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Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management

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Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management

#41

Post by Projectiboga »

monk_grilla wrote: post #35
jokellum wrote: post #12

Earlier 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.

40 years ago we just wrote as much as we could down. The teacher usually hand wrote on the chalkboard. Some courses had slides, a precursor to PowerPoint. There is some reasearch that writing down on paper or with a stylus puts the stuff in extra places in our head.

Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management

#42

Post by jolmg »

Ferret7446 wrote: post #23

These 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,…

> 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.

I would think the latter is the former. Do you mean the idea that hand movements of writing help retention?

Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management

#43

Post by adamhartenz »

bad_haircut72 wrote: post #34
kepano wrote: post #26

Asking "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

He also has Dyslexia, so this would have been harder and more effort than for most other people. It probably help him overcome the short term into long term memory flow that a lot of people with Dyslexia struggle with.

Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management

#44

Post by wolvoleo »

udbhavs wrote: post #2

I'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…

Wow you take learning methodology so seriously. When it comes to learning (or in fact pretty much anything) I really hate structure. I thrive in chaos. When I want to learn something I just start and fill in knowledge gaps where I need, and just roll with it, and if I fall and make mistakes it's ok. If I don't retain something I don't care, it must not have been important and I can always pick it up again.

For this reason I deeply hate formal certifications especially in IT. It's too much jumping through stupid hoops as well as the world according to . But I'm still known as one of the most knowledgeable people in the company because I'm always building stuff and jumping on new things.

But lately I find IT to be becoming really rigid. We have all this governance and iso bullshit in work now where they want us to be certified before we can even start on something. I've been able to duck out of it most of the time by jumping on side projects but in the end I probably need to move to a smaller company that isn't so much into all the overhead.

Ps I do admire people who can be so structured. I just can't be like that. I have heavy ADHD which is probably the main cause :) But it's interesting to hear.

Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management

#45

Post by mmargenot »

I think my notetaking undergoes a transformation each year. Last summer I made a remembrance agent plugin in obsidian which has been useful for collecting my notes on technical info and cross referencing. I still have a notion zettelkasten, but it’s become more of a tool for my creative writing. I expect this year to take the leap on building things more like remembrance agents to enhance my recall when doing creative work.

I think people get tied to particular tools and methods and optimizing them just right, rather than adapting things piecemeal in a way that works for them.

Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management

#46

Post by galaxyLogic »

Feom https://brennan.day/what-have-note-taking-pkms-accomplished-...:

"German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, as he was famous for his use of the "slip box" or Zettelkasten note-taking method and the achieved output of more than 70 books and nearly 400 scholarly articles. This is the kind of remarkable output that many in the PKM community aspire towards."

I think that is somehwhat misguided. The goal shouldn't be great quantity of output, but great quality.

I think AI has revealed that to us in reccent years. AI can produce endless output. But who needs it, what is it good for? Unless we have a GOOD QUESTION to AI, it's output is not very valuable.

These note-taking apps, you write a lot of notes, but is there an overarching question the notes are meant to answer? Depends on how you use them of course. But I would guess that most of the notes are more "Good to Haves" than "Step towards a definite goal".

Most notes don't probabaly take you closer to the end-goal of your project. You just think they might become useful in the future, so you write them down. Just in case. To feel you are taking good care of your precious ideas. But how much time are you eilling to spend to read them in the future?

Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management

#48

Post by Groxx »

jokellum wrote: post #12
udbhavs wrote: post #2

I'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…

Yep. I consider it essentially "explaining it to myself". It serves a similar purpose as trying to teach someone else - trying to write something concisely and clearly is difficult unless you actually understand it, and then it often feels obvious. So if I'm struggling, I should probably think about it more (which the struggling is also accomplishing), and maybe go back and reread it to make sure I get it.

It's kinda the purpose of note-taking imo. At its core, it's a mechanical way to enforce "think more about it". Simply putting words down in some form is at least partly achieving that, though if it's mindless it doesn't tend to provide very much benefit beyond that point.

(this is also why I despise mandatory note-taking in classes. they have universally expected something like a dictation, and that isn't how I take notes. (I'm fully aware these are just awful teachers and it isn't how all others operate, and there were many other signs they were awful))

Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management

#49

Post by jjude »

xvilka wrote: post #47

Using Logseq[1][2] for years and quite happy with it, especially since it has apps for tablets/iPad and phones as well, while being completely FOSS. [1] https://logseq.com/ [2] https://github.com/logseq/logseq

I liked (and used) logseq for a while (since I could easily relate to the idea of outliner). But their development stalled; now they have moved to db based structure.

I am less concerned about open source than open standard. I have had my notes in text, jpg for more than a decade. Have used plain text editors (textmate?), nvALT etc and now use obsidian. I am sure these text files can stay for another 10 years even if obsidian itself goes out of business.

Re: Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management

#50

Post by axus »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #46

Feom https://brennan.day/what-have-note-taking-pkms-accomplished-... : "German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, as he was famous for his use of the "slip box" or Zettelkasten note-taking method and the achieved output of more than 70 books and nearly 400 scholarly articles. This is the kind of remarkable output that many in the PKM community aspire towards." I think that is somehwhat misguided. The goal shouldn't be great…

AI are also good at reading. I'm not one to write lots of notes without a reason. For the first time I'm jealous of people who have a way to distill years of their inner thoughts.
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