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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

#141

Post by theshrike79 »

mabbo wrote: post #23

I recently read "Getting Things Done"[0] and began incorporating what I learned into my simple second brain. And the results are kind of ridiculously good for me. I built my whole system on a Google Sheet, but I'm experimenting with building myself an App instead- something I would never have been able to accomplish or even been willing to start if I didn't have this second brain helping me. The lessons I've learned…

> 2. Putting things I need to remember into a system and then forgetting about them, trusting that my system has it under control, removes a huge cognitive load from me. I have more energy to use elsewhere.

This is the key for me. My brain gets jumbled if I try to juggle too many things at once.

I write stuff I need to do down in a single place, or move my "I will _definitely_ read this later" bookmarks to Pinboard and promptly forget them.

When I need something new to do or read, I know where to find it.

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

#142

Post by boffinAudio »

Since 2003 I have printed every single interesting web site I've ever bothered to read - and some I haven't - to PDF file. Instead of Ctrl-D to bookmark, I Ctrl-P to print-to-pdf.

I keep these PDF files and use them where most people would have bookmarks.

The advantage is that I have an offline cache of materials (60,000+ files), a carefully curated list of stuff I like (or can be bothered to think about long enough to decide I might need it in the future), and endless amounts of material to pdfgrep for further drilling.

This has given me quite an edge, time and again, because while others are struggling to find that one bookmark that has the article they kinda remember reading once a few years back, I've already found it, gone to the new site, seen the state of the art as it progressed in the time since my visit, and so on.

I believe this has given me a 'second brain'. There is no greater joy than to drop into this directory and do an "ls -alF | grep " and find every single page I've read since 2003 on that particular topic, still in the original form I remember - and then to re-visit the page and get the updates.

I have a lot of HN articles saved this way - as well as the HN comments too, and this has also served as a second harmonic to my general knowledge, ready and easily accessible should I need it.

Try this trick, it really kicks ass!

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

#143

Post by natanavra »

boffinAudio wrote: post #142

Since 2003 I have printed every single interesting web site I've ever bothered to read - and some I haven't - to PDF file. Instead of Ctrl-D to bookmark, I Ctrl-P to print-to-pdf. I keep these PDF files and use them where most people would have bookmarks. The advantage is that I have an offline cache of materials (60,000+ files), a carefully curated list of stuff I like (or can be bothered to think about long enough…

I do the same, just with Evernote. Either writing a summary of what I learned in a note and adding a link to the source, or clipping the whole page. I can probably write a couple of techincal books from all these notes.

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

#144

Post by primozk »

darkteflon wrote: post #80
raesene9 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I do , which combines the two is create the lists in Obsidian, then use the mind map plugin to visualize them.

This is an interesting idea, but I couldn’t find Mind Map in the list of core plugins. Is this a community plug-in you’re talking about?

Yes, it's a community plugin: https://github.com/lynchjames/obsidian-mind-map

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

#145

Post by beckman466 »

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…

do you use git on top of it to track changes? date metadata?

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

#146

Post by Chris2048 »

brazzy wrote: post #127
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.

I'd love for a proper app (web-based or otherwise) that uses a regular DB (maybe an SQLite file) as the backend.

Then I could just slap up a tiddly-service and connect. Incidentally, I've mostly switched to "Zim" wiki, but it's fairly similar.

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

#147

Post by silexia »

mabbo wrote: post #23

I recently read "Getting Things Done"[0] and began incorporating what I learned into my simple second brain. And the results are kind of ridiculously good for me. I built my whole system on a Google Sheet, but I'm experimenting with building myself an App instead- something I would never have been able to accomplish or even been willing to start if I didn't have this second brain helping me. The lessons I've learned…

I have used Google docs for this for 12 years to build a business with 200 full-time people and it has worked fantastic. I have probably a hundred separate documents describing policies and processes in depth. It is easily searchable for not just myself but many people.

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

#148

Post by mabbo »

PaulStatezny wrote: post #113
mabbo wrote: post #23

I recently read "Getting Things Done"[0] and began incorporating what I learned into my simple second brain. And the results are kind of ridiculously good for me. I built my whole system on a Google Sheet, but I'm experimenting with building myself an App instead- something I would never have been able to accomplish or even been willing to start if I didn't have this second brain helping me. The lessons I've learned…

5 or 6 years ago, I got big into Getting Things Done. I definitely gained real-life wisdom, but eventually I stopped because following David Allen's methodology was taking multiple hours a day. Do you find that it's taking a ton of time for you? Or maybe you're doing a loose interpretation of the system?

Another person replied with the key question: multiple hours of organization and maintaining the system, or multiple hours of getting things done?

I'm definitely not following Allen's methodology exactly. I'm doing what works for me. I'm automating a lot of the bullshit, and ignoring Allen's entire half-chapter devoted to why paper is the only option (there is no paper in my system at all). I also don't have any references to sort or organize- everything is in my google drive, which has a powerful search feature. That may come back to bite me, but it hasn't yet.

I do find I am spending a couple hours a day just doing stuff that I would have procrastinated on otherwise.

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

#149

Post by ta988 »

mabbo wrote: post #23

I recently read "Getting Things Done"[0] and began incorporating what I learned into my simple second brain. And the results are kind of ridiculously good for me. I built my whole system on a Google Sheet, but I'm experimenting with building myself an App instead- something I would never have been able to accomplish or even been willing to start if I didn't have this second brain helping me. The lessons I've learned…

Most organizations systems are ridiculously good in the beginning because we still have enough memory to know where things are and low information content that allows an easy organization. Any information organization system can only be judged after a few years of use in my experience.

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

#150

Post by DeathArrow »

I cam across two alternatives for Roam Research:

Foam. Built on Visual Studio Code and GitHub, Foam is early but already powerful. Write your content in markdown, use [[page]] for internal links, and explore your content with an interactive graph. The Backlinks Explorer lets you find all notes that link to a specific note. Foam also makes it easy to back up your notes on GitHub. [1]

Athens. Quite ambitious, Athens aims to offer a full open-source version of Roam. Built with Clojure. It's founder wanted to work for Roam but was rejected because he didn't know Clojure. So he learned Clojure and started writing an open source alternative. Roam was rejected by YC but AThens was accepted. [2]

[1] https://foambubble.github.io/foam/

[2] https://github.com/athensresearch/athens

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