[adityaathalye]

+1 I relate strongly to the post. My blog literally says "Writing = Thinking" on the tin. And like Guo says in conclusion, many of my posts started life months or even years(!) before they got to see sunlight and fresh air. I tried to capture that sentiment in this post: https://www.evalapply.org/posts/hello-world/

> Slyly (or so I thought), I fooled it by quietly typing into my Emacs. More days turned to weeks turned to months. Words accreted in my org-mode files. Wee notes. Snippets. Factoids squirreled away. Mostly harmless bits and bobs. Someone paying attention might have smelled trouble brewing and stopped right there. But, oh how little did I know.

[dctoedt]

> Words accreted in my org-mode files. Wee notes. Snippets. Factoids squirreled away.

"Saving string" is what journalists call this practice (I read recently).

https://www.poynter.org/newsletters/2015/save-string-and-9-o...

[adityaathalye]

Ah, such a nice term! "Saving string" is part of my approach to doing any sort of long term project. I'll usually start in "diffuse mode", during which everything that enters my brain gets insta-spooled into good old org-mode --- scripts, links, data, sql, todos, checklists, copious notes, the whole nine yards. Then at some point I copy over actually relevant stuff (which only is obvious post-facto) into a fresh "focus mode" variant and execute based on that.