Questions file

There are many questions that come up throughout the day, and we quickly find answers to them. Sometimes we don’t even think about them; we simply act on instinct, based on our desires and habits.

Other questions require several days of thought. For example, you want to spend your vacation in another country. You need to think about which country to choose, whether to stay in a hotel or an apartment, how much to pack, whether you’ll travel alone or with someone, and how you’ll spend your time there.

But there are other, more existential questions that you might ponder for a long time — and you can’t always find the right answer to them. And these answers often change over the course of your life.

What do I want to be doing in 10 years?
What does success mean to me?
What is most important to me in life?

Or they might be difficult decisions that will have a major impact on your life. Maybe you want to quit your job and change careers. You might spend several months or even years thinking about this decision.

If you try to think about these questions in a deliberate, focused way, you won’t find the answer. The answer comes together bit by bit, every day, as you go about your daily routine. Thoughts simply come to you, and you begin to sense the answer.

I have a separate file for these kinds of questions.

When a new thought comes to mind about a particular issue, I simply open that file and write it down. This really takes the pressure off my brain, because once a thought is written down, my brain stops going over it again and again.

You can create this document in any app you usually use for taking notes. The main thing is to be able to collapse all the answers. That way, you’ll only see the list of questions and can quickly find the one you need when it’s time to update the answer.

I don’t write down a new question right away, because it might not be that important to me and I might not think about it again. I only write it down if it comes up multiple times in a short period.

If you like to write by hand, set aside a separate notebook for this, where every four pages are reserved for a new question. That way, you’ll have enough space to write out your thoughts, and when a question is no longer relevant to you, just tear out two pages from the notebook and burn them.