"It went fast" and "I don't remember it" are two different things
When a few months feel like they flew by, it's easy to start thinking:
Maybe I didn't actually do anything.
Maybe I wasted that time.
Maybe there are gaps in my memory.
But that wasn't the case at all.
Look back at May, June and July, and each month has its own events.
May (5)
- A big change in my personal life
- Started looking back over my life
- Started writing articles
- Started on an app for standard operating procedures (a kind of work-manual app)
- Began seeing problems at work as a matter of structure, not personal chemistry
- Started keeping logs
June (6)
- Kept working on the standard operating procedures app
- Built another app too
- Made progress on video production
- Sorted out the problems at work
- Put together my records related to harassment
- Submitted them to an internal consultation desk
- Pushed the talk of an internal transfer forward
- Worked out what I wanted from a job change
July (7)
- The direction of my transfer was settled
- Started job hunting
- Played games
- Went to a hotel lunch
- Ate ramen
- Walked around rice paddies and parks
- Collected a huge number of songs I liked
- Sorted my taste in music by composer
- Turned a change in my health into a doctor's visit
- Got into the habit of closing off rumination (going over the same thoughts again and again)
So it wasn't empty.
If anything, I did quite different things each month.
And yet it felt like a blur, and not because little happened.
A huge number of events got packed into one big project
A lot happened over those months.
But in my head, they all sit inside one big box:
The time I was rebuilding my life
- The breakup
- Problems at work
- The transfer
- The job change
- My health
- My views on dating
- My views on marriage
- Developing apps
- Writing articles
These are really separate topics.
But almost every day I was in the same place, on the same device, talking things through, recording them and turning them into articles.
So in terms of time, my memory filed it all as a single chapter:
From May to July, I was basically holding a life meeting the whole time
When it all fits into one chapter, the whole stretch feels short.
It's not that there was little in it.
A huge number of events were organized so thoroughly that they got compressed into a single chapter.
Why I can still recall it: I remember the structure
I don't remember events word for word.
What I have in my head is a skeleton of cause and effect.
Take the workplace issue, for example:
I felt something was off
→ started keeping records
→ sorted what people said and did into categories
→ framed it as a management and harassment problem, not personal likes and dislikes
→ turned it into a written document and a list
→ submitted it to the consultation desk
→ carried it through to the transfer
That's how it's stored.
With a skeleton like that, I can pull the details back out of it.
The whole period is one box labeled "the time I got a transfer through."
But inside the box there are neatly organized folders.
That's why both of these can be true at once:
It went by in a flash.
But I can talk about what happened in quite a lot of detail.
The time didn't disappear.
The time got compressed, and the content stayed behind in an organized structure.
If you can give a month a one-line name, it becomes its own chapter
Hobbies you do indoors tend to blur the boundaries between months, even when they're rewarding.
Playing games.
Listening to music.
Writing articles.
Building apps.
All of it is rich in substance.
But because it all happens in the same place and your days look much alike, it tends to collapse into one box afterwards.
What helps here is asking yourself:
Can I describe this month in one line?
For example:
- May: the month I fell apart and started a life log
- June: the month I built things, made the structure visible and got the transfer moving
- July: the month I tied up loose ends and took my daily life back
You can be even more specific:
July was the month of hotel lunch, Ririnku (a game I played), and finding out what my favorite music really was
Just that is enough to stop July from being "a month I just waited through."
You don't need a big trip or a visit to Disneyland.
One bold headline a month is enough.
Hang things under it:
- Games
- Eating out
- Walks
- Music
- Things you made
and even a mostly indoor month stands on its own.
4 items at the end of the month are enough
You don't have to write a huge diary every month.
Just these 4 things will do.
This month's name
Give the month a one-line name.
One scene from this month
Write down a photo, a view, or a conversation that stuck with you.
3 things I did this month
Feel free to mix making things, play and work.
This month's song
Pick one song that stands for how you felt that month.
Even just this makes it much less likely that you'll look back later and think "it was all the same."
Wrapping up
A few months passing in a blur doesn't mean nothing was left behind.
These past months had:
- A lot going on
- Me thinking about it every day
- All of it handled as one big project
- Everything turned into records and articles
- Everything remembered as a structure of cause and effect
So the time felt short, while the content stayed vivid.
In a nutshell, it was:
A stretch I went through at high speed, but with every step organized and saved
