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

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

#161

Post by swah »

input_sh wrote: post #22

I legitimately don't struggle with this. I have the "root" note which opens by default whenever I reset my Obsidian vault and it shows three lists: 1. most recently updated notes 2. most recently created notes 3. notes I've added to my favourites On top of a search bar that doesn't suck, this is pretty much all I ever need. As for "AI", it's never going anywhere near my notes. It's supposed to be my second brain fill…

Do you mean reset as reopening? How can I get those lists?

I would like AI to tell me "this note looks like an incomprehensible brain dump and needs review before you forget today's meetings"

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

#162

Post by nicbou »

item007 wrote: post #148
nicbou wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just information. Even calling it knowledge is a stress because it more closely reflects my emotional state than actual truth. It's only useful in the context of understanding myself.

I get that, and I think that distinction is healthy. “Knowledge base” can imply objective truth and completeness, which creates pressure. For a lot of us, what we store is really a snapshot of attention, curiosity, anxiety, and identity at a moment in time — more like a personal log than a database. One framing that helps me is: the archive isn’t “truth”, it’s “evidence of what I cared about”, and it’s only useful wh…

Sometimes the writing itself is useful, like when I realise that I've been stressing about something minor for a few days, or when I hesitate to write down how I _really_ feel about something. In other cases it forces me to actually understand what I'm feeling in order to put it into words. In a sense those notes could be write-only and still be useful.

In other cases these notes are a complement to my photos. They show a different aspect of my life at a given moment. My photos don't show that on September 4, 2015, I had a massive crush on someone. I have built a timeline that combines my journals, photos, sketches, geolocation, Google searches and other things. It reveals a far more nuanced picture of me at a given time.

I also have more technical notes. Those are a bit of a "collection of facts". It's a bit like putting all the parts on the table, and slowly organising them into a coherent structure. This is how I approach bigger topics before I understand them fully. Then my notes act as a sort of medium-term memory. When I finish a project, I usually have a bunch of leftover notes and todos that I don't intend to ever finish. That's why I say that notes are not an obligation.

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

#163

Post by input_sh »

swah wrote: post #161
input_sh wrote: post #22

I legitimately don't struggle with this. I have the "root" note which opens by default whenever I reset my Obsidian vault and it shows three lists: 1. most recently updated notes 2. most recently created notes 3. notes I've added to my favourites On top of a search bar that doesn't suck, this is pretty much all I ever need. As for "AI", it's never going anywhere near my notes. It's supposed to be my second brain fill…

Do you mean reset as reopening? How can I get those lists? I would like AI to tell me "this note looks like an incomprehensible brain dump and needs review before you forget today's meetings"

> Do you mean reset as reopening?

Yes, I have two vaults (one work-oriented, one completely personal) and frequently switch between them. Whenever I do so, I use a homepage plugin that always opens the same "root" note. You can vibe-code this plugin within minutes if you prefer, it's literally all that it does. Or you can have that note pinned to the sidebar and skip the plugins entirely, up to you really.

> How can I get those lists?

You need to be able to embed queries into your notes. Either you use Bases (first-party plugin) or Dataview (third-party plugin). The second one is a little more ironed out as of now, so I keep using that (but will probably migrate in the future). For the first two lists you create queries that simply look at file's creation/modification time. For the third one, Obsidian gives you an option to "star" a note, so you query for that.

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

#164

Post by input_sh »

item007 wrote: post #79
input_sh wrote: post #22

I legitimately don't struggle with this. I have the "root" note which opens by default whenever I reset my Obsidian vault and it shows three lists: 1. most recently updated notes 2. most recently created notes 3. notes I've added to my favourites On top of a search bar that doesn't suck, this is pretty much all I ever need. As for "AI", it's never going anywhere near my notes. It's supposed to be my second brain fill…

Appreciate the clear boundary. If we reframe it as non-generative assistance (pure local indexing + better retrieval, no writing), would that still be a “no”, or is the hard line specifically about model processing?

In theory I have nothing against some sort of a tiny local LLM model that will index them and make the search a little bit more powerful, but to be honest if the feature is advertised as "AI", I doubt I will care enough to look into details.

I'd rather take a dumb "synonyms" plugin that I have complete control over and renders results "instantly" than invoking any sort of LLM where I have to wait more than 3 seconds for a result.

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

#165

Post by item007 »

nicbou wrote: post #162
item007 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that, and I think that distinction is healthy. “Knowledge base” can imply objective truth and completeness, which creates pressure. For a lot of us, what we store is really a snapshot of attention, curiosity, anxiety, and identity at a moment in time — more like a personal log than a database. One framing that helps me is: the archive isn’t “truth”, it’s “evidence of what I cared about”, and it’s only useful wh…

Sometimes the writing itself is useful, like when I realise that I've been stressing about something minor for a few days, or when I hesitate to write down how I _really_ feel about something. In other cases it forces me to actually understand what I'm feeling in order to put it into words. In a sense those notes could be write-only and still be useful. In other cases these notes are a complement to my photos. They s…

That’s a really thoughtful distinction. I like how you separate “write-only but still valuable” (emotional clarity / self-understanding) from “collection of facts” (laying pieces on the table until a structure emerges).

The “notes aren’t an obligation” line also resonates — treating them as medium-term memory rather than a forever archive removes a lot of pressure.

When you finish a project and you have leftover notes/todos you don’t intend to finish, do you actively prune/close them (mark done/obsolete), or do you just let them fade and trust that what matters will resurface naturally?

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

#166

Post by item007 »

input_sh wrote: post #163
swah wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean reset as reopening? How can I get those lists? I would like AI to tell me "this note looks like an incomprehensible brain dump and needs review before you forget today's meetings"

> Do you mean reset as reopening? Yes, I have two vaults (one work-oriented, one completely personal) and frequently switch between them. Whenever I do so, I use a homepage plugin that always opens the same "root" note. You can vibe-code this plugin within minutes if you prefer, it's literally all that it does. Or you can have that note pinned to the sidebar and skip the plugins entirely, up to you really. > How can…

That’s a great breakdown — thank you. The “root note as a homepage” + three lists feels like the simplest re-entry surface.

Quick question: do you keep those lists purely time-based (recently updated/created), or do you also include any “active project” signal (e.g. notes linked from a project hub / kanban) so the homepage reflects what you’re actually working on rather than what was last touched?

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

#167

Post by item007 »

input_sh wrote: post #164
item007 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appreciate the clear boundary. If we reframe it as non-generative assistance (pure local indexing + better retrieval, no writing), would that still be a “no”, or is the hard line specifically about model processing?

In theory I have nothing against some sort of a tiny local LLM model that will index them and make the search a little bit more powerful, but to be honest if the feature is advertised as "AI", I doubt I will care enough to look into details. I'd rather take a dumb "synonyms" plugin that I have complete control over and renders results "instantly" than invoking any sort of LLM where I have to wait more than 3 seconds…

That makes total sense. Latency kills the workflow, and “advertised as AI” carries baggage even if the underlying technique is harmless.

One nuance: the way I’m thinking about this isn’t “you type a query and wait for an LLM”. It’s more like local indexing/pre-computation so retrieval is instant, and any heavier processing happens ahead of time (or during a scheduled review) so it never blocks you. Then you can consume it as a pull-based view or a tiny daily digest—no interruptions, no spinning cursor.

If you could pick one: would you prefer a deterministic synonyms/alias layer (instant, fully controllable), or a local semantic index that improves recall but still feels “tool-like” rather than “AI”?

I’m exploring a similar local-first, low-noise approach (more context in my HN profile/bio if you’re curious).

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

#168

Post by flexagoon »

kyriakos wrote: post #156

I use self hosted https://karakeep.app/ to keep links I find interesting. In a year of use I think I only went back twice to find a link I saved. That means most of the time the stuff I think I need to keep for later are useless.

I also use Karakeep, but for me the value is in the full text search + AI tagging. I very often remember some page or article I visited a while ago and want to revisit it, only to not be able to find it because I don't remember where it was. Karakeep essentially acts as my own personal search engine to let me search through the best pages I visited.

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

#169

Post by Neywiny »

item007 wrote: post #112
Neywiny wrote: post #6

Maybe I'm not understanding the problem. I just saw mention of obsidian being the only paid app a user had on their laptop. I'd never heard of it. For me, I keep a notes.txt either local to the project (not repo) folder, or named similarly. To find something I grep through them all. It's not perfect but it's very easy. If it becomes collaborative, I push it as a readme or a wiki page. I don't feel a need for anything…

That makes sense, and your setup is honestly the “good enough” baseline for a lot of people: notes.txt near the work, grep when needed, and promote to README/wiki when it becomes shared. Also to clarify: I’m not focused on Obsidian specifically. “Notes” here includes anything you stash for later—notes.txt files, links, emails, chat snippets, tickets, bookmarks, random scratchpad windows. The thing I’m exploring is wh…

I think options 1 and 4. I like the idea of 4. I was trying out one of these projects and indexes a codebase with AI to make asking questions about it easier. I ran the numbers and it was going to take 24 hours of crunching on my 7900xtx. I just gave up instead. Zero setup should include not needing to do that.

3 would be the hardest but most useful thing. The problem is that it's scattered around different computers and networks that don't talk to eachother. We could have a file in SharePoint on one system referencing a file on an SMB share on a completely different network. It's a big pain and very difficult to work with but it's not something I expect software running on my computer with access to a subset of the information to be able to solve.

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

#170

Post by item007 »

kyriakos wrote: post #156

I use self hosted https://karakeep.app/ to keep links I find interesting. In a year of use I think I only went back twice to find a link I saved. That means most of the time the stuff I think I need to keep for later are useless.

That’s a brutally honest metric, and I think it’s common: most “save for later” is really “offload for now”. The fact you only resurfaced twice doesn’t mean the tool failed — it might mean the capture filter is too loose, or resurfacing is missing a good trigger.

Do you think the better fix is stronger filtering at capture time (keep less), or a lightweight resurfacing habit (e.g. a weekly 10-minute review / 1–2 items per day digest) so more of it gets a fair second look?

I’m exploring this exact “offload vs resurfacing” problem (more context in my HN profile/bio if you’re curious).

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