Ryan Holiday
Writer (Ego Is the Enemy, The Obstacle Is the Way), cited by cal-newport in 2026-11-02-youtube-newport-techno-selectionism as a practitioner of the slow note system. Holiday keeps index cards with stories and quotes gathered while reading, organized by subject, because his books are story-based: at writing time he pulls the deck and sorts cards into chapters.
The claim Newport relays second-hand, attributed to Holiday directly (“he’s told me this before”, 48:27): “By taking the time to copy these quotes or ideas onto these index cards, they get filed away in my brain. So then when I’m working on something, my brain could be like, ‘Ooh, I think I know the perfect thing’” (48:28-48:39). The point Newport draws from it is that the system is exactly as efficient as the work needs, and the copying is where retention happens, which is the retrieval-practice argument matuschak-evergreen-notes-atomic makes in system terms and zettelkasten-atomicity-guide in note terms.
Sources
- 2026-11-02-youtube-newport-techno-selectionism, timestamps 47:59-49:00 (reporting of Holiday’s practice is Newport’s, not verified against Holiday’s own writing in this ingest)