When I decided to create booooookmarks, it was partly as a reaction to trying to create something like it with Notion. Not only did it not ever work the way I wanted to, it was also destined to live alongside a bunch of other stuff that I didn't feel was related. I've long argued that we over index on things like making every website work on phones. I understand why we do it, but I still feel that there are some things that are not served well by being experienced on the smallest screen in your house.
I see a difference between saving links to things I think are really important, and squirreling stuff away because I need to take some action on it immediately. Booooookmarks may not be where you put the sign-up link to your kid's summer soccer camp, and that's ok. It may instead be the place you store an obsessively curated collection of recipes, or links to articles you want to pore over later. It's ok that these don't live alongside ephemeral things, or things that need your attention right now, today.
I'm essentially obsessed with the idea that a lot of life is a cycle of going out and gathering knowledge, and then sitting with and organizing it. I don't think I'm entirely alone. If you spend fifteen minutes on any sub-Reddit for the writing/productivity app Obsidian, you'll find more people like me. This is, I feel, how I learn. There are people who read to learn, or watch videos to pick up new skills. My mind literally will not let me learn things when I discover them. The loop of discovery to curation to discovery is critical for me. So that's why this is here. I want this app to be a tool for thought, or a bench where you can rest on your way from this to that. (You can, of course, use it in any way you want and for whatever you want.) That loop of discovery is also really gratifying to me. When I encounter something I want to learn, I can almost feel all the new stuff going into my brain. Sitting with it, organizing it, digesting its meta-meanings--that's when I feel like I'm doing the learning. And it feels good.
Another thing I think about a lot are the rituals that surround knowledge and knowledge work. As someone with a challenged attention span, I return again and again to the GTD methodology as a way of clearing my head of all the things I have to take care of so I can actually (wait for it) get things done. The time that I take to sit and dump things into a notebook or document is rewarding in the same way that putting together a folder of links is. It is, for me, time for rumination and pensiveness; I feel like I most ready to process new information and learn new things when I'm poised in the "curate" phase of the loop.
The things I put in my personal Booooookmarks file are things I want to keep. They constitute a sort of zettelkasten of related ideas, presented visually so my foggy brain can recognize them at a glance. But here I can make my own connections, and file things away as I see fit; I've intentionally left out an AI chatbot, automatic tagging, or the ability to push stuff into Booooookmarks from apps on your phone. My hunch is that there are more people out there who want a space like this. At worst, like Mystery Science Theatre 3000, "the right people will get it". Happy curating.
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Nick Jones is founder and creator of booooookmarks--the simple bookmarking app. Try it now.