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I think part of it has to do with a sort of mythos around note taking. This is pure speculation, but it seems to me that part of the reason note taking apps are

I think part of it has to do with a sort of mythos around note taking. This is pure speculation, but it seems to me that part of the reason note taking apps are so popular is that we've built this cult of productivity that is very much magical and religious in the sense that we think 10x producers simply must have some secret trick, that they meditate, take godly notes, have supreme organizational skills or...something...we're all looking for the secret sauce, the silver bullet. There's this latent idea of "man if only I could get a proper note taking system in place I'd be doing killer work", put another way, "we aren't successful because we're taking notes the wrong way! (not because our ideas are not good or because we simply are not one of the lucky few that will make it)" which unfortunately, is usually false. We like to focus on little micro improvements to our processes because they tangentially relate to work and feel productive, but at the end of the day, are still just another form of procrastination. All that said, I use org mode and you should too :P

apostacy 6y ago
While I do think that there is a lot of hype and "productivity porn", there's a good 10% of it that is really on to something. There is obviously an itch that needs scratching in personal knowledge base software. That has certainly been my experience. I can see from the outside it might just look like 100% hype. Personally, my life has been vastly improved with note taking software over the last four years. I can't imagine going back now. Some people I'm sure are ok with just a big text file. The software is almost not important. A new knowledge-base language is emerging, with Markdown-like formatting, but less emphasis on html style page breaking, [[wiki style]] links, and various syntaxes for backlinks and metadata. I've gone from vim-wiki, to various other systems, and migrating I was able to just do with some simple perl scripts. But my knowledge wikis have been effortlessly growing. I have a git repo now with many submodules for my different wikis. I really think that we are looking at this the wrong way. This is not nearly that much of a technical problem. This is just at the awkward stage where we are figuring out the best patterns for personal knowledge. It's not a problem that we will solve, but at least some good general strategies will probably emerge. Personally, I mostly just use a roam-like wiki, but I also have two Zettelkasten submodules as well. My two zetts deal with such different domains that it would be more helpful that they be in completely different namespaces. But yeah, most of the software is crap. The best tools I have found have been small user scripts for editors. I used an Atom based suite that handled my digital gardens. I've been moving to FOAM. I think the best thing you can do is try to learn from what has worked for other people, and not get too hung up on any one technology.

apostacy 6y ago

While I do think that there is a lot of hype and "productivity porn", there's a good 10% of it that is really on to something. There is obviously an itch that needs scratching in personal knowledge base software. That has certainly been my experience. I can see from the outside it might just look like 100% hype. Personally, my life has been vastly improved with note taking software over the last four years. I can't imagine going back now. Some people I'm sure are ok with just a big text file. The software is almost not important. A new knowledge-base language is emerging, with Markdown-like formatting, but less emphasis on html style page breaking, [[wiki style]] links, and various syntaxes for backlinks and metadata. I've gone from vim-wiki, to various other systems, and migrating I was able to just do with some simple perl scripts. But my knowledge wikis have been effortlessly growing. I have a git repo now with many submodules for my different wikis. I really think that we are looking at this the wrong way. This is not nearly that much of a technical problem. This is just at the awkward stage where we are figuring out the best patterns for personal knowledge. It's not a problem that we will solve, but at least some good general strategies will probably emerge. Personally, I mostly just use a roam-like wiki, but I also have two Zettelkasten submodules as well. My two zetts deal with such different domains that it would be more helpful that they be in completely different namespaces. But yeah, most of the software is crap. The best tools I have found have been small user scripts for editors. I used an Atom based suite that handled my digital gardens. I've been moving to FOAM. I think the best thing you can do is try to learn from what has worked for other people, and not get too hung up on any one technology.