Pre-writing & Keeping a journal

Pre-writing? Keeping a journal? Are you kidding me? I have always been a list-maker because I can't stand to forget things. But writing comments about things I have read seems redundant to me. I already read it and unless I have to analyze it or argue the issue, why would I make notes about it. Okay, I'm already understanding the pre-writing because what is that but a rough draft. I am a huge fan of rough drafts. Writing notes (journal) about something I have to write about makes sense, too. However, just making notes on random things I read seems very foreign to me.