My ex boss used to joke that I have a really good memory. Like I remember every little detail from our conversations months ago. The truth? I’m just obsessed with documenting everything. Absolutely everything.

This isn’t normal. I wouldn’t recommend it for most people. But since people keep asking about my learning and reflection process, here’s how I do it.

Not once, just at year end like normal people, but every single day.

The do-learn-improve-do cycle runs at every level. Every interaction, every day, every week, every month. It’s borderline crazy, but it works for me.

After any significant meeting with my boss or senior folks in the org, I immediately write notes. Not just what we discussed, but how they communicated. How they approached problems. How they dealt with pushback. I have notes on tons of senior people. It’s like studying them under a microscope to learn their methods.

When I was a PM, I had this document called “How to act like an SPM”. Every night I’d review whether I actually behaved like one during the day. Before I even started leading a product group, I created “True HOP Principles” - not just wanting the title of Head of Product, but actually performing like one. That’s why I called it “true”.

I maintain a “Don’t Do” doc. If I make a mistake, it goes in there. Like a shame list of work mistakes I never want to repeat. Even major decisions like staying at my current company happened after extensive analysis and documentation.

Any activity gets documented. Poker games? When I started playing Poker, I used to reflect on every hand played.

What worked, what didn’t, what I should have done differently.

For monthly tracking, I follow Sam Altman’s philosophy that “days are long and decades are short”. Every month I document wins, losses, and key learnings. What moved forward, what got stuck. There’s the annual reflections too.

You can read reflections from previous years on this blog.

I use the Streaks app to track daily habits across health, family, work, and miscellaneous categories.

Writing helps too. Twitter threads, blog posts - they force me to clarify my thinking. Teaching others through mentoring sessions makes me articulate lessons I’ve learned and mistakes I’ve made.

Look, I get it. This level of documentation seems insane. But here’s the thing: memory fades, patterns get lost, and lessons disappear if you don’t capture them. My “good memory” is just good note taking.

You don’t need to go this extreme. But if you’re serious about growth, start somewhere. Maybe just end each day with three bullets: what went well, what didn’t, what you’ll do differently tomorrow.

The real insight isn’t in the documentation itself. It’s in the patterns you start seeing when you look back at weeks or months of notes. That’s where actual growth happens.