yes. i do this every day on my personal blog. i highly recommend it. i've been doing it for 18+ years, every day. publishing something... anything.
Ask HN: Do you keep a personal knowledge repository?
121–129 of 129 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep a personal knowledge repository?
#122Yes, I write on little journals, I have almost 6 yrs doing it and I have a little box full of them, It isn't organized but it's always nice to look through when I'm searching something.
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep a personal knowledge repository?
#123I keep a personal library (of physical books) for this reason. People often underestimate the value of spacializing knowledge. I write in the margins, mark them up, and leave scraps of paper with notes. Then I put them on shelves in broad categories - for me that’s things like architecture, design, technical, photography, philosophy. The result is a system thats’s easy to retrieve from, and importantly, easy to browse. The spines become symbols for collections of thought. I have yet to come across a piece of software that more effectively facilitates drawing inferences and connections from deep material. IMHO everything else can be found on Google.
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep a personal knowledge repository?
#124I use and recommend Notion ( https://notion.so ) although I do work there, so there’s some bias. It’s good for free-form notes, but also has databases and relations for more structured data. Also has top-of-the-like Markdown and HTML export to get your data out. You can publish parts of your workspace publicly read-only, or share via email with guests.
Just searched to find the comment to upvote. Notion changed my life! It took over my life. It is my everything. My life is in Notion now. It is my repository of life. I am not exaggerating. I do not work there. It is SUCH a quality product in every way. You have features that I only even think about after using it every day for 8 months.
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep a personal knowledge repository?
#125Last year, I went through this whole gamut of the usual suspects emacs(org-mode), plain text, markdown, tiddlywiki/ mediawiki/bunch of other wikis, google keep, one note, notational velocity, anki, evernote, LaTeX. One after the other, they all crumbled. I tried them all and failed. I got to a point of calm reflection based on my experience with each one. I realized what was most important for me. I eventually settle…
Hi. I also thought of email when I was thinking about this problem recently. How do you get information from your email thread to the wiki? And is this a github wiki?
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep a personal knowledge repository?
#126LOL! Yeah, in my browser bookmarks! It...Is...A... MESS! I basically have it in typical outline form: I.A.1.a.i.,etc., without the I.A...headers, but rather, titles. I noticed the other day that I have 3 different Linux Main chapters, 4 Tutorials Main chapters...and suddenly, an epiphany. It reminded me of my brain: a lot of things in there, but a real pain to try and find. And those mind- mapping apps? Why? They don't have any semblance of order either! They looked like the web from a spider whose all 4 pairs of eyes are crossed. I am trying to brainstorm, but then my ears fill up with water from the storm, and those tiny lightning bolts are painful! I will figure something out. Oooh! Time to go play in traffic! Momma says it's good for building up my reflexes! K, bye!
~MJC
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep a personal knowledge repository?
#127Yes, I write on little journals, I have almost 6 yrs doing it and I have a little box full of them, It isn't organized but it's always nice to look through when I'm searching something.
I do this too with the little journals. Started in 2011 and am on journal #72 at the moment. They still fit in a shoebox.
My secret is to transcribe the journals to text files. Then it's searchable, too!
A frequent (daily) transcription process also yields other benefits such as being an intrinsic reminder system.
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep a personal knowledge repository?
#128I use Google Keep and add all my personal learnings under a common label - Wiki. Google Keep has excellent search capabilities too so easy to find what you're looking for.
Re: Ask HN: Do you keep a personal knowledge repository?
#129Last year, I went through this whole gamut of the usual suspects emacs(org-mode), plain text, markdown, tiddlywiki/ mediawiki/bunch of other wikis, google keep, one note, notational velocity, anki, evernote, LaTeX. One after the other, they all crumbled. I tried them all and failed. I got to a point of calm reflection based on my experience with each one. I realized what was most important for me. I eventually settle…
Hi. I also thought of email when I was thinking about this problem recently. How do you get information from your email thread to the wiki? And is this a github wiki?
Email is my todo/inbox. Its disposable. Wiki is gitlab wiki. It is my index for the information I've collected.
I do not move too much information from email to wiki. I'm quite mindful of it actually. Wiki gets written and re-written, cross linked and edited. I keep it consistent. Helps quick lookups. I very frequently use markdown files in topic specific directories. Helps store information gathered from deep dives on those topics. Markdown file names are also consistent - YYMMDD-topic-detail.md. Helps sorting by date.
I use the wiki mostly for the free hosting and the links. I could very well use a static site generator when there's enough content in a topic's directory to be shared as a mini website. A link to the wiki on the home screen comes quite handy.