weeknote.