An LLM generated Obsidian ad. Still not interested, sorry.
yeah, it smelled Slop.
Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management
31–40 of 101 posts
Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management
#32[dead]
Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management
#33For the purposes of learning something new, I don't find traditional note-taking or the idea of "knowledge management" all that useful. I find the best way to learn is to do projects. Sometimes the project might be creating a set of notes on a certain topic, but the notes themselves are more or less disposable. It's the process of writing them that forces real learning to happen. It makes you work through problems and identify areas that you assumed you knew but really just had vague notions and misconceptions. Once I've moved on from a topic, I'd rather refer back to a textbook or online resources if I need a refresher.
Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management
#34Asking "what have note-taking apps accomplished?" is like asking "what have spreadsheets accomplished?" or "what have cameras accomplished?". A tool doesn't accomplish anything on its own. A tool is a means to an end. A few days ago, someone jokingly asked if Henry Ford had a personal knowledge base in Obsidian... Well, sort of! He had something he called "jot books", where he journaled, kept notes, grocery lists, et…
In his biography Richard Branson also talks about his personal notebooks, which he keeps and have some bookshelves worth by now
Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management
#35I've realized that most of my tendencies to set up elaborate note-taking systems and frameworks have been an attempt to address my anxiety around learning and productivity. I'm constantly in the mode of "learning defensively" - questioning what I'm absorbing into my mental toolkit, how much I retain, and how much I'd be able to conjure if I needed to solve a problem in that domain. In this context, noting down whatev…
I don't know your specifics, so I'm going to reply with what I've learned about learning: I found reading a textbook, and typing notes into a dumb markdown file with the textbooks name is good enough. Typically: definitions, quotes, and personal thoughts while reading. Did this for stats/comp sci/etc. Obsidian + markdown worked for that, even without plugins. Being able to text search is useful, which is why I don't…
> ...typing notes into a dumb markdown file with the textbooks name is good enough
What sorts of things are you writing into your markdown file? After 3.5 years of uni I still don't know how or why to take proper notes to enhance my learning.
Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management
#36I've realized that most of my tendencies to set up elaborate note-taking systems and frameworks have been an attempt to address my anxiety around learning and productivity. I'm constantly in the mode of "learning defensively" - questioning what I'm absorbing into my mental toolkit, how much I retain, and how much I'd be able to conjure if I needed to solve a problem in that domain. In this context, noting down whatev…
Can confirm. Say what you will about Tim Ferris, but maybe he was onto something when he said only learn the bare minimum to get something done and more than that is a waste (4 hour workweek).
He says that, but in practice he ends up learning everything he can, in order to try and figure out the bare minimum to keep doing.
Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management
#37I like obsidian because linking stuff is fun. It doesn’t have to be a serious thing, you know.
Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management
#38Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know your specifics, so I'm going to reply with what I've learned about learning: I found reading a textbook, and typing notes into a dumb markdown file with the textbooks name is good enough. Typically: definitions, quotes, and personal thoughts while reading. Did this for stats/comp sci/etc. Obsidian + markdown worked for that, even without plugins. Being able to text search is useful, which is why I don't…
> ...typing notes into a dumb markdown file with the textbooks name is good enough What sorts of things are you writing into your markdown file? After 3.5 years of uni I still don't know how or why to take proper notes to enhance my learning.
I never learned to take notes. Good grades but think my notes were always rubbish!
Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management
#40These discussions always conflate the different types of "notes". Broadly, there are two very different kind of notes. First, there are notes whose purpose is to be easy to find when you need to recall some bit of information. Then, there is note taking in service of learning. These two are very different in goals and thus very different in terms of optimal strategy. Also, there is note taking in service of creation,…
Yeah, Obsidian has allow me to create a comprehensive back and frontlog of all types of media. And that is super useful to me, and I can make this little connect information base in a way no tools before it had really accomplished. The "queries" are much more natural and much closer to actual real paper notes.
Which is fundamentally a reference sheet, it's not for learning.
That might be why interacting with dedicated PKM-centric communities and content is personally so exhausting.