Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?

#171

Post by davidp670 » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 3:28 AM UTC

I have to recommend checking out Bookmark OS. It's like an online desktop and makes it super easy to keep bookmarks and notes organized https://bookmarkos.com

Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?

#172

Post by bcheung » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 3:43 AM UTC

ajmarsh wrote: post #86

bcheung wrote: post #81

Would help us to know more about the specific use case and goal you had in mind. For now, generically speaking, I use OneNote for keeping track of my own generated ideas and pasting in things from other sources. For larger media I recommend having a network drive or using Dropbox. I'm happy with OneNote. For my more technical ideas where I'm brainstorming I have a nice leather journal (no lines) that I use for brains…

I loved OneNote until I tried to put some code snippets into it. Somehow over time they become unusable for cut and paste into *nix systems. Did you find a way to overcome this? I have no time to dos2unix everything.

No, I don't really use it for code. I use git repos / gist for that.

Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?

#173

Post by rasengan0 » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 4:11 AM UTC

Really enjoying this one: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mindscope-thought-organizer/...

Based on this concept http://www.mandal-art.com/

but original mandalart author had/has less effective implementation

Truisms from time: - Content > tool config - Simple is better - Have good search - ISO 8601 date format, line based entries

Old and current flames over 20 yrs: - Google Desktop - TheBrain - MindManager - Freemind - NotationalVelocity - TiddlyWiki - VimWiki on vim as Deft folder on emacs in evil-mode - Org-Mode in native and evil mode - log bash script - sqlite3 - Traveller notebook, pencil and paper

Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?

#174

Post by DEADBEEFC0FFEE » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 5:11 AM UTC

klenwell wrote: post #57

wenc wrote: post #34

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…

> It shouldn't take me more than three clicks to get from my starting point to the information I'm looking for.

I see this sort of criteria and really don't agree. There are many operations that take more than three clicks. Navigation a UI is a graph in itself, and we can handle way more than 3 nodes. In the same way that I can remember how to get to work, or get a book from one of my bookshelves.

Anyway, small point.

Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?

#175

Post by johntash » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 5:47 AM UTC

bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #151

klenwell wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What software do you use for your wiki?

I'm not currently using a personal wiki, but both MediaWiki and Confluence are pretty easy to set up. Confluence/Jira licenses are cheap for self-hosted personal use. MediaWiki is oss and probably not going anywhere anytime soon.

Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?

#176

Post by johntash » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 6:02 AM UTC

megous wrote: post #163

I'm not sure why noone in 150 comments recommended RDBMS yet, but it's great way to store information in general. I put a lot of personal things into RDBMS either imported from external sources, or added manually: invoices, double accounting, time tracking info/worklogs, bank account records, phone company records, passwords, email, irc/chat logs, things to download, things I bought in aliexpress incl. description an…

I'd be interested in hearing more about the system you use.

Have you written anything about it before, I'm curious about more specific examples around what you're doing.

Do you automate most/some of what you put in?

I've thought about writing some scripts to export things from various online accounts/services/apis and importing them into a personal database mostly for backup purposes. It sounds like you're already doing that, and more.

Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?

#177

Post by thallukrish » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 6:04 AM UTC

The answers here probably have the clues. But someone has to work hard to figure out the ONE answer that is minimal and satisfies all needs.

Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?

#178

Post by johntash » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 6:11 AM UTC

dade_ wrote: post #162

inawarminister wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do any of you sync your Zim/open it from mobile, specifically Android? I've been using Zim for a few days now and it works well, but would be much better if I can access the database while on the go...

I used zim for a while, then switched to Joplin. Huge fan, cli, modern and mobile interfaces. Choose your own storage. open sourcen

Thanks for the mention of Joplin. I just started looking at it and it looks pretty decent for an evernote replacement.

Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?

#179

Post by kd5bjo » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 6:17 AM UTC

I started down this road several months ago, and decided to write my own system that can grow and change as I discover how I want to organize things. It's roughly modeled off of a traditional categorized card-catalog system, with the addition of zettelkasten-style numbered links. As a concrete example, here's a card that I added today:

  [[379]]  Sjö Milljarður Manneskjur
        |  Tölvuleikur - Forritun
        |  Inventory - Steam library
        |  Computer Science - Concepts - Multiprocessing
        |
        |  ,,Seven Billion Humans''
        |
        |  2018; re: concurrency
        |________
        |  Backreferences:
        |  [[380]]  Tomorrow Corporation
        |        >  2018: [[379]] Seven Billion Humans

Re: Ask HN: How to organize personal knowledge?

#180

Post by simonebrunozzi » Sun, Sep 02, 2018, 6:34 AM UTC

This screams like a startup idea you should pursue. I would buy the service.