"Getting lost in your knowledge management system is a fantastic way to avoid creating things. Or calling that friend you’re estranged from. Or doing anything else even mildly threatening. It’s also a fantastic way to convince yourself that unpreparedness is what’s between you and creative work. If you believe you’re unprepared, know that you will never transmute into the perfectly prepared person that you think exists in the future."
I always framed this more as
‘the tools will not save me’. A better pen won’t make me a better illustrator, no system/framework/methodology will take in garbage and spit out gold. But, in retrospect, I think I should partly blame seeking a foolish level of preparedness. I’ll try to recognise/abstain from this ‘preparbation’ in the future.
I’m absolutely not gifted when it comes to manual crafts, but I’ve found having the right tool for the job brings me from shamefully incapable to acceptably competent.
For example I got into book binding a while back and while I started freehand I quickly built a jig and it vastly improved the quality of the work.
This is true, but still has limits. Moving from Reaper to Ableton Live made music easier to make. But then there's the tendency to wonder if I made the wrong choice between the handful of comparable DAWs like FL Studio or BitWig. The fact that I'm absurdly productive in the one I picked can only do so much to stop that thought process that starts any time one of the others goes on sale.
Yes, there is a deep meta-skill around distinguishing "Am I seeking a better tool because it will help me solve my problem?" or "Am I seeking a better tool to avoid the fear of making difficult design choices?"
Preparbation is a great term :-) I always try to conciously remind myself to avoid diminishing returns when doing this kind of stuff (i.e 80/20 rule), but that sums up nicely with just the right amount of sting.
Successful people (judged by their own metrics of success) are generally willing to make short term sacrifices for long term gains.
My reluctance / fear / discomfort often isn’t even recognisable to myself for a while. If and when I do act on it, it quickly subsides and I can do stuff I that’s in some sense still uncomfortable, but that I seem to genuinely enjoy even in the moment - making things, experiencing novelty, being challenged etc. And yet my brain hasn’t put that together.
I sometimes set a repeating personal alarm* that just asks ‘are you doing what you’re meant to be doing?’. I’ll try framing some of how I answer that around discomfort / sacrifice from now on.
*I usually use it when talking with people who meander/derail conversations as much as I do, and we recognise it’s a problem.
But if you do it well, it's the opposite. Luhmann, who came up with Zettelkasten, is known to be one of the most prolific scholars in the last century.
Zettelkasten was essential for this. The thing is that his original system was incredibly simple. I think that's what people are missing. Plain Org or Markdown files on a Git repository are a great way to mimic Zettelkasten. You don't need more and restrictions are actually very liberating.
Bingo. I’ve bounced around note systems and realized I was just wasting time bouncing around. Now I use Apple’s Notes.app. It syncs and can be used on any of my devices which was my only hard requirement.
And very little customization to constantly tinker with. I also love Apple Notes and have found myself much more productive since I stopped switching apps and settled on using Notes.
I followed the same path. I spent so much time trying to design some elaborate system that I could own from top to bottom but eventually I found that apple notes was “good enough”. And worst case scenario I can copy and paste my notes into a markdown file and deal with it there once syncthing move it to my Linux box.
Being able to pick up any device and seamlessly continue editing the same document without messing with a third party app is pretty nice.
Yeah, part of my search was a bit of 'nerd pride'. Org-mode, text files, markdown, I could have them be in git or used anywhere, etc... I realized all these shifts were just getting in the way of taking notes. When I really distilled it down, my only hard requirement was secure and easy to use and sync on any of my devices. Since I'm all Apple, Notes made the most sense.
same. I have 5000 notes now - without even making conscious decision to use Apple Notes in the first place.
I also make a tool that takes one folder in my apple notes and publishes it as a site. So my site https://podviaznikov.com is basically served from the content of Apple Notes.
I've found Logseq and Previously Roam work well in that they are low friction in recording information, but I'm still able to find information when I need it (most of the time). The nested block system means it's pretty easy to link concepts together without having to find the right place to put information. This ease of workflow helps me to be more creative, in that I can add a note quickly and move on, with out having to search, prune and deliberate on a 'PKM'.
It's not about doing it well versus poorly, it's about the motivation behind it.
If you're building a complex organizational system because it absorbs your time and enables you to avoid confronting the fear of making artistic choices and putting something out into the world, it's not helping.
If you're building a complex organization system because you need it to build the thing you want to put out there, by all means go for it.
It takes a lot of introspection to be able to distinguish these two cases.
Jira-ish tools help immensely if the project manager changes mid-project… at least some knowledge will be in work items if the previous pm actually did any work.
I think this is only a way to avoid creating things because we don't focus on collaborative note taking systems. Once people start sharing notes, they will start making friends by discovering the people who care about the same topics and create things together. Tweets and blogging are a bit like that but they are curated for a public image.
Add some diffusion models that take over the creative part, and knowledge management systems become a tool to act. Of course, the risk of getting lost in knowledge not only remains but increases.
1. List-style notes of things we need to remember
2. School-style notes of information and ideas
I think the former requires a tool, but nothing particularly sophisticated - Apple Notes for example with its search indexing is fine
I think the latter we write only to stimulate our brain to process information and learn better.
I think there is a discrepancy where a lot of tools attempt to make Type 2 notes more "convenient", i.e. to trying to somehow make them an extension of our brain, but the truth is that it's like hacking a hard drive to work as fast as a CPU register -- retrieving and working with information is always going to be orders of magnitude slower than working through your thoughts in your brain.
The reason I use a note-taking system is point 1 for what I'm working on now, point 2 when I'm following a tutorial and want to assimilate the subject, but there is a third point which is why I'm trying so many of them : I need a way to store information that's useful to me and be able to recover it when I need it.
3 examples would be :
1. An API is broken at work and you need to log a bug. who do you log it for? Who do you ask for help?
2. There are a few commands I need to remember to do stuff with kubectl, but can never remember the details. What are the exact commands i need to run to do this <specific use case to me>
3. I work in an area I've worked in a year ago and don't remember the definiton of business stuff. I want to be able to just look up how I defined it a year ago.
The big problem for me was this is completely different from school where you just learn stuff for 4 months, vomit everything on a test and then never re-use the notes again. I find the way I took notes at university competently inadequate because it's basically impossible to retrieve specific information.
After playing with a bunch of stuff I find I need 2 features :
1. hierarchical notes : instead of folders, notes are below other notes.
2. A good search function.
3. (optional) I also want markdown so I can write code blocks easily since I'm a programmer
I'm trying Dendron right now because it hits all 3 points, but honestly Zim Wiki is dead simple and is unreasonably effective if you don't care about markdown.
I think this is it. I have a single markdown file for all my casual notes (1), and a folder structure for my permanent notes (2). Notes of type 2 are the most valuable long-term, and it's worth the time to select what to store, and to structure it right.
I'm always on the hunt of my ideal open source, lightweight, non-cloud, cross-platform, mobile-friendly hierarchical note taking app, but I know I'm asking too much, maybe I'll never find it. Meanwhile I use plain text editors.
I use gitjournal.io to sync my folder of markdown notes between PC and phone. I wrote about my little ensemble of editors and tools at https://www.bbkane.com/blog/how-i-take-notes/
Came here to say this. I have a highly evolved note taking methodology/snippet setup(common MAC address prefixes etc)/auto-insert timestamp every line that I use VS Code for. If I spoke to someone 15 months ago, I can tell you who and the exact time/day and some shorthand notes about the call.
As others have said, Syncthing. I also have used DropBox or Google Drive since there is no confidential information in my permanent notes.
I didn't mention it because then it wouldn't be simply text files, but encryption would be the cherry on top of my ideal app, since any storage provider could be used to sync it.
Ahh.. so you want to only sync locally between devices.. or you want it to support your special cloud-protocol so you can run your own cloud-server... . But wouldn't the second part be cheating, not naming it cloud-based?
Non-cloud as not chained to the provider's storage services, I want to decide how to sync it between my devices. I want a tool for my notes, not SaaS. I wouldn't mind paying for my tool chain, what I wouldn't want is paying rent for my own notes.
As long as you have two connectable devices Syncthing doesn't have to be strictly local. It'll take advantage of local networks, but it's certainly not limited to that.
Any article that pretends to know what the right way of taking notes (say, "This is known as a commonplace book, and it is about how detailed your note-taking system should be unless you plan on thinking more elaborately than Leonardo da Vinci." in this article) is missing the point.
People think differently, people have different purposes and goals, people have different constraints on their time, their memory, their field. Can you procrastinate on note-taking? Sure. So can you on writing, and publishing, and building an audience, and writing papers, and doing the dishes.
Can people have a fantastic creative output by just opening a blank page and jotting down their thoughts? Sure. Can other people write great books with an elaborate notetaking system? Of course. There are plenty of people out there with terrific, obsessive note-taking and reference systems, Kubrick being one of the prime examples.
As someone with what looks from the outside to be an overarchitected note-taking system ( https://publish.obsidian.md/manuel ), it is a system that works great for me, and it is a system that makes me more creative and helps me discover ideas I would have never been able to articulate without. I used linear sketchbooks where I would write and draw whatever for years, filling hundreds of notebooks, and it came nowhere near my obsidian setup in terms of output and effectiveness.
I see a similar thing with people complaining about other people taking pictures of things. They assert that you won't remember anything if you spend your time behind a lens because that's how their memory works. I won't remember much/anything if I don't take pictures. I get new phones with a focus on the camera because photos are a big part of how I navigate my memories. Same with taking notes: if I don't write it down, it's gone. It comes back quick with as much force as a fresh memory upon review of the photo/note.
It's possible for both things to be true. Perhaps for a rare few a more elaborate system is required, but for most it is a hindrance. A piece of advice doesn't need to be totally universal to be useful.
This is strange. Lately, I've had a number of people in different situations (especially at work) tell me of similar efforts pushing back on organized process or.. organized anything, including note-taking, task tracking and more. Is there some kind of attempt at a mental revolution here or is this some kind of response to people being overloaded and not wanting to carry the mental burden/weight/let it go?
I almost feel like this should not even be a topic. Using tools to help organize thoughts - why do we care if it helps people? - not all brains work the same. What is wrong about organizing one's thoughts and spending time doing so??
I can see the argument that one can get lost in a meta-loop of sorts, but that's probably true of anything when you take into account procrastination - or certain brain types - that are prone to loops. For some people loops feel good, right? I say this as somebody who is lightly on the spectrum.
Even the pushback against knowledge management as a practice is perplexing - there was a time where Peter Drucker, for example, thought knowledge work would someday be all there was left to do.
That said, I can't help but wonder if there really is something bigger/some kind of trend going on here and I can't quite put my finger on it. Is this something evolutionary? Are we trying to evolve/seek a better way as an organism?
Honestly probably just the contrarian pendulum swinging. The answer of course is that the exact right amount of PKM is whatever amount is helpful for you at this particular moment. But imagine how few clicks that blog post would get!
I can't speak to any wider trend but I read this article as a pushback against the hype that maybe makes note-taking out to be a more powerful tool than it really is.
I tried note-taking and spaced repetition for a while. To the extent that it replaced mindless HN reading, it was positive but I can also see how easy it is to pour in buckets of time without much benefit. It's a very thirsty pursuit - there's always more you could do and you never reach a clear stopping point.
People are annoyed. It is almost impossible to have a discussion about learning, without someone proselytising about Zettelkasten. Similarly, a few years ago it was almost impossible to have a discussion about intelligence, without someone proselytising about Dual N-Back. So, hopefully, this fashion too shall pass.
Saying that notes are completely useless is just stupid contrarianism, clickbait. But it is true that making and maintaining one's notes can be a form of procrastination. On the other hand, if you write too many notes, it can become difficult to find what you are looking for. There are different applications for note-making, each coming with different advantages and disadvantages. Choosing the right one... again, is important, but also can be a form of procrastination.
Things become even more difficult in an organization, where note-taking is a part of your job, and you have to cooperate with other people. And just like bad programmers generate spaghetti code, bad writers generate... spaghetti wikis? A large organization can have literally million Confluence pages, with tons of duplicated content, with no one removing the obsolete content, so when you search for e.g. "how to configure proxy", you get dozens of answers, most of them containing information that was correct five or ten years ago, but it no longer true.
Shortly, this entire topic is quite frustrating, at least for me. There is a problem. There is no obviously right solution. There are people promoting their favorite solutions, which often do not work for you. But at the end of the day you need to choose something. If you start making notes and change your mind ten years later, it can be quite a lot of work to convert your notes to the new format. (I just keep my old notes as read-only, and started making new notes in the new system.) Frustration makes people express strong opinions.
> Is there some kind of attempt at a mental revolution here or is this some kind of response to people being overloaded and not wanting to carry the mental burden/weight/let it go?
More so recently, I have seen more and more push back against what people are calling, "Toxic Productivity."
I could see an argument for psuedo-pathologizing one's attempts at trying to find the "best" note-taking system under Toxic Productivity.
Our relationship with productivity is unhealthy and we are doing it to ourselves by trying to over-optimise (min-max) everything. Yet, when we realise that we are all mortals, nothing that we do really matters in the end.... which can be both scary, but also liberating.
I mostly endorse this, but as I recently wrote in reply to something else [1], I also have found great value in writing things down to get them out of my head. In that case I was more talking about blog-post type things, but it includes notes for work and such.
So what I sometimes do is a hybrid model: I take the notes, thus satisfying my brain that the thing is no longer something it needs to chew on... and then basically discard the notes. Not quite literally, I don't literally chuck them in the trash. I might keep them around for a while in case I do need something out of them. But they don't contribute to my "to do" list, metaphorical or literal, much at all.
Yes. Every once in a long while, something falls through the cracks that I should have picked up. But the reality is that for me, YMMV, this approach is a huge net positive. I am able to constantly re-evaluate what's important right now without a lot of mental baggage, and usually, when I'm in the moment deciding what's important in this moment, I'm vastly more accurate in my assessment than I would have been trying to prognosticate a month ago.
I believe the author would agree fully with this model. They aren't against writing as thinking, they're against focusing on your note-taking system as a meaningful artifact in itself. And especially against it as an elaborate distracting one.
From neuroscience perspective, it is the Anticipation of the task that releases dopamine, not the "Doing" of the task, hence the appeal of all the productivity porn.
And as a corollary, it could be the Anticipation of difficulty in tackling a daunting task that makes you avoid it, rather than the actual difficulty in tackling.
So, the best way to getting into the flow state and getting things done (pun intended) is to force yourself to just do it.
Minimizing friction has been the game-changer for me. I don't avoid easy-to-do things, I just do them. If I can pre-load getting rid of friction I do.
For example, a meal plan generator was an expense I justified because it grossly simplified meal-planning and shopping. Removing that bit of friction made me much more likely to stick to my plan to more healthily.
My note-taking system, basically the same since college:
1. Write down every nontrivial observation in a flat text file.
2. When that file gets longer than a few pages, transcribe it into a new file while leaving out or combining or rephrasing everything that now seems trivial.
3. Repeat until you've either memorized everything or don't need the info anymore, then delete the notes.
In retrospect this is similar to spaced repetition, but with a subjective "this feels trivial now" interval instead of a fixed interval.
Honest question about step #3, there's a theory of YAGNI (you aren't going to need it) I feel going on here. Information overload/hoarding is not good either.
One thing I cannot shake is, there are things that I know I learned, but I can no longer remember. Without a prompt, a shred of something from the past - a note, a book, something - I often cannot recall it anymore.
People with brains that suffer from memory loss/recall issues/Alzheimer's/dementia/long term retention - etc. - how does doing #3 address that? I feel like maybe you don't need to look at it all the time, but couldn't having that around as a reference still be a prompt for you at some point later in your life, where maybe you can't just remember everything?
I am similar. I have a very good memory, and am ability to hold a lot of detail in mind, but my recall is horrible. It can take me hours to get my head back into a subject, but once I'm there I can easily go deep. As you can imagine, context-switching can completely destroy my ability to engage meaningfully on any pursuit.
What I've found useful is creating index files that have just the highlights for the major "blocks" of thought. Then it's like skimming my thoughts. I just need the triggers to prompt recall. If I can get the pump started with the main ideas, or key information, the details will flow.
I also tend to take copious notes about everything, but I don't pressure myself to actually use them. They serve a different purpose. Because it takes conscious effort, the act of note-taking convinces my subconscious that the information of important, and improves my recall, at least for a little while.
Not the same process as above. The index files are optimized for reading and to promote recall. The detailed notes are optimized for writing and to promote retention in long-term memory
I guess, to the article's points, I feel like note-taking is a personal endeavor. If you're doing it because you think you "should," it's probably not useful. But as you are trying to know your own mind and develop your own productivity, it's a tool that can address some specific challenges. What it ends up looking like should be very tailored to your mental processes.
I like this system. This is also somewhat similar to the bullet journal system, but in a "to-do list" context. Every month you write down your to-dos. The next month you cross off those that no longer matter, and move forward those that are still relevant and pending.
I've been using Obsidian for a year or so now.
I only take notes for meetings / planning agendas for meetings ahead of time - I also have the notes automatically committed to git on the hour. I actually got inspired to do this by James Comey's well documented use of contemporaneous notes. I don't know why I'm not important - in fact, what I need to look for in obsidian is the concept of having notes `expire` after a bit.
In anycase, all these articles about note taking are always about how they work (or don't) work for the individual author of said article. It doesn't mean it's the right solution for you. Take what does work for you and abandon the rest without giving it a second thought. This comment included.
I've been journalling computer ideas out in the open since 2013 using GitHub as README.md files.
I create a new GitHub repository when I get to 100-300 entries. I number the entries with markdown headings and a title that captures the thought.
The reason I create a new repository is that I try only announce my idea repositories when they're complete. I want people to come back and not miss entries I add throughout the week.
I am up to 450+ entries purely by writing whatever idea comes to mind. I do not have a process. I add to the end of the journal.
Why do I recommend this approach? The journal and notes can be modified on any device that has a web browser since you can use the GitHub web interface on Android, Windows, Mac and Linux.
GitHub has a hidden feature of a table of contents on the top left of the README.md so you can jump to different ideas. GitHub also creates named anchors for markdown headings so you can link between ideas. I do this to refer to previous ideas.
IntelliJ also has a markdown editor so I also use that.
The more you journal and write the more inspiration you shall have. The more you try the more you get. So I strongly recommend my approach, just get something on the page and stop worrying if it shall be perfect. The value comes from writing and rereading and editing your thoughts.
One benefit from using GitHub is that you don't need to learn how to create a post each time you come to write so it can become a habit.
I take notes of (almost) everything I work on. What links I went to, screenshot or snippets of relevant information, current thought. The structure is simple, a folder for the project, and one .md file per day.
It helps me think by writing thing down, free brain memory space and reduces browser tabs number. It gives me an history of what I tried put earlier to solve my issue.
It also give me something to say if anybody ask what I have been doing these past weeks or months (employer, recruiter). Finally, if I ever get a similar bug, I have a good chance to find some help from my past self with ctrl-shift-f. I write my notes with webstorm.
Yes, people like us aren't taking notes to "get lost in our knowledge management system", we're taking them because we are going to need them. People will ask us why we use a best practice, we'll encounter the same bug a second time, or we'll spend a year away from a language and forget. I don't take any notes just to have a complete library of notes. Only ones that I know I will look for again.
I find writing things down in a notepad (that I barely ever look at again) helps with retention and reduces it looping in my brain as much (relieving it to think about and process new things). Anything more complex than that (e.g. notion) is probably overkill/productivity reducing.
That's my essential philosophy with note taking. I tried different note taking apps and having lots of structure and organization in favor of just using Notes.app on macOS and just sticking any random notes or written things in there with no actual plans on coming back to those notes. If I do, I use the search feature and hopefully I provided enough detail in the target note. And if I didn't, well then maybe what I wrote down wasn't that important anyway.
I believe there's a sweet spot between note-taking as a procrastination cope and adding actual value. As in, storing important insights that might trigger more insights in a different context(future).
The value of note-taking is undeniable, it's like a new "layer" after the neocortex where your memories are not exponentially decaying by the lack of usage. So utilization is not the sole factor for recall.
If done well note-taking be be considered "externalized cognition" where you instead of holding everything in your brain and treat as a storage + compute. You just compute. Anything important will be there in your notes. This allows you to have more "mental energy" to actually draw connections between things instead of struggling to remember them. It's like the beta version of neura-link or other intelligence-augmenting technologies.
I'm working on such a thing right now [1] It's like roam(outliner) but also have a HTML(plain text, stable) Engine for you to build more things inside of it.
I agree "elaborate" is the keyword but for a different reason. He doesn't elaborate about what he considers "elaborate" so we have to fill in the blanks.
When I read it, "our most provocative thinkers and writers" made me wonder:
- Given any system don't you have a range of rigid versus loose followers? This looks true from my own observations of the note talking community.
- Couldn't normies those who are not "our most provocative thinkers and writers" get value out of such systems?
- Is Sasha aspiring to be one of "our most provocative thinkers and writers"? He wants to make his mark on the world so part of this writing is self talk.
Sasha accomplishes his goal. it's provocative writing and has produced a decent HN response. I have no evidence he means what he says because if so, it's a topic of personal preference. Fun and interesting but not immediately valuable (to me).
Did I over-engineer my note-taking process? From the outside, probably. But I've tweaked my system overtime so I spent less time fiddling with it and more time writing and producing creative work.
I take lots of notes using Obsidian and organize the notes by tagging with keywords. Overtime, the notes clutter the entire system and I find it difficult to keep track of the notes. Instead of abandoning this particular tool — moving from one tool to the next deludes us into thinking its a tooling problem — I decided to track some key metrics[0] around my note taking system, the metrics serving as a feedback loop.
Ultimately, my goal of note taking is not to take notes: it's to publish writing. To that end, I've designed a note taking system that I consider to be as simple as it can be.
As an avid note-taker, I don't think any of this is un-true. I'll just say for myself I do it because I find note-taking genuinely enjoyable and meditative. I agree that if you're trying to optimize the professional "ROI" of note-taking you'll find the returns fade away pretty quickly. But I do it because it's fun, not because of the supposed ROI.
Here's the observation I've made in getting lost in these rabbit holes:
Remember what the computer is good at vs what the human is good at. People like us get drawn to systems that try to replicate what the human is good at, but we're so much better that many of these things are pointless.
Specifically, I'm thinking about note-taking systems that, for example, generate fancy looking dependency graphs. They may have some use, but your human brains is WAY better at this task of "making immediate connections between disparate ideas."
Chapin isn't against note taking. Chapin is arguing that any note taking system should be kept simple so administering it does not becomes a clever way to distract yourself instead of doing real work. Note taking could be procrastinating, in other words.
I get the point. Larry David of Curb Your Enthusiasm and Seinfeld keeps a small paper journal in his pocket for jotting down notes. An extreme example of note taking is probably the guy who spends all his time trying to photograph and video tape his vacation to the point that he isn't actually "present" to enjoy his own vacation.
tldr: Be careful your note taking doesn't interrupt and degrade your creative "flow" and resulting output
You're welcome. I'm one of those people who gets stuck on gathering information. I told my therapist I had 15 thousand bookmarks and her comment was "Why don't you just Google it?"
Right, so now I mostly see the titles of the bookmarks as a database of keywords I'm interested in that I can Google with later. It doesn't matter if the link is bad, Google will find it a new place. For example, 20 years ago I saved a link to cycling74, now dead. It had something to do with music and media performance software. Sure enough, they're still alive in a new location (https://cycling74.com/) I'm in the process of paring these links down to just keywords
I was genuinely interested, so thanks for the response.
I think a note-taking system would be great for the current version of what you're doing, because it would make the whole thing really easy to grep for keywords.
I kinda wish I had all my really old bookmarks, but as you say--I can find what I want with google.
For the last year or so I've been using GitHub gists to record notes on various procedures in markdown to fill in the gaps between projects that have their own repos and markdown doc. Most of my casual notes get jotted down in Google Keep, but if they're involved enough I either put them in a markdown file on Drive or in a Google doc.
Over the years I've tried a bunch of different proprietary notetaking apps, including OneNote and Evernote. Migrating off those is always a pain, and I've got the ugly conversion scripts to prove it (each of which became useless thereafter with some change by the publisher). I started out 30 years ago with paper notebooks, that I'd still be on now but for the siren's song of searchability offered by electronic systems.
While the OP's prose is fine, I can't say I identify with most of his points. Notetaking for me has always been a way to record and organize information for future reference, not a means of procrastination. Same for technical documentation. But maybe that's because I've always been a tech at heart, and not an artist.
We need to have a conversation about how most of these tools are about coping with anxiety, stress and information hoarding rather than handling complex work. I sometimes mess around Trello more than I do real work but at least I've stopped introducing new tools into my life.
Yes, I sometimes spend way to much time in Trello, it's the only app/system i've ever stuck with.
Sometimes I can spend much longer than I would like to admit, 'figuring things out' writing things down, going through a lot of thoughts then organising it all into Trello, only to find out, it was likely what I already knew anyway and despite the feeling like i was missing something or needed something extra, that wasn't the case.
However, it does help me process, massively, mentally, although it might not increase my productivity as much as I feel like it should, it does help me make sense of everything and the world and therefore able to actually go do things without feeling so confused or if i'm doing the wrong thing all the time etc which allows higher productivity as a by-product.
This is so so accurate. I've published two (academic) books, with a third soon, and a ton of articles, and I've hardly ever gone back to my notes... whereas "channeling what’s in the air at this very second" has led to tenure at a fancy university
I feel like its really trendy to bash note taking apps nowadays.
I get it, theyre a dime a dozen and yeah spending hours on hours configuring multiple of them is probably a waste of time.
But why not take advantage of some of the nice software thats out the for this sort of thing? I wouldnt write down or rememeber half the stuff that I do if I hadnt invested a few hours into finding something id actually use. I doubt people are actually forgoing their creative passions or falling behind in their sprints to tweak note taking apps
Whenever I type `diary` in the terminal, it opens vim on a text file that corresponds to today. All of the diary files are nicely ordered in directory structure that goes $DIARY_ROOT/$year/$month/$day.md
All kinds. I have the same script on my work computer so work logs go there, on my personal computer goes everything else.
I'm planning to add a packer to pack it into sqlite so it gets more sortable. There are some days where I wrote literal essay from my mind and other days like today when I wrote "Honeycomb is too sweet".
It is of extreme utility to me because terminal is the preferred interface of working with a computer.
This doesn't make much sense. If your notes are just going to inform something that is low stakes that will not be reviewed by anyone for accuracy, then it's perfectly serviceable advice. For the vast numbers of note-reliant professionals who need to be able to cite accurately to sources, this advice is childish.
Do you need someone else's system? No, and I didn't even know that this "problem" existed before reading this. The advice ought to be amended to encourage readers to build their own note-taking systems that make sense for them in context. Another useful nugget of advice is to tailor the note-taking style for the task. A freestyle method is certainly appropriate to support an off-the-cuff speech to colleagues, but isn't appropriate for academic or legal research.
The notion that structure is somehow bad is also not salient when the body of research becomes very large. If you are working with research from 100 different books or drafting a legal argument that cites 50 different cases, statutes, and other sources, then it really helps to have some structure in your notes so that it is easy to browse and search through them. When a mistake due to sloppy notes is on your ass and will have bad results for everyone relying on you, then making it "like play" rather than "like work" will only have catastrophic results.
There are serious reasons for systematic note-taking: perhaps you need to summarize the literature on some element of the mitochondrial background radiation of early childhood geography, or something like that, and you have to keep track of a million references to do the thing at all. If your note-taking system is adapted to a specific context of use such as this, then you’re working.
I'm very much struggling with some thoughts about life at the moment.
I often keep thinking about how to be 'awesome', how I want to grow, improve, be more interesting, be better at such and such. In fact this is likely why I am on Hacker news, to find insights and articles to help with this, which it can be one of the best places for.
As a result, I then often write down a lot of quotes, things from articles, ideas, questions etc, which end up in my productivity system or note taking app.
I try to write down a lot of my thoughts, work through then, find different questions to ask etc, but although I am very drawn to this because I don't know what else to do, I am not sure how useful it has been.
It's overwhelming me, because I just go round in circles and I still don't really know what to do and things still don't really make a lot of sense to me. I also think I it's making me boring, because i'm spending more time in the system and i'm being more systematic, i'm not doing anything that exciting.
But i don't really know what is the solution, if I just abandon all of that, I won't be very organised, as i'm terrible at this naturally and I feel like i'll just let my life drift by, i'll wake up in the morning, not sure of what to do, so i'll just succumb to wasting time online.
I'll have a think about this, but I think something to consider would be a way to cut back on all of this, but first i'd have to find something that makes more sense to me.
I think this is kind of a special case of a much more general idea: tools can be useful, but fetishizing tools is not. Note-taking is a tool, and can be useful. For example, I just referred back to some notes I wrote about a paper I am currently working on, and lo, I was reminded of something that I had to do for it that I had forgotten. Then I did that thing. Those notes were a useful tool. Good. On the other hand, I have sometimes wasted an hour or several reading about peoples ideas of how their notes should be organized, with the idle idea that I might become better organized as a result, only to find that I have made no progress on the work I wanted to do, and my note-taking was no more effective than before. I was fetishizing the tool.
Now, this doesn't mean you should never put any effort into your tools. A good tool can save you a lot of work in the long run, even if it took some effort to get it there. And it won't always be clear in advance what toolwork is going to actually make your tools more useful.
Edit to add one more thing: it's also worth noting that working on your tools can be pleasurable, and so doing it for its own sake doesn't need to be a bad thing. But if that is what you are doing, you shouldn't be thinking about it as productive work.
I not sure if the brain is really able to distinguish between what is important and what is not in a world where there is heavy competition to hijack people's brains.
I'm having some trouble understanding what note-taking systems the author is attacking. There are some hints:
> Getting lost in your knowledge management system is a fantastic way to avoid creating things.
> All of the above applies to reading books about note-taking, taking courses about note-taking, and watching videos about note-taking.
> I am waiting for any evidence that our most provocative thinkers and writers are those who rely on elaborate, systematic note-taking systems. I am seeing evidence that people taught knowledge management for its own sake produce unexciting work.
It sounds like Mr. Chapin is referring to formalized techniques or processes for format and organization of notes. But he doesn't give any examples, and I'm not familiar with the ones he hints at - I've never watched any YouTube videos on note taking or read any books on organizing your thoughts.
When I was in college, I took detailed notes in paper notebooks, and still do so occasionally when I'm sitting in a lecture. Otherwise, I send narrative emails to myself, write more business-style notes in Microsoft OneNote, or doodle in a small memo pad. It's clear to me that this is not what he means by a "note-taking system," but what is?
I think the author is largely setting up a strawman. He's alluding to various structured notetaking methodologies (presumably, elaborate wikis, zettels, concept maps, etc.) but then says those methodologies are fine if you're doing detailed, real research work. But honestly, isn't that the only type of person who uses these things? Who would spend all this time building a giant structured notebase just for bits of information of personal interest, with no real application in mind? Most people would lose patience quickly.
I suspect that's the author's point: unless you're doing detailed "real" research work, you probably don't need or even really want the myriad tools optimized for the sorts of structured notetaking and mindmapping and whatnot that such "real" research work entails.
Said point resonates with me quite a bit. It's always inspiring to see people with elaborate Org-mode setups or what have you to maintain every last detail of their lives, and being the disorganized and forgetful hot mess of ADD and possible undiagnosed depression and/or anxiety that I am, it's tempting to think "wow, if I just adopt this complex system with these cool tools then I'll be able to actually get my shit together and not be a complete fuck-up" - and every time I give into that temptation, I learn the hard way that a complex organizational system only really works for those who are already prone to self-organization, and doesn't magically turn chaos into order - and then I'm sad again.
the point about salience is important, but people differ in the quality of their memory
stephen king used to be anti notebook ('writer's notebook best way to immortalize bad ideas'), then later in life was like 'oh my memory is no longer good, I write things down now'
jk rowling (skilled in her craft if not public relations) has file cabinets full of organized creativity -- calendars for the days of the year, vast collections of ideas for names
my sense is that most visual artists have sketches and prototypes (including da vinci), but this is 0% my area. I suppose you can argue that a sketch is 'the thing' and not notes for the thing
I write the date at the top right of each page (in ISO format as god intended) and when I'm done with the page it goes on the pile.
That's as complicated a note taking system as I've ever needed, if I need to find something I just flip the stack looking at the dates until I find what I want - requires no structure beyond that - in the very rare case I can't remember the date even roughly I have to go through the whole stack but that's rare since I normally have a date on an email, ticket/slack conversation to get me in the ballpark.
I think it's about finding the balance. There's no simple rule to tell us how much effort we should spend planning. It is important to realize that, that it is possible to spend too much time planning.
But just because we can't say what exactly is the optimal amount of planning for each project or task, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. It just means that most likely we are doing either too much planning, or too little planning. That's just the way life is.
Yet we hear stories of famous music stars using said note taking systems and touting such things as the reason for their success in song Writing, from my generation Steve Tyler for example.
> -It’s not that I advocate for no note-taking. I just strongly believe in keeping it as elementary as possible, such that the note-taking itself doesn’t become the thrust of the endeavor. Leonardo da Vinci kept all of his notes in one big book. If he liked something he put it down. This is known as a commonplace book, and it is about how detailed your note-taking system should be unless you plan on thinking more elaborately than Leonardo da Vinci. Taping a bunch of cryptic phrases to the walls is also acceptable, or keeping a shoebox full of striking phrases on a jumble of papers, as Eminem did.
Without a count of how many aspiring songwriters used the note taking systems but did not make it, that is likely just survivorship bias. Based on this single data point there is no way to distinguish between whether Steve Tyler succeeded due to talent, due to how hard he worked, due to luck or due to his note taking system.
Not sure exactly what you are referring too, but just a little Anecdote about something else that the internet seems to love about 'Seinfeld'
The Seinfeld technique, basically doing something every day and then marking an X on the calendar, this is apparently what Seinfeld used to become such a big star, if you google it, you will find thousands of articles about it and productivity YouTubers talking about it.
Even James clear one of the most popular authors in the field references it massively in his best selling book Atomic Habits.
Except that isn't the case. It's nonsense. When asked about it Seinfeld himself, barely remembered it, it wasn't something he did, it was just an off-the-chuff remark he gave to someone asking about how to get into comedy once, not his magic secret formula that the internet seems to think it is.
yep. It's curious how it was attached to his name. Maybe a bit of the Mandela Effect going on.
Regardless, I can personally vouch for the method. It's so stupid but it worked for me. Draw a grid on a piece of paper. Mark an X on the next available square every time you do the thing you want to do (i.e. create a habit for). And there is exactly one rule: Do not ever break the chain. Ever. Don't do it you stupid dumbass! Not even one day. No cheat days. Nothing.
The psychological or chemical reward for marking that stupid X seems to be enough to motivate you to change behavior. Might be because this method is so simple it's fool-proof. It's one rule. You can't rationalize your wait out of it.
I think it's a natural process that applies to things beyond just taking notes. (1) Do things (2) notice/suspect/fear that your instinctive approach isn't good enough (3) introduce system (4) realize ways that the overhead of the system is too much (5) pare back or abandon the system (6) hopefully continue with life knowing more about yourself
I wrote a little reply on that[1]. I don't think that a tool is ever to blame. Sure, some tools suck and can be a source of distraction. But human beings need tools to capture creativity and transport them into real life.
I'm not smart enough to understand what I just read, but I've been using OneDrive for years. I have a notes file for each week, and tag each thing I write down. I also have a traveling notes file, for projects that are new, in progress, and expiring.
Accessible from Win, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android. Nothing to install or maintain.
When bored I might open the third week of March 2018 and see what I was interested in, and my mindset.
I'm using OneNote also, but with daily notes, organized into monthly sections. This worked well for about a year, but became somewhat cumbersome. Fortunately the only way I'm ever using notes older than a week or two is via search anyway, so it doesn't really matter that much.
I fully agree with this article and that’s why I have a note taking system. I recognise I have my best ideas spontaneously but a solid note taking system is what helps me pull specific details of what I am trying to do from my past experiences. That being said, it took tons of time before I settled on something that worked for me and I could say: No more optimising. Work time, let’s go.
Different people understand different things when talking about notes and note-taking.
I use a self hosted Trilium Notes instance for organizing tidbits of information like todos for work/home, lists of products for a planned purchase, tiny bash / PowerShell scripts that do a particular task that I don't do often enough, links to stuff I want to eventually read and so on.
I just need a way to both have a thinking note taking system, while also not letting todo items get lost.
My best thinking note system is just a notepad for handwriting, but todo items disappear very quickly in there, which is not ideal (but sometimes it's good, that things naturally slide out if they are less important.)
I for one am thankful for the people who get trapped in the productivity rat race. Without them I wouldn’t have the tools that I use 1% of to take my notes. sunglasses
Google Notebook was the last notebook tool that I adored. I've tried so many tools and systems since then and I end up reverting back to plain text files.
Everything in this article in relation to note taking just detracts from it. The article starts off with a poweful and well-articulated message, to which the remarks on the the somewhat banal topic of note do not contribute much. "Here I have all this insight; let's put it to use in the ho-hum topic of note taking".
Excessively meticulous note taking, and the subsequent organization of the material, is just one example of how some people hope to activate the barrier potential to initiate creativity. For someone else it might be something else; e.g. the coder might look for the best editor, with the perfect font, the nicest syntax coloring scheme. Or hop between languages on a weekly basis. The Future Me which writes the Great Program is doing so in the most suited language, with the best tools, in the nicest looking environment.
Another example might be the rock guitar player who is constantly tweaking the equipment. Swapping pickups, or else adjusting the height of pole pieces. Tweaking amp settings looking for the nicest tone. Shopping online for "stomp boxes". Comparing the tone of instrument cables. If all that stuff falls into place, the Great Tune will write itself.
Tha early point in the article about what is naturally interesting rather forced is a separate point that stands apart. Here, I think the author is off, or at least makes an incomplete point. Because the fact is that to excel in certain endavors, we have to bite the bullet and do grunt work that goes against our natural interest.
In fact, in the examples I gave, it may be the person's natural interest that is actually causing the problem. the coder is naturally interested in trying editors and languages, and customizing the environment. Actually learning how design and implement is hard work that requires forcing oneself.
What's going on is that the real preparedness which is necessary is hard work, so the person substitutes a phony, ineffective preparedness that is easy to slide into, and feels like doing something because it's fun on its own.
It may well the case that "[M]ost heart-stopping writing comes from synthesizing the previously unarticulated in the moment" but that doesn't generalize to every type of worthwhile endeavor. And even the previously unarticulated will stay that way inside someone who hasn't practiced writing by throwing themselves into it for years. Being able to seize that hitherto unarticulated benefits from the right kind of preparedness.
Chapin writes, "Consider how you may be limiting yourself by focusing on the presentation of factual insight as the core of your work". What if the presentation of factual insight in an excellent way is the definition of one's work? There is work like that, and it is work in which one can procrastinate in and avoid getting better at by pursuing ineffective substitutes that feel like preparation toward making progress.
"Just write it anywhere with as light structure as possible" works just fine with modern search methods
"A directory with a bunch of markdown files" is pretty portable too and there are few apps making that a bit easier.
I do divide "just a random notes" from "cheatsheets I use for stuff I use rarely enough to not remember" but that's about most organization. Just a descriptive title and working search function is enough
"Getting lost in your knowledge management system is a fantastic way to avoid creating things. Or calling that friend you’re estranged from. Or doing anything else even mildly threatening. It’s also a fantastic way to convince yourself that unpreparedness is what’s between you and creative work. If you believe you’re unprepared, know that you will never transmute into the perfectly prepared person that you think exists in the future."