A few years ago I was looking through my last.fm scrobbles. Scrobbling is passive and it's widely supported, so I did it pretty regularly. The process of reviewing them was like tapping an area of my memory I didn't know existed. I saw the songs my daughter liked to listen to when she was three and remembered trips we took while listening to those songs, and I mean vivid memories of the drive, including the wrong turn we made that made us go through that album twice. Things no photo could ever recall for me. It was a wonderful experience that I may never have had if I wasn't keeping that record.
Going back through old notes I've made on books I've read or movies I've watched gives a similar experience, taking me back to how I thought at the time and a window into how I've changed.
I certainly don't want to study everything to death, but I wholly see the appeal of a system to contain things I've known and done.
Yes I have same experience. Been using Last.fm for 14 years and that history can sometimes reveal things I didn't have any other chance to recall. My long youtube music favorites playlist is also interesting, because I usually add only things I really loved, and keep listening to it for a while, so there is just these time fragments, when I was kind of addicted to some of the songs, but against last.fm it just cannot compete at all.
Going back through old notes I've made on books I've read or movies I've watched gives a similar experience, taking me back to how I thought at the time and a window into how I've changed.
I certainly don't want to study everything to death, but I wholly see the appeal of a system to contain things I've known and done.