Ask HN: Do you also "hoard" notes/links but struggle to turn them into actions?

I’m a builder and user of Obsidian, validating a concept called Concerns. Today it’s only a landing page + short survey (no product yet) to test whether this pain is real.

The core idea (2–3 bullets):

- Many of us capture tons of useful info (notes/links/docs), but it rarely becomes shipped work.

- Instead of better “organization” (tags/folders), I’m exploring an “action engine” that:

  1.detects what you’re actively targetting/working on (“active projects”)

  2.surfaces relevant saved material at the right moment

  3.proposes a concrete next action (ideally pushed into your existing task tool)

Before writing code, I’m trying to pin down two things:

- Project context signals (repo/PRs? issues? tasks? calendar? a “project doc”?)

- How to close the loop: ingest knowledge → rank against active projects → emit a small set of next-actions into an existing todo tool → learn from outcomes (done/ignored/edited) and optionally write back the minimal state. The open question: what’s the cleanest feedback signal without creating noise or privacy risk? (explicit ratings vs completion events vs doc-based write-back)

What I’m asking from you:

1.Where does your “second brain” break down the most?

capture / organization / retrieval / execution (If you can, share a concrete recent example.)

2.What best represents “active project context” for you today?

  task project (Todoist/Things/Reminders)

  issues/boards (GitHub/Linear/Jira)

  a doc/wiki page (Notion/Docs)

  calendar

  "in my head"

3.What’s your hard “no” for an AI that suggests actions from your notes/links? (pick 1–2)

  privacy/data retention

  noisy suggestions / interruption

  hallucinations / wrong suggestions

  workflow change / migration cost

  pricing

  others

Just get filtered digests now. Needed less input, not better retrieval.

https://github.com/with-logic/intent

My understanding is that Obsidian is pretty similar? The point of my PKM isn't to turn my notes into shipped things. The point of my PKM is that when I do want to work on something, I don't have to repeat all my old mistakes to get back to where I was before, or reinvent all my own wheels.

> 1.Where does your “second brain” break down the most?

First and foremost, remembering to write notes or to review them. What do I want? Is there a timeline that requires things to be done before it becomes invalid or increases liability?

Secondly, remembering to do actions instead of sitting down and doing something that gives some dopamine. I decide I want to work on a project on my computer. So I go sit down in front of the computer and... I've already forgotten the project, now it's time to play a game or read Hacker News instead.

Lastly -- it's the things that I "don't know". Let's say I want to build a robotic lawnmower. There are plenty of robotic lawnmowers already but I want to build my own. I know where to find the source code (or I can make my own). I don't know where to find the tools, where to source components, or who to ask for help assembling heavy things; I don't know how to assess risks (what happens if this thing catches fire on my lawn while I'm in the kitchen? what happens if it drives into the street and hits a car? or worse, what happens if it drives into the neighbor's kids?).

> 2.What best represents “active project context” for you today?

In my head, mostly. Documents in random places like ~/Documents/, or a todo.md in the project root. Hard to remember what is for or when I last did anything of value for it though.

> 3.What’s your hard “no” for an AI that

If the AI does not run 100% on my machine, then it's not getting anything important. That means no notes, no personal projects that have business value. Business value includes comments or ideas to improve other peoples' products! I've seen too many times my comments end up turning into someone else's pay-me project and I see none of the rewards. Speaking of which, here I am giving you valuable information for free.

After that, it's pricing. If I spend $20 on a weekend project, that's fine. If I have to spend $20 for every task, then it'll be yet another project that is only ever half-finished.