Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How do you manage “knowledge”

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 34 posts

Ask HN: How do you manage “knowledge”

#1

Post by PixelMath »

I am not sure "knowledge" is the right word to put it but this is something I've been struggling with, how to manage all the things that are not in your mind yet

Things to Do, Things to Learn, Things to Consume (Watch/Read/Listen), Save good things to find later (Articles, Infographics, Quotes etc), Quick Note, Unsorted Web Links, Thoughts on various topics (Impact of various tech on specific domains, better team building, various design practices etc ), etc

I sometimes spend a couple of days or so restructuring all these and then slowly I drift away to reach the same point where I started from (usually takes less than 3 months) and when I reach that stage my productivity comes to a halt, and the cycle continues Every-time I try a different Method (Bookmarks, Google Keep, Plain Text notes, OneNote) but nothing seems to be "just right"

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

#2

Post by xstartup »

We have a bot which includes relevant discourse forum links in our GitHub issues as links.

We make it a point to summarize discussions from Slack in discourse after which the discourse topic is closed.

We also use Trello but not for extended discussions, just for prioritizing.

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

#3

Post by z3t4 »

If it's not interesting enough for me to want to learn it right away then it's not interesting enough. Also lets say you have a normal distribution of 1-10 scale, where 10 is the most interesting thing you ever learned about. And you find an 8 or better, just stop looking and learn that. Because it's very unlikely you will find any better in the near future. Also don't do todo-lists, make schedules instead! In order to add something to your time, you have to remove something else! So is this thing more important then what you currently spend your days doing !? Then set aside time for it.

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

#4

Post by dirktheman »

I use Evernote for exactly this. I organized it with a couple of notebooks: Filing cabinet, Family, Work, Inbox and Templates. I have about 20 tags that I can assign to each note and I rename all notes with the date in the name so a combination of tags, title and notebook alsways yields the result I want.

A couple of takeaways: - Evernote Premium is well wort hit, it converts all PDFs and images with OCR so that the text within it is searcheable

- I scan each incoming mail item that’s even remotely significant. All bills, letters etc. go into the filing cabinet, should I ever need it.

- The scannable app (by Evernote) outperforms almost any scanner below 500 dollars. And it’s free.

- The web clipper is awesome for storing websites for future reading

- I use Evernote not only as a filing cabinet, but also as a notebook for random notes/ideas, repository for my children’s drawings, scrapbook, wish list, to-do pad, grocery list, you name it.

We’re completely paperless (only some really important papers and drawings are kept) and it’s a huge improvement in our lives. As opposed to most people, I can tell you exactly how much our electric bill is, when the last PTA meeting was, what the VIN number of the car is, the exact dimensions of my living room and where/when we bought that nice IKEA vase. All within seconds. I find it liberating how much space in my head is cleared because I don’t have to remember all that stuff anymore.

If you're interested in going paperless: https://www.jamierubin.net/going-paperless/

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

#5

Post by tmaly »

I have struggled with this same issue as I would keep things in a paper sketch pad or in something like a bookmark or note manager.

It just seemed too difficult to bring together all my ideas.

I recently picked up a copy of the 2001 GTD book and I am working through getting into the process of using an app called Things 3.

Getting it all out of my head and being able to partition it into projects even if they are someday type things has been very powerful.

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

#6

Post by favadi »

dirktheman wrote: post #4

I use Evernote for exactly this. I organized it with a couple of notebooks: Filing cabinet, Family, Work, Inbox and Templates. I have about 20 tags that I can assign to each note and I rename all notes with the date in the name so a combination of tags, title and notebook alsways yields the result I want. A couple of takeaways: - Evernote Premium is well wort hit, it converts all PDFs and images with OCR so that the…

As much as I hate Evernote, I still haven't found anything better yet.

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

#7

Post by dirktheman »

favadi wrote: post #6
dirktheman wrote: post #4

I use Evernote for exactly this. I organized it with a couple of notebooks: Filing cabinet, Family, Work, Inbox and Templates. I have about 20 tags that I can assign to each note and I rename all notes with the date in the name so a combination of tags, title and notebook alsways yields the result I want. A couple of takeaways: - Evernote Premium is well wort hit, it converts all PDFs and images with OCR so that the…

As much as I hate Evernote, I still haven't found anything better yet.

I don't hate Evernote, but there are some things that I dislike:

- The UI on Windows is terrible. It's so much better on a Mac and I just don't understand why.

- I would like more formatting options for my notes. Even a TineMCE editor from the mid 90's has more options.

- Evernote Skitch is basically useless

OneNote is much better at these things, but the rest of the Evernote ecosystem makes up for it. I fee like there are apps out there that perform these things much better, but because I've invested into the Evernote ecoystem I won't use them.

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

#8

Post by sghiassy »

favadi wrote: post #6
dirktheman wrote: post #4

I use Evernote for exactly this. I organized it with a couple of notebooks: Filing cabinet, Family, Work, Inbox and Templates. I have about 20 tags that I can assign to each note and I rename all notes with the date in the name so a combination of tags, title and notebook alsways yields the result I want. A couple of takeaways: - Evernote Premium is well wort hit, it converts all PDFs and images with OCR so that the…

As much as I hate Evernote, I still haven't found anything better yet.

Evernote app quality has gone down hill considerably in the last two years. Total shame. They really have something useful

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

#9

Post by txsh »

Bookmarks aren’t enough. You lose old material when the URL changes or the site gets taken down. And you can’t search the content of bookmarked pages.

Text files don’t allow you to embed images, video. Structuring of data is too one-dimensional.

Other document files take too much time and energy to search and maintain.

Online services like Evernote cost money and have too many annoying quirks.

Mediawiki is too slow and bloated. It’s editor sucks and it takes too much work to upload and embed images.

BookStack is the way to go:

https://www.bookstackapp.com

It’s a wiki. It’s fast. It’s searchable. It’s got a great WYSIWYG/Markdown editor with code highlighting.

You can manually upload images or upload them by pasting then directly into the page.

It’s Book-Chapter-Page organization is easy and intuitive.

It’s also free, open source, and easy to self-host.

Post reply on HN