Emacs org mode
yes, absolutely. I also use xmind too.
Ask HN: How do you keep track of your creative thoughts?
201–210 of 285 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your creative thoughts?
#202I (and am sure many here) have been in the same situation. I have tried physical books (which I'm still biased towards), OneNote (my next favourite, especially on tablets with stylus), txt files, wiki etc. Ultimately what I realised is that it is all useless if I don't have a periodic review session for these ideas. So, what I am doing these days (not with much success due to lack of discipline) is to have 2 or 3 dif…
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Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your creative thoughts?
#203I keep track of creative thoughts in a journal [ http://jrnl.sh ] I keep track of tasks with taskwarrier [ https://taskwarrior.org/ ] For both of the above, I use Dropbox to share data on multiple devices. The only downside with the above can be the lack of mobile app support. (Personally, I do not miss this) Edit: My daily journal is on paper, which I write at the end of the day. The jrnl command line app above is t…
Thanks for suggesting jrnl. If you are on Android then Termux and Hacker's Keyboard should solve your issue https://github.com/maebert/jrnl/issues/329#issuecomment-3484...
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your creative thoughts?
#204The best way to store your ideas is to memorize them. This is the ultimate goal. If they are baked into your consciousness, they become an automatic part of everything you do.
Humans have a long evolved history of memorization. Before we had writing, we had to memorize the things that mattered. Don't forget that this practice is baked into your genes.
To get there, it helps to write down your ideas, and to organize them together, reflect on them, find patterns in them. But the actual medium doesn't matter as much as the practice you follow. Remember that when you are writing down your ideas, you aren't dumping them into an offline store -- you are making them nice and pretty and well-organized for your brain to remember them as you write them down. Write them down to fill in your brain; not to offload.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your creative thoughts?
#205I've been recording them via my Android phone in the Orgzly app (org-mode mobile), which works very well for ideas and TODOs. I sync the files over to my desktop, where I edit them with a text editor and refactor them into my TiddlyWiki (personal wiki). It's been a game changing combination for me. I'm hoping to make a GUI editor for working with the org-mode files produced by Orgzly, as Orgzly is wonderful and learn…
Haha -- are you saying creating a GUI editor is easier than learning emacs? :p
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your creative thoughts?
#206I started using the "hipster pda" after reading about it on hn, I love it. Goes wherever I go and I can reorganize pages easily. Unlike digital notetaking you can also do doodles, flowcharts, and mockups. I have an index card box to archive them.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your creative thoughts?
#207Wallet sized index cards. I put thoughts and ideas. They can be sorted and copied to elsewhere if it's something that gets implemented.
I also use Google keep for all product and Tech ideas. that's if it definitely has an implementation or it's a task or thing to research.
Pocket moleskin for daily log.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your creative thoughts?
#208I'm not the documenting type at all, but I do have a habit I developed of writing my current "state of mind" before the weekend, so that I'd remember where I left off at the start of the week. I usually remember my ideas during the day or so of thinking about them, it's usually during longer breaks that you forget about stuff. You never just "forget" stuff, it just goes "cold" in your memory and you're less likely to remember it when you need it. Find a way to remind yourself of stuff when you need it - notes are useless if you forget they exist.
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your creative thoughts?
#209The best way to store your ideas is to memorize them. This is the ultimate goal. If they are baked into your consciousness, they become an automatic part of everything you do. Humans have a long evolved history of memorization. Before we had writing, we had to memorize the things that mattered. Don't forget that this practice is baked into your genes. To get there, it helps to write down your ideas, and to organize t…
Could not agree more with this, especially for creative ideas or knowledge that is most useful when instantly accessible (ie mental models and facts/concepts that help with making decisions when you can’t do a bunch of research beforehand).
To help with this internalization I made a chrome extension that lets you review your ideas using spaced repetition in new browser tabs. Check it out if you’re interested https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/forgetmenot/nncbpj...
Re: Ask HN: How do you keep track of your creative thoughts?
#210I usually toss the ideas around in my head for a little while and then I will write it up and keep it in Google Drive. It may be a page or a few pages, or a half a page. I create a folder for the idea and then put the document inside that.
What I do not typically do is go over my old ideas, which might be a good idea. But I think the act of writing the idea down goes a long way towards crystallizing it in my memory, for is I ever want to revisit it. (Back in college, I would take notes in class, but never review them.)
Most of the ideas get touched only the one time. Some I come back to and expand on. And some actually become projects (which is what I call the root folder where I keep all these, "projects").
If the idea does become a bigger project, I will often have many more ideas and they will get written up in the same folder.