The Problem: Mental Residue

You’re deep in a session. Making progress. Then you have to stop - dinner, meeting, bedtime. “I’ll pick this up tomorrow.”

Tomorrow comes. You open your terminal. “Where was I?”

You scan recent files. Check git history. Try to reconstruct where you were. 5-10 minutes wasted. Sometimes longer if you were mid-something complex.

Worse: if you don’t trust you’ll remember, you keep working past optimal stopping time. Just one more thing. The work expands because the handoff is broken.

Cal Newport calls this mental residue — the cognitive load of incomplete tasks your mind keeps running in the background. You can’t truly rest because some part of your brain is holding onto “remember to…”

The Solution: Park and Pickup

The core insight: separate parking from pickup.

Parking (/park)

When you type /park, Claude:

  1. Detects overhead tier - quick sessions get a one-line log, deep sessions get full documentation
  2. Auto-lints modified files (spelling, broken links, inconsistent terminology)
  3. Generates session summary - what was accomplished, key decisions, open loops
  4. Archives to a dated session file
  5. Updates Works in Progress with project status
  6. Displays “Shutdown complete. You can rest.”

The session summary follows a structured format:

## Session 2 - Feature Implementation (9:40am-10:30am)

### Summary
[2-4 sentence narrative]

### Next Steps / Open Loops
- [ ] Specific actionable item 1
- [ ] Specific actionable item 2

### Pickup Context
**For next session:** [One sentence about where to start]

That “Shutdown complete. You can rest.” line does something psychologically. It’s permission to let go. The system has it. Your brain can release the mental residue.

Pickup (/pickup)

When you type /pickup, you see:

╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║  Recent Sessions (By Project)                      ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║  1. Claude Code Learning    (3 sessions, 2 loops)  ║
║  2. NAS Migration           (2 sessions, 1 loop) ⚠️║
║  3. Tab Management - Thu 16 Jan 7:23pm             ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════╝

Sessions sharing a project are grouped together. Aged loop warnings surface stale items (⚠️ = 7+ days, no emoji means fresh). Select one, get full context, open loops, and immediately know where to start.

Zero “where was I?” friction.

Daily Rhythm and Extended Breaks

/park handles individual sessions. These commands build on top:

/morning - surface the landscape, catch gaps, set intention for the day. /afternoon - zoom out, check drift, reprioritise remaining time. /goodnight - inventory all open loops, set tomorrow’s queue, close the day cleanly.

/hibernate - comprehensive state snapshot before extended breaks (travel, sabbatical). /awaken - interactive context restoration when you return. Bridges the gap between sessions and months-long breaks.

/complete-project - formally close and archive a project. Prevents zombie projects lingering in Works in Progress.

This creates nested temporal structure: sessions → days → weeks. Park and pickup is the foundation layer.

Implementation notes

Command Structure

Commands live in .claude/commands/ as markdown files with YAML frontmatter:

---
name: park
aliases: [shutdown-complete]
description: End session with shutdown complete
---

The command file contains instructions to Claude about what to do when invoked.

Session File Location

Sessions archive to 06 Archive/Claude Sessions/YYYY-MM-DD.md. Multiple sessions per day stack chronologically. Sessions link forward and backward - “What led to this?” click back, “What came after?” click forward.

Tiered Overhead

Quick (< 5 min, no file changes): one-line log, ~5 seconds. Standard (5-45 min, few files): summary + open loops, ~30 seconds. Full (45+ min, many files): comprehensive documentation, ~90 seconds.

Cue Word Detection

Natural language triggers: “bedtime”, “wrapping up”, “done for tonight”, “park”. You don’t have to remember the slash command.

Safety

  • NAS mount verification before writing
  • File locking for concurrent Claude instances
  • Bidirectional session linking (forward + backward)
  • Idempotent - won’t add duplicate links on re-park

Shell Alias

alias claudesidian='cd /path/to/vault && claude'

One command, zero navigation.

Series: Claude Code + Obsidian