Ask HN: Why the obsession with note taking?

I have a paper notebook that lets me be more present in different scenarios and only capture stuff like actions or critical facts. Likewise key data around policy numbers, cost codes, etc. go into a markdown file.

I used to be a voracious note-and-knowledge capture type between Standard Notes and Obsidian. I'd keep both a daily rolling log of everything I did + cross-ref and expand key items into broader knowledge capture.

It probably has some intangible benefit I didn't pick up on but overall it just felt like a waste of energy compared to letting stuff go, sometimes having to google stuff again, and putting effort into building things and talking to people.

I also started to wonder, what is the value? Documentation, code comments, communication all help to take an idea or understanding from Me -> People. Hoarding notes and digital content for myself really didn't accomplish much other than demanding attention.

However, we forgot that just reached our natural constraints, and maybe its a good thing. So instead of buying into the next solution, maybe, just maybe we should just do less and filter more.

I think the "best process" is driven by goals — my husband gets by just using notepad and plaintext files, because he and I have very different goals with our notes. He's a software developer, and I'm a nerdy scifi author.

As long as his code is documented clearly, he mostly doesn't need a system more complicated than some .txt files and browser history search. Me? I've got way too much going on, and I need to be able to follow reference chains so I can figure out what the heck I was thinking six months ago when I wrote the thing I'm trying to publish.

And in that same vein, the actual physical limitations of what we can juggle in our minds is fallible. So with the leverage that we get with digital note-taking tools, we think that we may be able to cross that chasm with this technology.

Then there's this elusive HOLY GRAIL, which we all think can actually be realized if we find the right tools to solve this problem of off-loading our thinking — so we can do more thinking. Basically, if the notes can be remembered for us, almost automatically, then we can go deeper in ways we never could have imagined, because we're not the ones doing the juggling. We've made use of the digital tools, that are leaps and bounds more powerful than the scattered and siloed, handwritten notes of yesterday.

So as new ways of connecting our thinking through digital writing, such as bi-directional linking and transclusion become commonplace, we get glimmers that maybe it's possible now. And the hunting down of just the right mixture of this primitive, and that feature-set, may turn over the right stones to help us juggle that which used to be impossible.

And in my experience leading and coaching people through implementing a digital Zettelkasten (simple, lightweight note-taking system) it doesn't take a genius to see a pattern from the response to "what do you want?"

The answers all circle around this idea of "leaving something behind."