VSCode + markdown files which are linked (Foam).
Zotero for stuff collected from browser.
Ask HN: What's your note-taking methodology?
41–50 of 77 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's your note-taking methodology?
#42I have a page in Notion called "Quick Notes". I have this page favorited and have a widget on the home screen of my phone where it shows up prominently. This makes it easy to get things out of my brain very quickly.
Every evening I journal about / document my day and set up basic todos for the next day (takes about 15 minutes). During this time I also review my Quick Notes page and file things away as necessary (e.g. Todos, notes about something I researched, calendar events, summary of an interesting conversation I had with a stranger, etc get put where they need to go).
As far as note-taking when I'm learning something, I do something like the Cornell method where I write notes as questions and then write the answers underneath or to the side. When I review the notes, I try to answer the question first and check my answer against my notes. This format also makes it really easy to throw things in Anki.
Re: Ask HN: What's your note-taking methodology?
#43I'm not strictly taking notes any more. I'm journaling/free-writing to get extended/detailed ideas down that I've had, which consists of a bunch of text files in a directory that sometimes end up combined in subdirectories, often refer to each other, and are frequently appended to/refined. But the main thing I'm doing note-wise is that first I read a thing through once, trying to carefully understand, but not necessa…
You use sounds very, very close to mine. I also put so much information into Anki - it makes me look like a superhuman to recall some keyboard shortcut or Python function or algorithmic technique or RFC. Definitely has affected my employability - two of my last three gigs were from recommendations. Anki is my superpower, and I'm not shy to tell about it.
Re: Ask HN: What's your note-taking methodology?
#44For a bit I was using vimwiki. I really liked it, however, getting it to work with images was a huge pain in the butt. So lately I have been using Obsidian. It allows me to use vim mode, paste images, and also write notes in md format. Check it out at https://obsidian.md/
It took me many attempts to adopt Obsidian, but eventually, now I am hooked. The key for me was Daily notes (see Periodic Notes plugin) + Tasks. It allows me to write freely while using todo-like bullet lists to remember the upcoming tasks. I'm planning for more extensive use but one step at a time...
I will check out that plug-in. Thanks!
Re: Ask HN: What's your note-taking methodology?
#45I'm not strictly taking notes any more. I'm journaling/free-writing to get extended/detailed ideas down that I've had, which consists of a bunch of text files in a directory that sometimes end up combined in subdirectories, often refer to each other, and are frequently appended to/refined. But the main thing I'm doing note-wise is that first I read a thing through once, trying to carefully understand, but not necessa…
Offtopic: > and at least 15-20 minutes of it is done while shitting One of things I understood too late is what a proper shit takes 2-3 minutes at worst, I just used that time to be alone with my things and thoughts. YMMV, of course.
Just be sure to wipe before it dries, don't wait until you get up. Tip for life ))
Re: Ask HN: What's your note-taking methodology?
#46I just use Apple Notes now.
Syncs automatically across devices.
Super easy to share content from each web page or app directly with notes.
Has folders and tags to organize stuff.
They always add new features - like smart folders.
I keep all the random notes there and also write longer essays that I publish on my site.
So everything is in one place.
Re: Ask HN: What's your note-taking methodology?
#47I keep a daily markdown file in a github repo.
* To search my notes I can pull + grep the files.
* To view a specific day's notes in my browser, github renders the file with images and everything.
* To upload images, I can paste from my clipboard into the notes using github's editor; they upload and link the images for me.
I tried using Notion but it costs money and isn't portable. Roam is similar. Unigraph is a similar tool that isn't publicly available yet but worth checking out if you like those tools.
Logseq is the closest thing to what I wanted, but you have to use their app and I like being able to add notes from any computer in just a browser. For work I keep my notes in a single Google Doc, which works surprisingly well, but doesn't work for my personal notes since I want them to be easily backed up and portable.
Re: Ask HN: What's your note-taking methodology?
#48I structure my notes on a topic as if it were a book.
- There's a table of contents.
- There are prerequisites for each section (links to other sections within the notes).
- There's a terminology section at the bottom has short definitions for all the new terms I should remember (software automatically links each usage of a term to its entry in the terminology section).
Re: Ask HN: What's your note-taking methodology?
#49I use Beat. Because it’s so fast! Other than that no specific structure.
Re: Ask HN: What's your note-taking methodology?
#50I'm not strictly taking notes any more. I'm journaling/free-writing to get extended/detailed ideas down that I've had, which consists of a bunch of text files in a directory that sometimes end up combined in subdirectories, often refer to each other, and are frequently appended to/refined. But the main thing I'm doing note-wise is that first I read a thing through once, trying to carefully understand, but not necessa…
Offtopic: > and at least 15-20 minutes of it is done while shitting One of things I understood too late is what a proper shit takes 2-3 minutes at worst, I just used that time to be alone with my things and thoughts. YMMV, of course.
I actually take my time because of something I heard years ago - that it's the hurrying that does damage down there. My shits are actually pretty healthy, but I just take my time, don't strain, and don't hurry things. If I don't have 15 minutes to shit, I'm overscheduled.