This is what I learned from designing data architectures: If your data is variegated in format and form, don't look for a single tool/method solution to organize them. There is no single all-purpose organization method. Don't start with figuring out a method to organize your information. You will end up overengineering your org method. Instead, organize your information per "use-case". Start with a specific use-case/…
Don't start with figuring out a method to organize your information. You will end up overengineering your org method. I think this is an important point. I like to start with a few simple rules: - To retrieve information, I should know where to start: a Schelling point.[0] For me, this is the home page of my wiki. For wenc, it's a Google Doc. - It shouldn't take me more than three clicks to get from my starting point…
Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?
151–160 of 228 posts
Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?
#152>collected a large amount of ebooks, papers, articles, movies, pictures, etc. (all digital). Since you mentioned those specific examples, I see a commonality and so I'm going to assume you're primarily concerned about organizing files that are not authored/generated by you . (Except possibly pictures/photos since you might be talking about jpgs from your personal iPhone or digital camera.) This distinction is key bec…
Are there services for this where you can link in your own backend?
Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?
#153Notion for everything: my work, personal, and wife+I joint workspace.
Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?
#154http://vincentmtang.com/toolbox/
I only put all the ways I organize my things via software, still a WIP (work in progress) for hardware things I use (pens, notebooks, etc)
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## Notetaking / Productivity
Dynalist – Primary notetaking software
Airtable – Google spreadsheet meets microsoft access. A swiss army knife for business. Very useful for making a minimal viable prototype
Pinboard – Bookmarking. I consider this 3rd party chrome extension a must-have, I bind it to my CTRL+D key
Anki – Flashcard software. I use it to speed up learning math, programming languages, and computer science.
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## Software Development
Chrome – My everyday browser
Slimjet – A simple chromium based browser that I use for webdevelopment occasionally. Because then I can have a seperate desktop icons
VS Code – My primary IDE
Github – Git + cloud storage for programming projects
Codepen – Isolated frontend environment. Used to A/B test components and explore cool things. Organize codesnippets here like I do in evernote.
Postman – API testing
LucidChart – Making flowchart diagrams and data models. Not free though, for that I prefer draw.io
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## Design Tools – (macOS and windows)
Flux – Makes screen red at night so I can sleep easier
AffinityDesigner – I use all adobe products as well, but I prefer this over illustrator
AffinityPhoto – Same reason, I prefer over adobe photoshop
AdobeIndesign – Catalog & Brochure design
Figma – UX design tool, applesketch is macOS only
AutoCAD – Architectural drafting program, but not free
Fusion360 – 3D modelling program for DIY projects
GooglePhotos – Photo & video backup
Dropbox – Cloud storage for files/folders
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## WINDOWS SPECIFIC
Phraseexpress – Keyboard macro automation. Checkout my 14 phrase-express guide to see use cases
Autohotkey – When I need an advanced macro that phrase express doesn’t work on. It has a high learning curve and ugly syntax language though
DirectoryOpus – Native windows file explorer sucks, this is best file explorer in market. Has a learning curve. Checkout use cases here
7+ Taskbar Tweaker – Smaller icons on my windows desktop screen
Blank Spacer Exes – It gets hard to look at so many icons in windows, so this gives me eye relief by grouping icons together
Greenshot – The best windows quick image editor out there. First thing I install on friends/family PC normally, its that good. MacOS version is not good.
ShareX – ShareX is greenshot image editor that supports gif uploads / custom image-hosting options. Version 11.6 is the best. MacOS has no equivalent.
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## MacOS specific – alot of programming apps
Iterm2 – A better terminal environment. I binded it to ⌃⌥[spacebar]
Oh-my-zsh – My preferred bash alternative for development
Penc – Gesture based window snapping/resizing
Spectacle – Keyboard based window snapping/resizing
Keyboard Maestro – Keyboard automation for macOS. Similar to phraseexpress but better
Alfred – Better alternative to macOS’s spotlight for quickly opening files / apps. I binded it to ⌥[spacebar]
Captured – An inferior version to shareX without gif support, but best thing I could find.
Dropzone 3 – For quickly handling common tasks like moving folders around
Cheatsheet – Because I’m a new mac user I need to quickly memorize commands
Unarchiver – So I can one click install things on macOS
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## Chrome Extensions – Productivity
Silverbird – For quickly tweeting things on twitter
Tabsnooze – Set reminders to myself to pay bills at end of month, and to do incremental reading
Pagenotes – When I need to save some specific information on a website. E.G. terminal commands, regular expressions on regex101.com, etc.
TheGreatSuspender – Suspends unused tabs after 30 minutes. Because chrome is a memory hog
Tampermonkey – Injecting javascript on a page to enhance notetaking tools. Its like your own chrome extension. Read about how I use it here
Ankitab – Relatively unknown, but its the opposite of Momentum. I use it to review flashcards thoughout the day
DynalistCompanionClipper – I use this with my notetaking app dynalist, I dump all my ideas here as they happen.
Stylus – Add custom CSS to webpages. Since stylish was tracking user data and got banned
VideoSpeedController – So I can play youtube videos up to 16x speed with captions to speedread. Its how I consume information very quickly
Imagus – Hover over an image to see its full view. Useful for my notetaking app dynalist, as well
GoogleDictionary – Select a word to see its definition.
PowerThesaurus – Select a word to see synonym and antonyms. Thesaurus are my favorite business and coding tool, naming is important
ClipboardHistory2 – SelectAll, CopyAll – you now have a saved copy of whatever your typing on reddit / hackernews / wordpress
Lastpass – Chrome extension for managing passwords. Cross platform
AmazonAssistant – So I can dump all my favorited wishlist items anywhere to amazon, export it out later
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## Chrome Extensions – WebDevelopment
Wappylzer / Builtwith – To check what websites are running these days, accurate 50% of time
Page Ruler – Measure things on screen quickly
Webdeveloper – Powerful swiss army knife for webdevelopment, but I never use it
ViewportResizer – For responsive webdevelopment, I use this daily. Better than chrome’s native tools. Checkout bookmark version here
Gifscrubber – I need to pause gifs especially if I want to make a codepen of it from dribbble, etc. PlaytheGif is a close equivalent.
RefinedGithub – Better looking github made by Sindresorhus
Octotree – Left side file explorer for github repos
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## Android / General
ColorNotes – Every other noteapp I’ve used sucks. I write things here, copy+paste it to dynalist later
GoogleKeep – When I need to quickly sync an image or text from my phone to PC and nothing else works
Meetup – Use the specific link, login, and add URL to homepage. Meetup android app sucks. Shows only the 28 techmeetups I’m subbed to
SolidExplorer – File explorer
Should I answer? – Tells me if phonecaller is a scammer. Not that I pick up phonecalls I don’t recognize anyways, that’s what voicemails for.
Slack – Team communication
OfficeLens – For making PDF’s from documents using your phone camera.
waze – If I know a driving route is slow, I use waze
okgoogle – My favorite commands are: “Play spotify”, “Next Song”, “Navigate Home”, “Exit Navigation”, “Find Parking”
Spotify – Music
Musixmatch – Lyrics for spotify
GoogleCalendar – Calendar
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## Content / News
Youtube – I only put an alert on people that post high quality content infrequently. E.G., SmarterEveryDay, MarkRober, TomScott
ProductHunt – Where I like to see all the new fun tools out there
Hackernews – Lots of smart and interesting people here. Also, where I find out about news in the tech environment
Reddit/subreddits – Copy this multihub, delete ones that aren’t relevant to you, add cool ones like r/welding, r/cableporn, r/engineeringPorn
Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?
#155I use Dropbox to store everything. There are no files that I care fore that are not managed by Dropbox (or iCloud, for my photos/videos). I use iA Writer to create lists and documents for everything in Dropbox folders. I also have a folder for PDFs/papers (also on Dropbox). There are also folders for my study nodes ( I study codebases ), notes on personal stuff, notes on Programming, on pretty much everything. I use…
Hmm I have a similar setup except I use gitlab private repo... but really there isn't that much of a need for a 'commit history' in notes... I think I'll try the dropbox approach.
Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?
#156Nothing comes close anywhere.
Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?
#157DEVONthink - great for all things bookmarks, data, searchable PDFs etc - can also use it for org-mode files and open in your fav editor. Many sync options. Mobile too.
Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?
#158I use WorkFlowy[1] as my starting place for all notes, info, and tech tips. It's quickly searchable and the mobile client is easy to use. I really like the structure of bulleted lists for just about all types of information. It doesn't really cover your file storage needs, but I think that's a different beast than notes and information. When I need to store stuff like that I dump it on Google Drive which makes search…
Judging by Workflowy's development pace, the entire team is spending the profit on opiates. No features were introduced in the past couple years, aside from the desktop apps—despite users begging for an API at least. Now Workflowy went the way of Evernote: changing the looks and adding bugs. The outline paradigm is great, and Workflowy is a nice influx of fresh blood in that field, but I think I might actually kludge…
Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?
#159As this question comes up quite frequently, here are some past discussions: - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17586375 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11945882 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15736102
Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?
#160Another shameless plug: you might find https://johnnydecimal.com useful. Forgive the design, I’m right this very weekend updating the whole thing. I’m busy writing a little web app which will replace the spreadsheet you’ll currently need to keep track of your numbers.
Do you still find value in the enumeration aspect? Is this something where there's more value in it within collaborative environments?