What is imperfect notes?

Imperfect notes is a concept in personal epistemology: A rough note you actually make is infinitely more valuable than a polished note you do not.

Example: An engineering lead has a breakthrough during a walk — a connection between a persistent latency problem and an architectural change she dismissed two weeks ago. She doesn't write it down because she doesn't have her Obsidian setup open. By the time she's back at her desk, she remembers she had an insight about the latency issue. The specifics — the connection, the architectural fix, the reasoning chain — are gone. She spends the rest of the week trying to reconstruct what she already knew for thirty seconds.

This concept is part of Phase 1 (Perception and Externalization) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for perception and externalization.