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CODE method

Capture, organize, distill, express: four steps from reading to output

Capture only what genuinely interests you, organize it around what you are working on, distill it so a busier version of yourself can read it fast, then express it as something finished. The last step is the one almost everyone skips, which is why note collections grow and produce nothing. Tiago Forte named the sequence, teaches it as the cycle a note system runs on, and argues most people already do a rough version of it. It assumes no particular app.

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Does it: documented as part of their own routine. Recommends: explicitly advises other people to do it. Discusses: covered it substantively without clear personal adoption; this can include criticism or disagreement.

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