--- name: memory/capture-discipline description: Use when designing daily capture, note-taking, or personal-knowledge operations — defines the discipline of when, what, and where to capture. Tool-agnostic; the practice survives tool changes. Default skill for Starlight Second Brain. type: personal-life-os --- # Capture Discipline > *"Lower friction beats higher structure. Every time."* ## When This Skill Activates - Any capture, note-taking, or personal-knowledge operation - Keywords: *capture*, *note-taking*, *daily review*, *what to capture*, *second brain*, *PKM*, *personal knowledge management*, *inbox zero for my brain* - Default for: Starlight Second Brain - Composes with: memory/vault-management, memory/knowledge-synthesis, creator-productivity ## What This Skill Does Defines the discipline of daily capture. Tool-agnostic — works with Obsidian, Notion, Apple Notes, Drafts, plain text, voice memos. The skill prescribes *when*, *what*, and *where*, never *which app*. The practice survives tool changes; a tool-specific practice does not survive practice drift. Capture is the cheapest part of PKM. Routing is where people fail. This skill fixes routing without making capture expensive. ## Core Principles 1. **Friction is the enemy.** If daily capture takes more than 10 minutes, the architecture is wrong. Simplify — fewer fields, fewer decisions, fewer apps. 2. **Voice-memo first when thinking, transcribe later.** Thinking while typing loses signal. Speak, transcribe, then route. 3. **No capture moves to archive without distillation.** Archive is not a trash can. If it's going to archive untouched, it was noise — don't capture it next time. 4. **Inbox is allowed; indecision is not.** If routing is unclear at capture time, dump to inbox. Resolve at weekly review. Never stall the capture moment deciding where it goes. 5. **Minimum-viable format.** One sentence + context + date + source. Anything more slows capture; anything less loses re-findability. ## Procedures ### Procedure 1: Define Capture Moments The person names their recurring capture triggers. Examples — pick what fits *their* life, don't prescribe: - **Post-meeting / post-call** — one-sentence takeaway within 5 minutes of hanging up - **Morning pages** — 3–10 minutes free-write before other work - **Shower / walk thoughts** — voice memo, transcribe later - **Reading sessions** — highlight + one-line "why this mattered" per highlight - **End of day** — 5-minute scan: anything notable today that deserves to survive? The point is *recurring triggers*, not *constant vigilance*. Capture at defined moments; don't try to capture continuously. ### Procedure 2: Route Captures By Type Every capture gets routed to exactly one namespace. Default routing: | Capture type | Destination | |---|---| | Strategic insight (decision, opportunity, trade-off) | `personal//strategic-vault.md` | | Creative idea (content, aesthetic, narrative) | `personal//creative-vault.md` | | Operational lesson (what worked, what broke, what to change) | `personal//operational-vault.md` | | Pattern noticed (three times it's a pattern) | `personal//wisdom-vault.md` | | Framework evolution (edits an existing Genius Profile framework) | `second-brain/genius-evolution/.md` | | Unclear at capture time | `second-brain/inbox/` | Routing is a 1-second decision at capture time. If it takes longer than that, the capture is unclear → inbox. Resolve at weekly review. ### Procedure 3: Minimum-Viable Capture Format Every capture, regardless of destination, has four fields and only four: ``` ### [YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM] **Context:** <what was happening when this came up — one phrase> **Source:** <meeting / reading / walk / voice memo / <person-name> / etc.> <The capture. One to five sentences. Stop when you have the thought captured.> ``` No tags. No categories. No priority. No status. Those are routing problems, solved by destination. The capture is just the capture. ### Procedure 4: Inbox-Zero Cadence - **Daily:** Clear captured items into their namespaces. Items without clear destination → inbox. - **Weekly (30 min):** Inbox to zero. Every inbox item gets a destination or gets dropped (dropping is a valid answer — it's not all signal). - **Monthly (90 min):** Distill captures of the month into drafts (see `insight-distillation` skill). - **Quarterly (half-day):** Integrate with Genius Profile. Promote validated patterns. The discipline is in the weekly. If weekly review slips, the monthly and quarterly cascades collapse. ### Procedure 5: Capture Quality Gate Not everything earns a vault entry. At weekly review, apply this gate to every inbox item: - **Does this earn permanent space, or is it a passing thought?** - **Will I be able to tell in 6 months why I captured this?** If not, drop it. - **Is this a one-off or does it echo prior captures?** One-off stays personal; echoes feed distillation. - **Would losing this cost me something?** If no, drop it. If yes, route it. Dropping captures is healthy. It's the feedback loop that teaches you to capture better next time. ### Procedure 6: Tool Integration SBIS does not prescribe a tool. The skill prescribes capabilities the tool must support: - **Fast capture entry** — less than 10 seconds from intent to saved - **Voice memo capture + transcript** — Apple Notes, Drafts, AudioPen, Voice Memos + Whisper - **Text search across all captures** — Obsidian, Notion, Apple Notes all work - **Markdown-compatible storage** — so captures survive tool migration - **Mobile + desktop parity** — capture happens everywhere life happens Example tool stacks (pick one, or mix): - **Obsidian stack:** Daily Notes plugin for capture, Dataview for routing, plain folders for namespaces - **Notion stack:** Quick Capture database, Filter views for namespace routing - **Apple Notes stack:** Daily note per day, folders for namespaces, Siri voice-capture - **Plain-text stack:** Drafts or iA Writer for capture, folders for namespaces, ripgrep for search Tool choice is personal. Discipline is universal. ## Rules - **Never** prescribe a specific app. SBIS is tool-agnostic. If the person already has a tool, use it. If they don't, ask what fits their life. - **Never** require more than four fields at capture time (title, context, source, content). Adding fields adds friction. Friction kills the practice. - **Never** move captures to archive without distillation. Archive is for distilled material and raw captures that have served their purpose, not a trash can. - **Never** let inbox grow past one week. If inbox is past zero on review day, something about routing is broken — diagnose before adding more captures. - **Always** voice-memo first when the person is thinking. Typing while thinking loses signal. Speak, transcribe, then route. - **Always** cap daily capture at 10 minutes. If it's taking longer, simplify. - **Always** let the person drop captures. Not every thought deserves to survive. ## Integration Points - **Vault:** `second-brain/` namespace + personal sub-namespaces in all 6 existing vaults. See `memory/VAULT_ARCHITECTURE.md`. - **Agents:** Starlight Second Brain (primary). Sage reads institutional signals; Genius reads evolution signals. - **Commands:** `/capture-daily` invokes this skill; `/orchestrate-brain` runs it in weekly-review context. - **Skills:** Composes with `memory/knowledge-synthesis` (cross-reference at weekly review), `memory/vault-management` (persistence), `creator-productivity` (shared session-memory model). ## Quality Criteria - Does daily capture stay under 10 minutes? - Does every capture land in a namespace or the inbox — never mid-air? - Is the inbox at zero on weekly review day? - Does the person still use the system 30 days in? 90 days in? - Can the person tell in 6 months why each retained capture survived? --- **Built on SIP** — Starlight Intelligence Protocol - Substrate: starlightintelligence.org/protocol v1.1.0 - Layers used: [file-contract, attestation, commands, sovereignty] - Verticals: starlight-intelligence-system@v7.4 (SBIS alpha) - Generated: 2026-04-24 - Attestation is compounding, not credit transfer: every composition strengthens every node. ---