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Evolving my note-taking processes

by mttyng on 9/9/22, 8:26 PM with 76 comments

• by samsquire on 9/9/22, 9:32 PM

  I journal computer and software ideas as markdown files out in the open on GitHub. When I get to 100-300 entries I move onto a new repository.

  https://GitHub.com/samsquire/ideas https://GitHub.com/samsquire/ideas2 https://GitHub.com/samsquire/ideas3 https://GitHub.com/samsquire/ideas4 https://GitHub.com/samsquire/startups

  I create a new markdown heading for each entry and write.

  It's searchable and the data is easy to synchronize, backup and use and the solution shall last for multiple decades maybe even longer.

  It's also indexed by Google.

  I'm still tweaking my first journal that I created in 2013.

  At one point I tried to love Emacs and I am yet to use org mode. I actually use the GitHub interface mostly to update my journal. And before that vim and lately IntelliJ which includes preview features.

  I would recommend if you want to write notes or create an external mind to improve your thinking just write. The tool you use doesn't really matter. It's the quality and reward from writing and rereading what you wrote.

• by pen2l on 9/10/22, 1:14 AM

  I came to appreciate and realize the importance of note-taking, finally this year, with org-mode. Folding and easy-labeling features jive well with me (and for when sharing my notes and thoughts with others), babel and linking is pretty cool too.

  I use orgmode for to-do lists too, but it's a little weak there. I think an effective to-do list management implementation is tightly coupled with calendars...

  It was such a welcome surprise to me that when I got the M2 Macbook air, Apple calendar synced to my google calendar so easily... now my to-do list/calendar schedule is never too far away from me. The apple watch makes a vibration ding for events in my calendar... as does the iphone, and I can CRUD calendar entries on any of these interfaces. I would have _loved_ to be able to have org-mode as one other place where my calendar/todo list is staring at me in the face, as I now use emacs for everything, but sadly that's iffy. Yes, solutions purportedly exist (e.g. https://github.com/kidd/org-gcal.el9 ) but none work reliably and require too much finagling. Linked solution doesn't work as Google deprecated the ability to retrieve OAuth 2.0 tokens.

• by sureglymop on 9/9/22, 10:16 PM

  What I want in a personal note taking system is something where I can link anything. Anything is just a generic object that can be linked to and worked with.

  Like a mix between Logseq and Nextcloud, where I can still use CalDav and CardDav but I can link to tasks and calendar events and contacts from my notes.

  And i can link to a certain pdf page right from my notes.. or even a certain page of a word document. Anything needs to be treated as a generic object of content that is linkable.

• by leetrout on 9/10/22, 12:59 AM

  If you enjoy sharing info around knowledge management I made a discord community "Awesome Knowledge Management"[1] and there is also Brett's awesome list for knowledge management[2] for more resources!

  [1] https://discord.gg/VsqazDhsES

  [2] https://github.com/brettkromkamp/awesome-knowledge-managemen...

• by longrod on 9/10/22, 9:51 AM

  Been using (and following) Notesnook [0] for over a year now. Truly phenomenal what the devs have done in such a short time.

  But I don't think any one note taking style or software would apply to 2 people. Everyone's thought process is so different. I tried doing the Zettlekasten but it didn't work out (for me). The worst problem with taking notes is finding them (and God knows all these tools don't make it easier). It's tragic to see that search is often last on the list.

  What I wish for is search like Google (when it was better than it is now) for my own notes - intelligent, fast, and predictable.

  [0] https://notesnook.com

• by rrgok on 9/10/22, 10:29 AM

  I don't take notes at all, I just use Notepad++ as temporary clipboard for big copy/pastes or edit before paste. I'm really curious to see what the notes looks like for these heavy note taker with hundred of pages/notes. I'm also curios to know if it depends on the career, maybe a ML Engineer need more note taking than an electrician who wire cables all day.

  I'm a software engineer. My thinking process gets better as I develop and implement things. I cannot write notes and then implement. There were times when I wished I took notes/planned before implementing, but nothing to make me regret. It is just more refactor and time consuming to rewrite things.

  I feel like note taking is overrated and trendy like AI/ML (like DALL-E or Stable Diffusion). I wish someone can mentor me to takes notes and make understand the value of it. And I read a lot of blog post about it.

• by Test0129 on 9/10/22, 1:51 AM

  I prefer pen and paper for most things. For that I'd recommend the supernote [1] with the utmost confidence. It has single-handedly changed my life. My biggest issue was I wanted to go digital (because paper sucks to handle) but my experience with the usual suspects in the tablet market left a lot to be desired. I didn't really need all the bells and whistles. Just a paper replacement. I didn't want to use org mode or anything because after trying these things the retention I got out of it wasn't great.

  I've been using it for months for basically everything from project ideas to journaling and I've been impressed.

  [1] https://supernote.com/

• by russellbeattie on 9/10/22, 3:46 AM

  I take great notes. I've got hundreds of pages of detailed thoughts and miscellaneous bits of important info in Joplin, synced to all my devices. Then I never look at them again. Same with to-do lists.

  I often wonder who I'm writing them for, as apparently it's not me.

• by oxff on 9/10/22, 7:12 AM

  > 0 mentions for Zotero

  Question for anyone that consumes a lot of PDFs as I do: what do you use instead? Manual data insertion is an absolute no. So that leaves the Zotero alternatives, but quick search shows 0 mentions for any of them too.

• by ithrow on 9/9/22, 11:33 PM

  Since this is an Emacs article I recommend checking out https://protesilaos.com/emacs/denote

• by alexalx666 on 9/9/22, 9:46 PM

  Is there a clone of Standard Notes which includes basic plugins for free? I almost think it was a mistake to go with SN for self-hosted notes

• by reactspa on 9/9/22, 10:21 PM

  Markdown question:

  I want to take create a chronological journal where I track tutorials I've done (and how well, etc), but I want to add some sort of a tag wherever I feel like so that with a click I can find all my entries related to (say) React, or R (statistics), and so on.

  If you're reading this, and have had luck with such a tagging mechanism, please share your solution.

  FOSS only, of course.

• by abrax3141 on 9/10/22, 1:21 AM

  I find all online note taking to be useless because you can’t efficiently and effectively draw on any existing platform with anything like the convenience of p&p. Also, why aren’t you all just using gDocs, like everyone else? Self hosting your personal notes seems like you’re putting your precious brain dumps one drive failure away from disaster.

• by parthianshotgun on 9/9/22, 10:18 PM

  ITT someone who hasn't heard of Obsidian

• by keeptrying on 9/10/22, 11:33 AM

  I find writing and journaling in a real book much more therapeutic.

  If you buy an executive notebook and a really nice flowing pen like the G2, it’s a pleasurable practice.

  Once I have it written down I feel much less stressed. I’ve never felt hat way about online notetsking

• by infinitezest on 9/10/22, 11:04 AM

  For anyone that likes to use markdown and neovim I've developed this plugin: https://gitlab.com/atomdmac/notes.vim

• by avg_dev on 9/10/22, 2:41 AM

  I’ve been typing for a long time, but I like taking notes by hand in a notebook. Just works well for me.

• by frozencell on 9/10/22, 12:22 AM

  Who is using knowledge graphs to sort notes?