How to remember where you left off in a game

You log back into a game you haven't touched in three weeks. You're standing somewhere you don't recognize, your bags are full of stuff you were apparently saving for something, and the quest log has twelve things in it. Twenty minutes later you're still running around trying to figure out what you were doing.

The save file (or your character) knows where you are. It doesn't know what you were about to do, why you were farming that one boss, or which upgrade you were saving up for. That stuff was only ever in your head, and it's gone after a couple weeks off.

The thing that actually works is writing a quick note right before you quit. It takes a minute or two.

Write a quick note before you quit

Answer three things, a sentence each is plenty:

1. Where am I, and why am I here? “Hell Mephisto runs” is okay. “Hell Mephisto runs on the Sorc, farming runes for Spirit” is a lot better.
2. What was I about to do next? If you only write one thing, write this.
3. Anything I'm going to forget. The item you're holding onto for later, a quest you're halfway through, the skill or passive you were going to grab next.

Then add a short list of stuff to do next time. Two or three things, tops. Once it gets longer than that nobody reads it, including you.

What to write for different kinds of games

The three questions cover most of it, but every genre has its own thing you always forget.

MMOs: WoW, Classic, OSRS, RuneScape

MMOs never end, so the problem is less “where was I” and more “what was I working toward.” You've usually got a bunch of long goals going at once, and it's easy to lose track of half of them.

In WoW that's most of what I use notes for. Achievements I'm chipping away at and which parts are left. Zone treasures I still haven't found. Reputation and renown grinds, and what I'm actually grinding them for. Mats I'm saving up for a craft, so I don't vendor or auction them by accident. Mounts, pets or transmog I'm farming, and where they drop. On top of that there's the weekly stuff, which alt is doing what, and in Classic the quest chain that bounces you across three zones or the attunement you're halfway through.

OSRS and RS3 are the same idea: the skill levels you need for the next quest, which achievement diary tasks are left, the step you were on in some monster quest like Recipe for Disaster, and whatever you're saving up for.

Checklists work really well here. One list per goal, one line per thing: “treasures left in this zone,” “mats for the next craft,” “need 50 Herblore before I can start this quest.” Tick them off as you go and you can always see how close you are.

ARPGs: Diablo 2, Diablo 4, Path of Exile 1 and 2

Here it's all about the build. Write down which skills you're leveling into, where you're pathing on the passive tree or Paragon board, which ascendancy you're going for, and what you're farming for. Leagues and seasons make this worse because you're juggling new characters, so keep a short note per character. Future you will not remember why you put points into something weird.

Final Fantasy and other long JRPGs

These are long, and you'll probably put one down for a while somewhere in the middle. Note your party setup and the system the game is built around: materia in VII, the sphere grid in X, jobs in V. Write down any side quests or missables you were planning to go back for before the point of no return, because those are the ones you lose.

Pokémon

Note the next gym or town you were heading to, the team you're building, and anything you were in the middle of. That might be a Pokémon you're saving a stone for, a trade evolution you still need to do, or the one you were trying to catch on a specific route.

Everything else

In metroidvanias like Hollow Knight, write down blocked paths as you find them (“high ledge past the fountain, need double jump”) so you know where to go when you finally get the upgrade. In open-world games like Elden Ring or Zelda, note what your important map markers are for, because you won't remember. In strategy games, write the plan, since you can always see where everything is on the map.

When you come back

A few things that make getting back into it a lot quicker:

• Read the note before you log in. Things look a lot more familiar when you know what you're looking for.
• Take a minute with the controls or your hotbars before doing anything that matters. Mechanics and keybinds fade fast.
• Knock out one thing on the list right away. Getting something done early beats wandering around for half an hour.
• If it's been months, check whether the game has a story recap, or skim the wiki for the quest you were on. That plus your notes is usually enough that you don't have to restart.

Where to keep the notes

This is where I kept failing. My notes for one game would end up split between a Notepad file on my PC and a note on my phone, and I'd lose track of one or both. So I'd either never find them again or find them way too late.

It got worse when I was playing on console with no PC nearby. I'd jot something on my phone from the couch, then later want to sit down at my PC, look up the quest or the build on the wiki, and plan properly. Two devices, two sets of notes, neither one complete.

That's why I built Gamer's Notebook. Every game gets its own page with a journal for these notes and checklists you can tick off. It runs in the browser, so it's the same notebook on your phone and your PC. Write the quick note on your phone mid-session, then open it on your PC later to research and organize. It's free.

If you'd rather stick with a notes app or a paper notebook, that works too. Just keep everything for a game in one place. The habit is what matters: a couple of lines before you quit, and coming back after a break stops being such a pain.