This is just mostly bike shedding [1]. People waste a lot of time in thinking about which tool to use for note taking rather than actually doing the note taking. The tools are there to just support note taking, most of the times just a pen and paper is enough to get the job done.
Ask HN: Why the obsession with note taking?
91–100 of 219 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why the obsession with note taking?
#92> Do we all secretly believe we can be truly better people if we can just get this right?
I think you're onto something here. There's definitely some magical thinking involved. We all have a hidden genius that could be unlocked - if only we would find a method to put all that mess in our heads together in the right way. We conveniently forget that if 90% of everything is crap[0], then it should apply to our own thoughts too :)
My take is that notes are overrated. Almost everything I write down becomes outdated in as little as a few months. Anything older than 1 year seems ancient and is only useful for entertainment. I have my digital notes going back to 2014. I never look at them.
What's not overrated is note-taking. The result doesn't matter, the act itself does. It's a thinking tool. A way to offload ideas from your head and let it do some actual thinking.
If that rings true to you, then it makes sense to optimize for writing, not organizing or reading. To me that means a simple paper notebook and a gel pen. I haven't yet found anything that can beat paper in writing experience [1].
Might be an ipad or org-mode for you - literally doesn't matter, as long as you use it with pleasure.
As for evergreen content, my rule is that it should be public. That's what blogs are for.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law
[1] I wrote a blogpost about my primitive paper journaling system https://tadas.blog/posts/paper-journaling-system/
Re: Ask HN: Why the obsession with note taking?
#93So much of the chaos of day to day work is an inability of organizations to make decisions and even after making the decision, remembering enough of it the next day or even next hour to use the information. When it comes to spreading that over a year or after someone departs, forget it. There is also enormous inefficiency caused by covering the same ground over and over again, but it happens quite frequently as nothi…
True, both people and organisations have to remember things. But when it comes to organisations, I think the existence of a separate task called "note taking" is often a symptom of slow software development and data modeling.
Individuals sometimes take notes to collect random ideas. That's fine. I do that too. No one other than myself could ever make sense of my notes though, and sometimes not even I can.
When organisations take notes in prose form, it is unlikely that anyone will ever have time to read them in order the extract the parts relevent for a particular task. There are of course exceptions. Someone will surely read the FOMC minutes.
There has to be a deliberate process of modeling and collecting structured data so it can be queried and transformed into something that facilitates specific decisions. At that point, it's no longer called note taking.
In my view, it is this sort of ad hoc data modeling that is too inefficient right now. It's something I'm on working on, but I can't claim to have found any silver bullets yet.
Re: Ask HN: Why the obsession with note taking?
#94A related question for note-takers: what would you estimate as your rate of reference to prior notes? For my own part that rate is so dismally low that right now I get more value out of making notes than retrieving and reading notes. I'm reminded of a response to another thread on HN a few weeks back about organizing physical documents. Many commenters had very sophisticated processes with scanning, OCR, indexing etc…
Many of my notes are write only. I might refer to them here or there, but it's mostly about laying my thoughts out.
However, I love flipping through old notebooks. They're a personal diary made of schematics, sketches, lists and recipes.
I'm now a bit more conscious about dating each page, because I combine those with other data to form a personal timeline [0].
None of this is about productivity. It's closer to an artistic hobby like calligraphy.
Re: Ask HN: Why the obsession with note taking?
#95This is just mostly bike shedding [1]. People waste a lot of time in thinking about which tool to use for note taking rather than actually doing the note taking. The tools are there to just support note taking, most of the times just a pen and paper is enough to get the job done. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality
I use plain text. Taking the notes is the most important part. But if you enjoy curating and indexing your notes then why not?
Re: Ask HN: Why the obsession with note taking?
#96I believe the main reason for the obsession is that we intuitively know that it can be done "right" (according to our own personal preferences) - but that a solution is not yet at hand. So we install every possible attempt we come across, only to find that no - not yet. Here is some of what I am personally looking for: - a wysiwyg rich text interface, with embedding capabilities, with an optional markdown interface a…
I know it's fast becoming a trope or cliche to suggest this, but Emacs with org-mode and org-roam will do most of what you're wanting. Maybe give https://github.com/susam/emfy a try and see where you get?
Re: Ask HN: Why the obsession with note taking?
#97I mostly abandonded keeping notes, bookmarks etc because I realised it became another "collecting" exercise and sucked up time far in excess of it's utility.
I make specific exceptions (especially for things that may be of use to others) but I become too addicted to the act of collating and organising.
Gmail with it's "search don't sort" was an eye opener back in the day. I stopped filing emails and realised with a decent search, I saved so much time.
Re: Ask HN: Why the obsession with note taking?
#98I personally don't attach any weight to note-taking as part of my identity or care about how other people do it. It's just a way to remember stuff. For example if I do personal therapy for an hour I'll take notes on what was discussed so I can refer to it. Otherwise I'm going to forget most of it and the therapy session was wasted. If I'm losing weight I'll plan exercises to do and record my weight. Etc. etc. It's not that complicated or meaningful.
I've noticed if I really care about and love a subject I don't need to take notes. Those things are easy to remember and revisited often.
Re: Ask HN: Why the obsession with note taking?
#99I think for me, it's a kind of coping thing where I secretly hope that the next software will be the one thing I was missing the entire time and from here on out learning will be a breeze. Of course, that's not going to happen ... or will it? I am sure the next thing I find will be it!
Re: Ask HN: Why the obsession with note taking?
#100I love note taking. The act of writing something down gives me so much insight and clarity. It's similar to trying to explain something to other people, it requires a much deeper understanding. Even if I don't share it with anyone it helps me figure stuff out. I don't read back 90% of what I write, the writing itself is what provides most value to me. Although it can be handy to dig into the archives to understand my…
> Tooling wise; I like handwriting, as I can draw arrows and quick sketches. If you ever decided you want to go full digital, I highly recommend checking out the tablets from https://remarkable.com/ . My wife has the same approach to handwritten notes and loves it! I can confirm that when writing on the reMarkable 2 tablet, you can forget that it is not pen and paper. I particularly enjoy being able to take notes on…
I was debating between that one and the iPad mini! Sounds like an awesome device, must be great for reading as well.
The main reason I went for the iPad mini was the size (and apps maybe). Before I had an iPad Air 10.5 inch, and it was just too big for my use, it made it inconvenient.
I'm still debating getting one anyway. It has that "coolness factor", and I want it haha.
If they ever produce a smaller version I am pretty sure I can not resist.