Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

151–160 of 228 posts

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

#151
post #98
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realizing graveyard of good intentions is not that valuable is one of the most important things that we have to learn. Best to just cut it and work on what is ahead.

Totally agree — learning to prune the “good intentions” pile is a real productivity upgrade. Out of curiosity: do you have a simple rule for what you cut (age-based, relevance to current projects, or “if it didn’t turn into action, delete”)?

Last 2 or 3 years I do end of the year pruning.

Stuff that is relevant for things I am currently busy with are recent so like last couple weeks. Stuff that I don’t remember touching in those weeks gets deleted.

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

#152
post #149

Define a time of the week you fix your notes. Ideally rewrite them frequently to distill what matters. You don't need to do it all at once, just constant progress.

Totally agree — a recurring ritual beats any tool. Rewriting/distilling is basically how notes turn into something you can actually re-enter later.

One nuance I’m exploring is making that weekly “fix notes” time the primary UX: during the review, help you pick the few items worth distilling, link them to a small set of active projects, and extract 1–2 concrete next steps. Outside that window, stay quiet so it doesn’t become another inbox.

What cadence has actually stuck for you in practice: a short daily pass, or a deeper weekly review?

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

#153
post #97

The only thing that's ever worked is a piece of paper and a pen. Never really look back more than a week. Not sophisticated, but it moves me forward.

Totally get it — paper forces focus and has near-zero overhead. Out of curiosity, is the “one-week horizon” a deliberate constraint to avoid backlog guilt, or just what naturally works for you?

Just what "works" for me, I guess.

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

#154
post #151
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree — learning to prune the “good intentions” pile is a real productivity upgrade. Out of curiosity: do you have a simple rule for what you cut (age-based, relevance to current projects, or “if it didn’t turn into action, delete”)?

Last 2 or 3 years I do end of the year pruning. Stuff that is relevant for things I am currently busy with are recent so like last couple weeks. Stuff that I don’t remember touching in those weeks gets deleted.

That’s a great pruning heuristic. Is this mostly about notes/links, or do you apply the same rule to other inputs too (email, chat threads, bookmarked posts, PDFs, repos, etc.)?

For the non-note stuff, do you have a “recently touched” equivalent, or do you rely on different rules (e.g. archiving/search for email, starred threads for chat, etc.)?

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

#155
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks — this is extremely helpful, especially the constraints: you want semantic search + “where/when to execute”, calendar as a key context source, and migration cost as a hard friction point. YAML/JSON as a local knowledge store is a nice wedge too: it keeps things portable and makes “AI suggestions” easier to reason about. Re the waitlist: the landing page is up now ( https://concerns.vercel.app ), and you can le…

Thank you for your quick work! I've registered right away. Of those two, I'd choose A. I'm looking forward to hearing more.

Thanks. If there is indeed significant demand, we will definitely keep you updated on the latest progress.

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

#157
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Building a second brain is not Doing The Thing. I hate the concept of a “second brain” but this isn’t necessarily true. Those guides you make at work seemingly precede the action of someone else, right? And even if the notes you write for yourself aren’t needed afterwards, don’t they contribute to “doing the thing”?

These notes are explicitly part of the process, but they're just markdown files in a folder.

That’s quite like how I see my own system.

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

#158
1.Where does your “second brain” break down the most?

At work my 2nd brain is confluence. Most info goes into shared spaces.

Often search doesn't find what I need easily so search becomes a context switch (sub mission)

Rovo can be helpful though. Where I work has good culture of documenting things which helps.

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

Jira task status 80%; Plus Slack save for laters 15%; Then a confluence todo list 5%

Which one would you actually allow a tool to read?

All of them

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

Activation energy to get a 3rd party AI approved in my org for compliance is enormous. Plus we dogfood our own.

It won't happen until you become the next Cursor or Loveable and even then maybe not. (we can't run CC lol!)

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

#159
post #67

I think about this a lot and have written about it a bit. First off, it doesn't seem to matter whether you maintain a Zetelkasten or an org mode system or follow GTD. There have been some very productive people that have used these systems, and there are people we still talk about 2,500 years after their death who definitely didn't use these systems. I know a girl who knows pretty much nothing about personal knowledg…

I’m with you on “systems don’t guarantee outcomes” — the only reliable commonality is shipping (or at least producing something real) over time. One thing I did take away from your posts is the distinction between the medium you think in (pen/paper) and an “authoritative knowledge system” that’s the source of truth for your life/work. That framing resonates: capture can be messy and human, but “what is true / what is…

> what’s the smallest digital thing you’d accept as the authoritative source of truth

The atom of unassailable truth in my system is the calendar event, especially if it's in the calendar managed by my PA, or one of the automatic calendars fed by cal.com. I trust it without question, since it takes a fairly concrete, verifiable event to get something on the calendar e.g. adding my next therapy appointment at the end of my current one.

> And what’s the trigger that turns a note into an action for you?

My notes are all actions insomuch as they must all be digested into my digital note system, todos, or calendar events. If you mean my fledgling Zetelkasten, I don't make actions out of those. I suppose I also have my random list of project ideas and blog ideas that I grab things off when I finally have free time and some energy but not an idea already in my head of what to do.

Question for you: why do both you and several self help gurus I read use the format of "what's the smallest xyz that abc?" Is that some framework someone came up with? Not an attack, I just don't know how to ask that without sounding rude, sorry.

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

#160
I'm working on a project in this realm. Basically I am building a "personal" spyware/data collection software suite. Kind of in the same realm as ms recall but more focused on security/privacy with sensible cryptographic defaults where needed.

It is basically a server/data store and client agents, currently the agent is only for linux end user devices. The agent records evdev events (keystrokes/mouse movement), currently active window, clipboard history, shell commands issued and browsing behaviour. It runs as its own user and different functionality is compartmentalized into their own processes. Data is encrypted at rest. I'm still looking into how to best handle sensitive data in-memory at runtime.

It stores these events in a persistent queue on the clients and one-way syncs it to the server. If a client is offline for a bit it syncs it when it comes back online. As such, I am also trying to minimize storage used.

The idea is that rather than overwhelmingly linking stuff manually, e.g. with obsidian, locality of reference seems more useful as a baseline. In this data set, links by time are valued the most. In the future I'd like to add also the screenshot/video feature using hashes and perceptual hashes or an RDP like way to store as little data as possible.

For now I'm mostly in the architecting phase but I do have an early working version. Really looking for suggestions architecture wise too. So far I came up with my own binary format to save events on the clients but I'm unsure if it's the right way to go. There are many challenges to be thought about, such as changing hardware configuration (display plugged in), protecting against statistical analysis (e.g. keystroke bursts), deletion of data across sources if required, how to make sure the system can run smoothly for a decade, etc.

Post reply on HN