Ryan Holiday’s book writing process

I first learned about Ryan Holiday's notecard system for remembering, organizing, and using everything he reads, and how he utilizes it to write books a few years ago. But what motivated me to revisit the principles of this approach was a recent YouTube video I watched of Ryan working on his newest book, Discipline is Destiny: The Power of Self-control.

The process simply entails recording quotes or concepts that we wish to keep and use later on index cards under particular categories, then collecting everything related to a particular project in one box. There is definitely more to it (such as regular material revisions) and for that I encourage you to revisit Ryan's blog article mentioned above.

Personally, I’ve been using a similar approach Doug Neill refers to as the shoebox method for over a year. I save book notes and ideas written on index cards in two boxes. So far, I’ve been cataloging ideas that resonate with me or those I can use in my blog posts. However, unlike Ryan, I’m not actively doing research for a specific project. A great dream of mine is to one day have a library card catalog that I can fill up with ideas and neatly catalog everything.

What I like best about this method is that it emphasizes showing up and trusting the process. It eliminates friction and provides a recipe, making something as massive as writing a book manageable, and I'm inspired to use it for one of my future writing projects.