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Very interested in this as well. I use Notion for more in depth notes but I also want a very low friction way to stream thoughts out of my mind and into an orga

Very interested in this as well. I use Notion for more in depth notes but I also want a very low friction way to stream thoughts out of my mind and into an organized place. I built a prototype that does this. It’s got a UI very similar to twitter but organized by day. Special hash tags on a messages at the end of one day appear front and center on the next day so you can get cached in on what you were doing. I gave up after a few weeks. I don’t use it enough for it to be useful. So I need to iterate a lot for this to be valuable. I wanted to prototype this before going crazy about building a tool that I wouldn’t even use. Glad I did because now I know the magic needs to happen on the data entry side to make that more frequent. Ive got a bazillion ideas on how to extract meaning and apply organization to the random little messages ... but without having a personal corpus of entries to mine it’s impossible. I keep seeing this question pop up though so I know it’s a problem for more than just me, and there is a need in the market. An iOS/Android app was showcased here recently called ZenJournal but it’s not quite what I’m looking for either. I almost need a lapel mic that can be activated very easily - so I can dictate to this thing as stuff comes to mind. Sometimes the friction comes from trying to organize my thoughts before I write them, which defeats the point.

zerkten 7y ago
I'm not an organised note-taker, except for a few circumstances. Most often notes are just actions which get put in email to myself, or my team. Life has changed recently and I've been thinking about some low-friction options for capturing thoughts. Any solution needs to work from mobile and desktop (macOS, Windows, and Linux for me.) On desktop I'm imagining something like an Alfred window popping up on a keyboard shortcut. Storing the text note or screenshot with timestamp. Nothing precludes audio, or any other format, but the capture tool needs to load immediately, capture whatever, and disappear into the background. It'd then bug me at specific times to group these notes or add some context. I'd be able to "zoom" by hour, day, week. It would work out what was during work hours and what was outside of work time, but I'd still be able to indicate personal or work. Tagging would be available, but not required. I could take some note, or a group of notes "forward" to another tool. It'd store a link to that next system (Trello, work bug tracker, etc.) so I'd know the items were "actioned" in some way. I'm not aware of any tool which really does this. Note-taking tools are developed for folks who love creating notes and not for people who don't love doing this (or have had excellent memories up to now and skipped development a love for taking a note on everything!)
- whalesalad 7y ago
  Your thinking is exactly in-line with mine: ultra low friction, but bug me later to fill in missing details if possible. Also, 'zooming' into or out of a time context is spot on as well. I would love to emit tiny little atomic bursts of thought all day and then later in the evening when I am winding down I could enter a mode where I am organizing/enriching/reconciling stuff. This is an action item, this is a bullshit note I can delete, this was my mood, etc... Thanks for taking the time to spill out your thoughts on this.
- bnj 7y ago
  For years my go to option was nvAlt[^0] with a hotkey and some expansions set up with typinator to do all the repetitive stuff. Unfortunately that broke down for me when upgrades to macOS started to make it less reliable and I was transitioning more and more toward entry from mobile. I haven’t been able to come up with a solid workflow to replace that and it’s a pain because it worked so well for a long time. [0]: https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/
kirubakaran 7y ago
You might like my https://histre.com/ https://histre.com/ It (optionally) connects to Telegram, so you don't even have to install an app to quickly save your thoughts. They all go into a "notebook", ready to be organized later (if you so choose).
- bnj 7y ago
  This is really interesting! I’m really glad you mentioned the telegram connection, looking forward to digging further into it
  - kirubakaran 7y ago
    Thanks. I'd love to hear your thoughts. My email is in my profile.
dmd 7y ago
> need a lapel mic I saw the Myle [0] at CES 3 years ago, but it ended up never shipping - they took ~$150k in orders but never fulfilled any, sadly. It was a great idea, though. [0] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/myle-tap-wearable-thought-catcher/x/4253232#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/myle-tap-wearable-thought...

zerkten 7y ago

I'm not an organised note-taker, except for a few circumstances. Most often notes are just actions which get put in email to myself, or my team. Life has changed recently and I've been thinking about some low-friction options for capturing thoughts. Any solution needs to work from mobile and desktop (macOS, Windows, and Linux for me.) On desktop I'm imagining something like an Alfred window popping up on a keyboard shortcut. Storing the text note or screenshot with timestamp. Nothing precludes audio, or any other format, but the capture tool needs to load immediately, capture whatever, and disappear into the background. It'd then bug me at specific times to group these notes or add some context. I'd be able to "zoom" by hour, day, week. It would work out what was during work hours and what was outside of work time, but I'd still be able to indicate personal or work. Tagging would be available, but not required. I could take some note, or a group of notes "forward" to another tool. It'd store a link to that next system (Trello, work bug tracker, etc.) so I'd know the items were "actioned" in some way. I'm not aware of any tool which really does this. Note-taking tools are developed for folks who love creating notes and not for people who don't love doing this (or have had excellent memories up to now and skipped development a love for taking a note on everything!)

whalesalad 7y ago
Your thinking is exactly in-line with mine: ultra low friction, but bug me later to fill in missing details if possible. Also, 'zooming' into or out of a time context is spot on as well. I would love to emit tiny little atomic bursts of thought all day and then later in the evening when I am winding down I could enter a mode where I am organizing/enriching/reconciling stuff. This is an action item, this is a bullshit note I can delete, this was my mood, etc... Thanks for taking the time to spill out your thoughts on this.
bnj 7y ago
For years my go to option was nvAlt[^0] with a hotkey and some expansions set up with typinator to do all the repetitive stuff. Unfortunately that broke down for me when upgrades to macOS started to make it less reliable and I was transitioning more and more toward entry from mobile. I haven’t been able to come up with a solid workflow to replace that and it’s a pain because it worked so well for a long time. [0]: https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/ https://brettterpstra.com/projects/nvalt/

kirubakaran 7y ago

You might like my https://histre.com/ https://histre.com/ It (optionally) connects to Telegram, so you don't even have to install an app to quickly save your thoughts. They all go into a "notebook", ready to be organized later (if you so choose).

bnj 7y ago
This is really interesting! I’m really glad you mentioned the telegram connection, looking forward to digging further into it
- kirubakaran 7y ago
  Thanks. I'd love to hear your thoughts. My email is in my profile.

dmd 7y ago

> need a lapel mic I saw the Myle [0] at CES 3 years ago, but it ended up never shipping - they took ~$150k in orders but never fulfilled any, sadly. It was a great idea, though. [0] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/myle-tap-wearable-thought-catcher/x/4253232#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/myle-tap-wearable-thought...