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Ask HN: How do you manage “knowledge”

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: How do you manage “knowledge”

#11

Post by jaccarmac »

Interesting that you mention those categories. I have an Org file organized into those headings. TODO, TOLEARN, TOCONSUME. Read/watch/listen subdivisions of each. Items are kept roughly sorted when I feel like it or when I update the progress of something (when I watch an episode I will note the next episode and move the show to the top of the category for example.)

On a day to day basis, I filter things through various channels (HN bookmarks, Reddit saves, emails, YT notifications, links shared to Keep from my phone) into that file. Time sensitive things get an email, etc. The system is certainly not perfect but it's good enough for me. It's made me more aware of the information I consume since there's no way I can possibly get to everything I want to.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage “knowledge”

#12

Post by Jeff_Brown »

Be like Google! Build a graph!

I use a free, open-source knowledge graph database[1] with an Emacs frontend. It resembles tree-based knowledge schemes like FreePlane or Org Mode, but things can have multiple parents, not just multiple children. It offers full-text search via Apache Lucene, which resembles regular expressions but also offers boolean operators. It also lets you selectively merge your knowledge base with other peoples' -- share what you want with who you want, without having to segment your experience of the data into separate files.

(I am one of the developers.)

[1] https://github.com/synchrony/smsn/wiki

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage “knowledge”

#13

Post by tucaz »

josephernest wrote: post #10

I created http://bigpictu.re exactly for this. Maybe you ll find it useful.

Mobile devices not supported (yet).

I really wanted to see what it’s about but I guess I won’t find out.

You could at least add some pictures and a simple description to entice people to go to a desktop to see it.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage “knowledge”

#16

Post by guilhas »

Jeff_Brown wrote: post #12

Be like Google! Build a graph! I use a free, open-source knowledge graph database[1] with an Emacs frontend. It resembles tree-based knowledge schemes like FreePlane or Org Mode, but things can have multiple parents, not just multiple children. It offers full-text search via Apache Lucene, which resembles regular expressions but also offers boolean operators. It also lets you selectively merge your knowledge base wit…

The intro video looks good. I will have to try this.

Currently I use Zim wiki.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage “knowledge”

#17

Post by godelmachine »

There's this habit I've been trying to inculcate since the past few months → Writing 10 ideas every day.

Whatever things I read about technology (most of them are research papers from Hardware Architecture / Emerging Tech section of ArXiv which I visit daily, The Morning Paper by Adrian Colyer, The Ryg Blog by Fabian Giesen et al) - I try to collate and correlate all these ideas and try to imagine something of my own.

Fun PS → James Altucher has promised we will get a seat in the Justice League Watch Tower for sure if we imbibe this habit of writing 10 ideas daily. Such is the power of this idea.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage “knowledge”

#18

Post by sp527 »

I've found the opposite approach to be more useful: elimination, selectivity, and focus.

For example:

Read only the best books, take notes on them, and absorb them fully. Book lists are good, but they tend to grow unbounded and promote anxiety. It's not difficult to get to a book list of 300-500. Once you're there, there's little reason to update it often. The focus should instead become chewing through the list you've created and periodically retreading some of the best ground you've already covered. Most people who are reading are not truly learning, and even fewer are applying. When you find a book that's valuable, expending the additional time and effort to fully incorporate its content and lessons pays tremendous dividends. The best books should be given a chance to fundamentally change how you think. That doesn't happen on a first-pass read.

Aggressively cultivating a frontier of possibilities (I would call this "metaknowledge") is easy, often addictive, generally not useful, and usually detrimental to your emotional health. Most people are not short of possibilities. They're short of the focus, willpower, and grit needed to convert those possibilities into hard-won experience.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage “knowledge”

#19

Post by schmidty »

OmniFocus for all actionable items Pinboard for tagging links Google doc listing quotes I like Instapaper for reading later YouTube for watch later Overcast + huffduffer for listen later

All of these work/sync cross my desktop laptop and iPhone.

In progress is a wiki type system for potentially typing it all together. Dropbox Paper has been great for the wiki part.

Re: Ask HN: How do you manage “knowledge”

#20

Post by nikhilrajendra »

sp527 wrote: post #18

I've found the opposite approach to be more useful: elimination, selectivity, and focus. For example: Read only the best books, take notes on them, and absorb them fully. Book lists are good, but they tend to grow unbounded and promote anxiety. It's not difficult to get to a book list of 300-500. Once you're there, there's little reason to update it often. The focus should instead become chewing through the list you'…

Really liked your answer, thank you!
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