Susanne asked Barack Obama:

How did President Obama prepare to write such a "mammoth" memoir, and how is he able to recall key details and quotes with such accuracy? He referenced checking with former members of his staff, (like Axe and Plouffe) however, I'm wondering if he kept notes (on yellow pads), or audio files from the past, which enabled him to write his extremely eloquent and informative memoir?

Barack Obama I wish I had the time as President to maintain a regular journal, but it just wasn’t possible. I did jot down certain moments as they transpired, because I knew that remembering the specific ways they unfolded would be important to me later. Just to take one example, I paint a scene in the book of the first big climate summit I attended. I crashed a secret meeting of the Chinese, Brazilian, and Indian delegations, because I knew they were avoiding me and the deal we were trying to broker that would require every country to have some skin in the game. We were the ones who breached protocol, but if we didn’t, we’d never get to a deal that ultimately led to the Paris Agreement. It was one of those moments when I knew history was happening.

But in general, I’m pretty good about remembering scenes, and people’s characters and personalities. I’ve got a good memory, which annoys my staff at times. Still, I’ll freely admit that the internet makes researching the events around a certain memory a whole lot easier than it would have been had I written this book twenty years ago. And I still have a staff who were vital to helping me flesh out certain scenes; who gathered perspectives from others who were in the room. Those two factors protected my writing rhythm from having to comb through stacks of books and reams of paper. And that was a blessing.

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