Write notes with your hand, paper or digital, when you notice something important.
You will almost never revisit them in a meaningful way. It is better to just focus on using note-taking to pay attention.
Ask HN: What is a sustainable methodology for taking notes of your learning?
81–90 of 90 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is a sustainable methodology for taking notes of your learning?
#82Emacs org-mode Kitchen sink is yet to be implemented[1], but for everything else you are covered: - Executable blocks - Footnotes - Inline charts/images - TODOs tracking - Multi-device support (there are mobile apps) It's not going away any time soon, and you can always add-on stuff yourself if you familiarize yourself with emacs-lisp. 1: https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/TheKitchenSink
What are these mobile apps?
I'm using Orgzly. But to be honest my use case doesn't involve much use of org-mode on the phone. And I just a had more thorough look and it doesn't support a lot of important features, to the point I should probably retract that bulletpoint not be misleading:
- No codeblock support (execution not working is probably to be expected, but I would expect at least syntax highlighting, but it doesn't do that either)
- No image support (so no charts or diagrams)
- No support for tables
Re: Ask HN: What is a sustainable methodology for taking notes of your learning?
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Stinos - I'm curious what techniques you learned that made such a difference in your studying. I still struggle and believe it's technical, so am grateful for your sharing any details you can!
Unfortunately a) this happened like 20 years ago and I don't remember all details b) I'm not very good at explaining things especially not when it comes to explaining thought processes. Which in any case is a very personal thing, so it's not because it works for me that it works for you. Could be, or not. Basically the point I was trying to make earlier :) Anyway here's an attempt: key for me was first getting a prop…
Stinos - you rock. This rings true for me and is very helpful! Thank you.
Going to keep this handy.
I've had a gripe with fragmented learning and memorization approaches. They just don't work for me long term. Many methods rely on silly imagery to make something memorable.
I do think visualization is key, but using it as a part of deep understanding rings true on a deeper level. Rather than using visualization for a false scaffolding, the way you are using it, the imagery becomes a true working model and seems much faster for the intuition to work with rather than translating the pieces to reconstruct meaning, the meaning is inherent in the image.
Thank you again. This is a gift.
Re: Ask HN: What is a sustainable methodology for taking notes of your learning?
#84I noticed that I take different kinds of notes:
- Technical notes: How to do X in Python?
- Technical concepts: GitOps, IaC concepts, Distributed systems ideas
- big ideas concepts: Fat Tails, etc.
- Things that I am curious
Re: Ask HN: What is a sustainable methodology for taking notes of your learning?
#85If you are truly interested in sustainable methodologies, I think one area that requires acceptance is that the volume one consumes needs to be second to the volume one can take meaningful notes on. There is no sustainable notes strategy that can support randomly opening HN and skimming a random article on the front page during a break at a bus halt. If you want to take notes of what you are reading, no matter what m…
What kind of notes do you take for Security research? Bug bounty tips?
Re: Ask HN: What is a sustainable methodology for taking notes of your learning?
#86I thought a lot about this and tried several different methods in my early twenties. I encourage you to abandon this pursuit and let your human mind perform it’s most wonderful magic: synthesizing, compressing and expanding mental inputs. Don’t get in the way of this magic: throw everything you can into the input chute and marvel at the connections that result.
I'd say decent notes are still important in a way that's not contrary to what you're saying. Our minds are very good processors but are not the best memory banks. Knowing what to take note of is part of that skill. Sure there are people with eidetic and impressive memories but for most it's easier to just take notes of something and know where to look for the info later. That's one reason why I still keep to-do lists…
Did you know how to take notes for technical know how's?
Re: Ask HN: What is a sustainable methodology for taking notes of your learning?
#87Step 1) register a domain
Step 2) pay for hosting and a MySQL database
Step 3) use jQuery, php, and SQL to develop your own note taking website
Congratulations, now you’ve developed a solution to your question while learning some CS along the way.
Re: Ask HN: What is a sustainable methodology for taking notes of your learning?
#88Related comment (updated since I quoted it below): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32267066
...in slightly more recent related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32252957
...where I said, before updating it: "I have a very structured proces that has grown up over time, using OneModel (aka OM) software I wrote (AGPL; link and some more info in my profile). I often capture thoughts using voice notes on my phone, then roughly daily I commit those to the OM notes in the right place so that I will come across them again at the most convenient time for me -- they go in the calendar, topic notes, long-term planning, todo list, in-progress-ideas notes, staging of tasks I haven't prioritized yet, etc. Then daily, I review eac of those areas and update the plan for the day before starting on it. My daily routine of processing those things, then using them, has been very helpful to me, not just for staying organized, but deciding & remembering what to focus on in my practicing/improving of habits next, periodic reviews (some of which are also in Anki), etc."
I have been using this about daily for over 10 years and it is extremely helpful to me in a variety of ways, in daily use. Helps me keep track of long-term purpose, short-term todos, everything in between, and more.
Re: Ask HN: What is a sustainable methodology for taking notes of your learning?
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unfortunately a) this happened like 20 years ago and I don't remember all details b) I'm not very good at explaining things especially not when it comes to explaining thought processes. Which in any case is a very personal thing, so it's not because it works for me that it works for you. Could be, or not. Basically the point I was trying to make earlier :) Anyway here's an attempt: key for me was first getting a prop…
Stinos - you rock. This rings true for me and is very helpful! Thank you. Going to keep this handy. I've had a gripe with fragmented learning and memorization approaches. They just don't work for me long term. Many methods rely on silly imagery to make something memorable. I do think visualization is key, but using it as a part of deep understanding rings true on a deeper level. Rather than using visualization for a…
Late reply, but I'm glad this resonates with you in some way.
Re: Ask HN: What is a sustainable methodology for taking notes of your learning?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is really cool, would you mind sharing the project code? I'd be interested in automatically updating/publishing my notes in such a way with org mode.
I haven't yet cleaned up the slipbox code enough to publish it, but I do have my site generation code public: https://explog.in/config.html -- which does something similar but doesn't generate the cross links. The slipbox code is just a bunch of python to pre-process the org files and "fix" links, which then passes them on to emacs subprocesses to generate html.
Thank you for sharing!