Writing for yourself reduces friction
Write for your future self, not an audience.
When you write for others, you:
- Over-explain obvious things
- Hedge and qualify unnecessarily
- Self-censor interesting tangents
- Delay until ideas feel "ready"
When you write for yourself, you:
- Get to the point
- Follow curiosity freely
- Ship rough drafts as seedlings
- Actually write
andy-matuschak describes his notes as "roughly my thinking environment." They work because he's not performing.
This principle enables thinking-in-public without the paralysis of public performance. You're just gardening. Others can peek over the fence.
The friction reduction compounds. Less friction → more notes → more links → more value → more motivation → more notes.