I made show notes for a camping trip
THE RUB
I may have gone a little overboard. I typically do. It's basically my standard operating procedure.
I went camping in Olympic National Park to unplug. The first and fourth nights were solo, and the two in-between were with friends.
We had a delightful time hiking, playing in the river, feasting, and sitting around the campfire.
The setting was amazing, but I treasured the conversations the most. They were engaging, entertaining, and educational. The group was filled with good storytellers, curious question askers, and genuine listeners. I was amazed with the expertise of the group. I learned about lichen, sea creatures, and banana slugs.
One morning while pancakes and sausage cooked on the grill, I grabbed my notebook and started to write down topics, ideas, and questions we had discussed. Before I knew it, I was promising to send follow-up “show notes” to my fellow campers.
THE FRAMEWORK
I’m a big fan and user of show notes — an online companion to a podcast listing resources from an episode. I’m curious and enjoy learning more about the resources and ideas mentioned.
Huberman has exhaustive show notes, Slate’s Political Gabfest offers fun cocktail chatter follow-ups, and my new favorite is The Curiosity Shop with Brené Brown and Adam Grant.
Often after a meal or drinks with a friend, I find myself texting them a book, movie, or site. Sometimes I ask a follow up question: what was the name of that documentary you were raving about?
On a recent Before Breakfast podcast, Laura Vanderkam shared the idea of creating show notes for life. True to show notes form, this idea came from Jodi Levine via Melissa Kirsch’s NYTimes Good List Newsletter.
The idea is to set up a text chain or google doc where participants can post links to the things they promised to share. Like a shared photo album, but for recommendations.
THE PRACTICE
Here’s where I went overboard. I wrote a comprehensive follow up email. I strived for the professional-level notes of my favorite pods.
Here are elements that made the cut:
Questions we couldn’t answer ourselves (What’s the difference between entwined and intertwined?)
Discoveries worth going deeper on (lichen)
Recommendations to follow up on (The Bigfoot episodes of the podcast Two Girls, One Ghost)
Moments worth keeping (a sharable photo album and a few gifs to embed in the email)
The challenging part was actually sending the email. I had to polish it and wanted to send it with a sense of urgency. I also felt some nervousness. Four of the six friends were new to me. Would such follow up be welcomed and appreciated, or nerdy and overkill?
I pushed through the nerves and hit the send button. I’m glad I did. It elevated my experience.
It’s odd to consider I went on vacation to unplug, only to end up giving myself more work. But the change of work was the rest I came for.
Lichen is two organisms living together — a fungus and one or more algae. The alga provides sugar to the fungus, and the fungus provides favorable living conditions and access to minerals.
The two are wound together so tightly we stopped naming them separately and just called the thing one organism. Intertwined, not entwined.
That’s what show notes did for me. The trip gave the notes something worth keeping. The notes gave the trip somewhere to live. The days and the record grew together.