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How to build a second brain as a software developer

aseemthakar.com

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Re: How to build a second brain as a software developer

#121

Post by infogulch »

> These categories are all nested. Tasks are nested under Projects which fall under Areas which fall under Resources, with Archives serving as the catch-all category.

This does not match my understanding of PARA as described by Tiago. [0] These are not a straight-line "flat" nesting, there's some branches. Areas are at the top, they represent responsibilities, have a broad scope, and undefined/unknowable end date. Both Projects and Resources are nested under an Area. Resources are tools or provisions or information that are potentially useful to fulfill the Area's responsibility. Projects are an attempt to take a little bite out of the Area's responsibility by considering a particular goal in a narrow time horizon. You should be able to use the Area's Resources to help complete a Project.

Archives are the category that is not like the others. It's more of a "completed" / "abandoned" status that can be applied to any of the other three as a way to sift out things that are no longer immediately relevant without deleting them. I like to think of this as a generic, orthogonal Time dimension. Maybe infogulch's version would be called PAR/T.

[0]: I found the Building a Second Brain podcast does a pretty good job of outlining these categories more clearly. Episodes are short ~8m and digestible. https://fortelabs.co/blog/basbpodcast

Re: How to build a second brain as a software developer

#122

Post by boris_v »

brw wrote: post #54
thrower123 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I'm absolutely not kidding. I've tried to do the OneNote thing, or get into org-mode, or manage collections of bookmarks. Too much overhead, not enough value to justify the work. So I have a browser window per "thing" that I'm dealing with, with a whole bunch of tabs, and when I'm done with the thing, the browser gets closed and the tabs go away.

This is also my exact workflow. Currently at 260 tabs after an OS reset but I've gone up to 1-2k before (though that was a particularly bad time for me). Every tab or bookmark manager I've tried just didn't feel right, too much friction, too little return, eventually forgotten. I feel like the tool I'm looking for doesn't exist, but I don't really know what I'm looking for either.

I didn't see share here it so I'm recommending it. https://able.ac

The point there is to change the workflow in such a way that you won't need tabs

Re: How to build a second brain as a software developer

#123

Post by imchillyb »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #114

I use textfiles... Some are lists, like todo.txt Some are individual topics, brainstorms, etc. For organizing them, I put hashtags like #food inside. Even thousands upon thousands of textfiles (which I'm nowhere near) grep quickly, archive and backup quickly, and transfer to other systems quickly, without lock-in or putting my eggs into someone else's basket. I can even build my own UI on top of it... First, index th…

It's like that last sentence of yours attacked me.

I wouldn't use another 3rd party system for keeping track of anything essential, ever again.

Re: How to build a second brain as a software developer

#124

Post by ijidak »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #114

I use textfiles... Some are lists, like todo.txt Some are individual topics, brainstorms, etc. For organizing them, I put hashtags like #food inside. Even thousands upon thousands of textfiles (which I'm nowhere near) grep quickly, archive and backup quickly, and transfer to other systems quickly, without lock-in or putting my eggs into someone else's basket. I can even build my own UI on top of it... First, index th…

Same here.

I love the distraction free experience of editing text.

I format however I want.

And it's ultimately portable.

Re: How to build a second brain as a software developer

#125

Post by lelanthran »

TranquilMarmot wrote: post #117
forgotmypw17 wrote: post #114

I use textfiles... Some are lists, like todo.txt Some are individual topics, brainstorms, etc. For organizing them, I put hashtags like #food inside. Even thousands upon thousands of textfiles (which I'm nowhere near) grep quickly, archive and backup quickly, and transfer to other systems quickly, without lock-in or putting my eggs into someone else's basket. I can even build my own UI on top of it... First, index th…

I've switched to doing this, too. I've ping-ponged between Evernote, OneNote, Obsidian, Notion, Confluence, and probably half a dozen other tools over the years. Now I just write markdown files and store them in a hierarchical folder structure (never more than three folders deep!). I use VSCode to write everything which gives basic formatting for italics, bold, and code highlighting as well as an outline of the headi…

> Now I just write markdown files and store them in a hierarchical folder structure (never more than three folders deep!).

I do the same, except that I use Emacs org mode. This gives me (other than highlighting):

1. Clickable hyperlinks (linking to the same document, linking to another org file, linking to any other file and linking to a URL).

2. Pretty export options (my entire blog is just a collection of org files exported to html, some technical documents are exported to LaTeX/pdf).

3. Text diagrams using the graphviz dot language.

4. Builtin history management and versioning using magit (of course this is all stored in Git :))

5. Nice formatting in emacs - parent checkboxes are automatically calculated and filled when children items are filled in, M-q nicely formats paragraphs, Sections and subsections are easily folded/unfolded by my simply hitting tab while the cursor is on the heading, tables are incredibly easy to create and modify, (sub)sections are movable without needing to copy and paste, etc

6. Items in a tasklist can easily be cycled between various states (TODO -> RESEARCHING -> IN-PROGRESS -> DONE) with custom states being specified at the top of the file..

Re: How to build a second brain as a software developer

#126

Post by emrah »

Searching anew (instead of using one's own cache of previous finds) is still valuable because you may discover better results, or new results that may lead to new/better thinking, or the answer to your question might have changed since the last time you searched.

If i can't find any of these, then falling back on previous finds is valuable.

Re: How to build a second brain as a software developer

#127

Post by brazzy »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #114

I use textfiles... Some are lists, like todo.txt Some are individual topics, brainstorms, etc. For organizing them, I put hashtags like #food inside. Even thousands upon thousands of textfiles (which I'm nowhere near) grep quickly, archive and backup quickly, and transfer to other systems quickly, without lock-in or putting my eggs into someone else's basket. I can even build my own UI on top of it... First, index th…

I'm using a self hosted and customized TiddlyWiki. The nice thing is that it stores all its data in markdown-like text files as well.

Re: How to build a second brain as a software developer

#129

Post by infogulch »

Sophistifunk wrote: post #120

None of these options presented are any good because you can't easily (or at all in most cases) program them.

Good point. The title ends "as a software developer" -- a software developer might reasonably want to be able to leverage that ability on their second brain. I think this requirement deserves a spot in the "Must haves".
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