I say this as a writer, and in the most loving way possible, but there is very little correlation between the frequency and quality of one's writing (or note taking) and one's effectiveness in business or in life.
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Yes yes writing is thinking and good writing is good thinking but oh — are you avoiding that important thing that is gnawing at you that is just too painful to face?
Well, bad news, no amount of journalling is going to help you fire that employee or execute that break up.
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There are smaller, more pernicious forms of this. Like — no amount of good writing is going to help you go from customer worldview to executed marketing campaign.
Hell, no amount of good note taking is going to help you get from book notes to effective application.
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At least with the last example, “no amount” seems unreasonably strong… perhaps “good note taking is not necessary or sufficient to…”
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No, I’d go with no amount. I know people who take great, beautiful notes, of books, better than mine (and that’s a high bar) and then absolutely fail at application. They make up some reason for why they can’t apply the thing, because it’s painful or takes persistence and give up
I’m increasingly coming around to the idea that agency and good writing/note taking are orthogonal skills, and both are desirable, but both have no relation to each other.
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Actually “is painful or takes persistence” are legible reasons for why people fail at application. A pernicious, less legible, more interesting version is “unable to let go of their existing lenses, and so block themselves from internalising the worldview needed to make it work”
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