remember to remember

3 whats and 3 whys

Lana P

01 Aug 2025 — 4 min read

Excerpts from “4000 Weeks” with my highlights and typed notes, 2022, LP

I don't know if this is a getting-older thing, a post-COVID thing, a life-transition thing, a living-through-the-polycrisis thing, or what--but lately I’ve been struggling to remember what I’m even supposed to be doing right now.

One of my favorite movies is Memento. Though to be honest, I was so impacted when I first saw it in the theater, I haven’t watched it again since (and omg that was 25 years ago).

Regardless, there’s something about this idea that the most pertinent facts have to be written down to be remembered, that you need to constantly reorient yourself to the mission, and leave clues as to where you’ve been so you know what to do next. Otherwise, you risk waking up with no idea how you got there, or worse, manipulated into someone else’s agenda.

I also really love the book 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman, and I've read it a number of times. IN FACT, true to what I just said, it turns out I read the book in 2022 and saved notes in my Google Drive that look like this:

Excerpts from “4000 Weeks” with my highlights and typed notes, 2022, LP

But I forgot I had said notes, and when I re-read it in 2025, I made an entirely new set of notes in my journal that look like this:

Hand-written notes from “4000 Weeks”, 2025, LP

4000 Weeks is a book of hard truths, and one of those truths is that you won’t have time in your life for all that you dreamed. And thus you have to make choices.

This is something I’ve really struggled with, because I’ve always wanted to keep the doors and possibilities open. Be open to the universe and serendipity and all that. But the paradox is that leaving doors open is actually a form of self-limitation, because refusing to pick a door is, in effect, choosing to stay where you are.

I don’t think OB mentioned this--but I’ll add a recent learning of a related paradox: it actually takes a lot of energy to be in a rut. It’s more like treading water than floating on your back. It’s so exhausting, and the longer you stay in indecision or self-doubt, the more you burn just to stay in place.

Back to Memento, I realized I have to remember to remember what I’m doing and why. And not in like a crazy number of post-its, Polaroid photos, and tattooed reminders kind of way: but choosing and writing down no more than THREE things.

What you remember to remember matters a lot. It's very powerful. Having specificity in words carries its own energy. It’s like a manifestation principle.

For me, I want to write down the no-more-than-three projects I’m working on, and my no-more-than-three intentions for each.

I do quite a bit of intention writing, and it is an exercise in being totally honest with oneself about what you want and why. What I’ve found is that if you have a hidden agenda, it will become revealed, possibly with negative consequences. And if you have an unclear agenda, it will result in a lot of unnecessary spinning around. If your intentions are clear and you share them with others, there’s a form of accountability, and a greater chance it will happen.

So for me, one of my three active projects is this 30-day writing sprint where I publish a post a day. And my core intentions are: to express myself, blow past some of my inner censors, and face my fear of being seen.

The very funny thing is, when I tell people what I’m up to and share my intention to be seen, the most common first response is: “So do you have any readers? Are you promoting this work?”

Thank you, that’s why we are friends. Yes, I have an intention to be seen, and no, I have not done the requisite actions towards that intention.

Let me say for the record: I am allowing myself the 30-day window to take those steps. (And for the heck of it, I’ll include some possible steps below.)

And let me also say for the record: there is a tension between blowing past my inner censors (by writing faster, for example) and inviting more people to join the party (who will witness my fast, unfiltered writing versus my way more polished, finished thoughts).

But that’s why we need to remind ourselves. I chose this. I only have 3 slots open right now in my precious day, in my precious life, and this is one of them. If I don’t want to spend my entire day perfecting my top-secret blog posts, I have to write them faster. If I want to move from my current life stage (where I’ve been a bit withdrawn) into my next life stage, I have to step outside my comfort zone.

So here are some ideas: ways to increase being seen (EEP!)