How to never lose another memory again

Editor’s note: We’ve anonymized the interview subject’s identity at his request.

Seven years ago on July 4th, MC bought his mom a Mother’s Day gift. 

We don’t know why MC bought his mom a gift on that date, two months after Mother’s Day. All we know is that it happened on a day when he did laundry, went for a light jog, and finally finished the sixth season of 30 Rock.

We know these little details now, because MC wrote it all down. In fact, he writes everything down. 

Take any day over the last 7 years and MC can tell you exactly what he was doing: meetings, movies, trips, and doctor’s appointments. It’s all recorded in a vast Workflowy journal that keeps every detail of his life. 

This system helps MC keep every potentially useful detail of his life in one place. And I can’t stop thinking about it.

MC’s system is fascinating because when he writes in his Workflowy, he isn’t just recording his past — he’s planning his future. He wants to remember everything so he can push himself to keep getting better. 

He uses his Workflowy to help him remember what he’s promised people, so he can deliver on those promises. His worst fear is letting people down — and this is his system for making sure that never happens. That’s why he’s been cataloging all of the important minutiae that make up his days for the past seven years.

After the first few minutes of meeting him, I realize what’s going on. I’m talking to Buckminster Fuller incarnate. 

Buckminster Fuller was a genius inventor, Mensa president, and an architect, best known for inventing the geodesic dome. Like MC, he also chronicled everything he did, starting at the age of four. Using a scrapbook Fuller nicknamed the Dymaxion Chronofile, he wrote down what he did every 15 minutes. Inside his journal, he stuffed everything from newspaper clippings to dry cleaning bills.

It was his life, in 140,000 pieces of paper. And here is MC’s life, in 50,000 bullet points. 

I meet MC on Zoom and immediately send him the link to the Dymaxion Chronofile Wikipedia page to show the similarities. As MC scans the page, there’s one line about Fuller’s scrapbook that catches his eye: “This is said to be the most documented human life in history.” MC laughs. 

“Challenge accepted.” 

I talked to MC about how he became a super chronicler, and about the tool he uses to remember — and sometimes, to blissfully forget.

MC says hi

Hey, I’m MC. I help write a newsletter called Flow State. Every day we send out two hours of music that’s perfect for working, along with a backstory on the artist. 

The hard drive failure that started everything

In middle school, I created a Word doc to store my thoughts. That doc was my journal. I would write in it nearly daily, and often go back and reflect on what I wrote.

One day in high school, my hard drive failed. I lost it all—five years of my life—from a silly computer error. I felt like I lost a pet or something. It really hurt.