Benchpad blog
The case for three files
Why limiting yourself to three notes instead of unlimited is the productivity move you haven't tried yet.
Somewhere between "one big text file" and "a Notion workspace with 200 pages" is where most people's notes actually live. Not by design — by entropy. You started with a system, added to it, and now you have more notes than you can navigate and fewer that you can find.
The solution most people try: a better system. More folders. Smarter tags. A new app entirely.
The solution that actually works: fewer places to put things.
Why unlimited is a liability
Every note app that lets you create unlimited notes, folders, and tags is making you an implicit promise: with the right structure, you'll be organized.
That promise is false.
More structure means more decisions. More decisions mean more friction. More friction means you write less, organize more, and eventually abandon the system for a new blank-slate app that comes with the same promise.
The problem isn't the app. The problem is that unlimited space requires unlimited discipline to manage. Most people don't have unlimited discipline. Neither do I.
What three files does differently
Three pads, three names, no filing decisions
When there are only three places something can go, the filing decision collapses.
Does this go in Work, Personal, or Scratch?
That's it. Three options. It takes half a second. You make the choice without thinking. You write the thing down. You close it.
Compare this to: Does this go in Projects, Reference, Archive, Inbox, Areas, or Resources? Should I tag it? Is this more of a task or a note? Should I link it to the other note about this topic?
By the time you've answered all those questions, you've forgotten the thought. Or you've written it down grudgingly and never looked at it again. Or — most commonly — you've put it in "Inbox" where it will live forever until you feel guilty and delete everything.
The constraint forces useful behavior
A pad with three sections — Work, Personal, Scratch — fills up eventually. What do you do?
The instinct is to ask for more storage. The correct answer is to clear the old parts.
When a pad fills up and you clear the sections that are done, you're doing something valuable: you're distinguishing between active thinking and finished thinking. What's worth keeping, you keep or copy out. The pad stays clean for current work.
This is the behavior you wanted when you set up your complex system. The constraint creates it naturally instead of requiring it through discipline.
The people who've already figured this out
The most effective thinkers I know — the ones who actually ship things, write things, build things — don't have complex note systems.
They have a text file. Or a notebook. Or a single Notion page they've been using for three years called "Notes" with no subpages.
They're not too busy to build a system. They've tried systems and concluded that the overhead isn't worth it.
Three files is the formalized version of this. It's just text with a product built around it.
"But what about—"
"But what about projects?" A project is a heading. Use one.
"But what about reference material?" Put it in a pad. Add a heading. Clear it when you don't need it active.
"But what if three isn't enough?" If your life doesn't fit into three buckets, you probably need project management software, not a scratchpad.
"But what about search?" Your three pads are small enough to read, and there's full-text search across them. This is not a problem in practice.
The note you take vs the note you could take
There are two versions of every note: the one you actually took, and the one you could have taken if you'd had time to set it up properly.
The note you actually took is infinitely more valuable. It exists. It contains the thought you had. It can be read and used.
Three files maximizes the number of notes you actually take, at the cost of some of the notes you could have taken. That trade is worth it.
Benchpad is three scratchpads. Offline-first. Plain markdown. $10/year. Start writing free →
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