From the Notes

This post comes from From the Notes

I’ve been collecting ideas like this for years.
Most of them don’t go anywhere.
This one made it out.

The Business Ideas File

I’ve kept a running file of business ideas for years. Most of them never make it past a few lines.

They’re not strategies. They’re not goals.
They’re mental off-ramps.

When I feel restless or overextended, I write one down.

The file doesn’t represent ambition so much as pattern recognition.
Certain themes repeat.

Common Shapes

• Field Kit Supply
  A brand that sells functional, minimal gear for people who want to withdraw—without disappearing.
• Northman
  Personal care products with no scent, no fluff, and no overstatement. Just good materials.
• Offline Tools
  Simple analog tools for digital minds. Designed to restore presence, not track it.
• Quiet Commerce
  A slow marketplace. Objects made carefully, sold without hype.
• System 0
  A ritualised reset: desk, calendar, tools, routines. Structured withdrawal. Branded like software.

Some are viable.
Some are personal.
Some are just notes in a folder.

What the File Reflects

It’s not a business plan.
It’s a mirror.

Each idea reveals:

• Skills I’m not using
• Values I want to embody
• Systems I wish existed
• Versions of myself I haven’t pursued

Each one presents a direction I haven’t taken.
I don’t need to pursue it to learn something from it.

The Pattern

There’s a familiar loop:

1. Feel discontent
2. Write an idea down
3. Imagine the system it would create
4. Picture the life it would support
5. Archive it
6. Return to the work I’ve already chosen

The process is less about execution and more about alignment.

Closing

The ideas are not plans.
They don’t require action.
But they serve a purpose.

Writing them down clears space.
Reviewing them provides insight.
Ignoring them would be a mistake.

So the file stays open.