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I've tried to incorporate some of the ideas of the "second brain" and it didn't really give me that much. My lessons: 1. It's always super helpful to write thi

I've tried to incorporate some of the ideas of the "second brain" and it didn't really give me that much. My lessons: 1. It's always super helpful to write things down. Taking notes from what I read/learn is a great way to verify that I understand it. It sharpens my thinking. 2. However, maintaining the "second brain" is a lot work. It's not only about "linking" together notes. You also need to maintain some consistency between them. I ended up spending a lot of time thinking about the structure instead of actually thinking about the content. 3. Most of my notes/thoughts fall into two categories: (1) Either they are critical for something I'm actively working on or (2) it's just loose concepts that I'm toying with. For (1) I immediately end up playing with it in code — which is far more concrete and tangible than notes. And for (2) it was rarely important to retain the knowledge accurately many weeks/months later. What I've ended up with is taking a lot of notes, but I hardly focus on organizing them.

snarf21 5y ago
I think the missing things for most people revisiting notes is they record the what but rarely the why. The why makes the what easy to back into but we tend to focus on the destination what too much. ymmv
ar_lan 5y ago
I would recommend looking into the Zettelkasten ("slip box") system, then ("How to take smart notes" by Sonke Ahrens is a great read). Particularly to your point (2), the problem I've seen with most systems is they are not simple to maintain. Contrast this with "Getting Things Done", which is practically the simplest productivity system I've ever used that accurately works, where you have only two chores: 1. Write down tasks as they come up 2. Flesh them out later with as little metadata as possible (typically, at most, a project + due date if necessary) The Zettelkasten mirrors this in a lot of ways. It has the advantage of re-writing your notes in your own words (your point (1)), but it is very simple to maintain. You re-write, make links to other notes in your existing setup, and you're done. Your notes should be as context-less as possible (which causes you to think further), and you should generally be able to relate it to GTD's daily "review" process. A big point of clarity is the Zettelkasten is against "organization" - everything falls into the box. Ahrens talks in depth about how folders, categories, and even tags can be very limiting - you think about the metadata more than the actual content, which gives us a headache to maintain. A system should be as friction-less as possible if we want to actually use it. Additionally, he does address your (3) to some extent, but it seems like you've figured out what these thoughts are, and resolved that they probably aren't worth fleshing out further (beyond maybe your proof-of-concept, fail-fast demo). I imagine if they are worthy ideas you probably would elaborate on them further. -- I've been using it for a while now, and I can personally attest that it's been very helpful, especially as I've progressed into more architectural/design work, and less direct day-to-day coding.
throwvirtever 5y ago
What I've found myself doing is taking a lot of notes, then when the moment arrives to organize them, I just delete them. I end up having to rebuild my (admittedly tiny) "second brain" from scratch from time to time, but at least I end up with stuff that's relevant now-ish, without having to bear the cost of a lot of long-term knowledge inventory. NOTE: This is not advice, and this approach would probably not work even for me if I was inclined to regret throwing things away.
bcrosby95 5y ago
Yes, my notes are just a massive log file. I use it as a scratchpad whenever I do something.
chris_st 5y ago
> I ended up spending a lot of time thinking about the structure instead of actually thinking about the content. This is why wikis, which I originally thought were just the best things ever, seem to become useless over time. The Mac application Quiver [1] introduced me to the idea of categories, which can contain one layer of sub-category, and either categories or sub-categories can contain articles, which contain text. A really simple tree. This extremely simple structure is just enough to (A) contain everything I've thrown at it and (B) know where to look for something. And, you can make links from one article to another for when a cross-reference is good to have (but I do it very rarely). I now use Obsidian [2] which is more modern, not Mac only, as well as being much simpler to use than Quiver, using simple markdown. [1] https://happenapps.com https://happenapps.com [2] https://obsidian.md https://obsidian.md
- jiggunjer 5y ago
  Wdym useless over time? You don't need to think about structuring a wiki.
  - nomel 5y ago
    I've found that if you don't have structure, then you're reliant on plain search terms. As you have more and more leafs, without a tree, your searches will match more and more leafs, to the point where you'll have difficultly finding conceptually related but not textually related concepts. If you're using tags or links, I would claim those are structure. I've often found I have to go back and add tags/links to pages so I can find them in the search results. I think structureless is not possible, since some form of structure will grow, with lumps. I think there's some happy in between, with some light structure in place.
  - chris_st 5y ago
    Perhaps "useless" is the wrong term -- perhaps just "wildly inconsistent" would be better (which winds up being pretty much useless, if you can't find anything). nomel wrote: > I think structureless is not possible, since some form of structure will grow, with lumps. This really nails it. There will be some kinds of structures (note the plurals), particularly if more than one person is involved, since you just think... differently at different times. A minimal structure like Quiver/Obsidian just takes all those silly decisions away that wind up lumping your data into a difficult-to-access wad.
peterburkimsher 5y ago
Yes! and suggest "write things down" -> type thoughts in. Organising: suggest event in {iCal, Outlook}, can search by date. Other categories: suggest adding names of people to notes. Search (grep) for those extra names. Suggest scheduling future event {date/time, person} to delegate task. Suggest fractal recursion of self-sacrifice in Sierpinski Triangle, delegate out half the work, then half again. Say "thank you" to those who accept delegation; thank back to those who suggested ideas to you. Can parallelise {reading, writing, listening, speaking, typing, singing, doing going} e.g. reading code and singing music. Can double available brainpower. Thank you judofyr for your bug report; hope this workaround will help!
agumonkey 5y ago
point 2 is a bit saying the brain2 is its own information system with tech debt and accidental complexity
varispeed 5y ago
I am not going anywhere without my reMarkable 2. This is just crazy convenient tool for dumping thoughts and trying ideas. E.g. when I design something. I'd draw abstract boxes and other shapes, then add a new layer, make connections, another layer some notes. You can freely move things around or erase with a pen. I think my productivity gone up like 10x. I especially like the fact that I can just leave my laptop, sit somewhere quiet and just write and draw without distractions.
- ungamedplayer 5y ago
  Do you use the handwriting to text service?
ssully 5y ago
I started using OneNote this year. I create a weekly "Note" where I throw all my notes in during a week. This includes a weekly ToDo checklist, a note section per meeting, and then random thoughts, code/log snippits, or whatever else I need. It's not perfect, but it's the best solution I've found so far. I've tried every note taking method out there and I always fall off after a few months. I think this is working for me because it has the quality of a general wiki, but I start fresh every week, so I don't have to worry about carrying over or linking "knowledge" for the most part.
- onefuncman 5y ago
  I go back and forth between doing this on a daily or weekly cadence, but it's also the only thing I've found to keep being useful over time. I always get a wild hair to try and write Markdown or something but really I just end up writing text and it's fine. The most meta I ever get is adding additional keywords for me to search later.
- smusamashah 5y ago
  Most of note taking happens at work. I tried local plain text notes, then stuck with confluence for some time. Confluence is slow and resists a lot. OneNote is what I have end up with for now. Every page in one note is like a whiteboard where you can put anything anywhere. I sometimes store screenshots of code snippets. Sometimes even full files. Use it for small temporary todo lists. OneNote is a great place for putting down random info as quickly as possible. Not worrying about how and where to put your thoughts down is very very important. Thoughts get lost in the process otherwise.
  - O_H_E 5y ago
    > Not worrying about how and where to put your thoughts down is very very important. Thoughts get lost in the process otherwise. Yes, strong agree
ozim 5y ago
I think one of the problems is that people want to "de duplicate" knowledge and have such solutions with "DRY - don't repeat yourself". What is my idea - I have VS Code and just write down things with tags using # - then even if I have something in two places on the same topic I don't mind. When I see it in search I will recall which one I need. Disk space for text files is nowadays basically infinite :)
- pqs 5y ago
  The problem is that "taking notes" means different things in different contexts. For an academic sociologist, building a zettelkasten is a step in the process of writing academic publications; for me an academic in Earth Science, taking notes is documenting the software my team writes, documenting the scientific methods we use; keeping track of tasks and writing meeting notes; for a programmer, taking notes is storing examples of code, ideas, etc. That's why there is no one way to taking notes. There will almost be as many note-taking tools as people using them!
  - ozim 5y ago
    Let's go one step further ... One person can have multiple systems of note taking. Just daily notes that you need to write down to keep some thoughts around. Other system might be for writing a book that needs to be really structured. I think problem is that a lot of people think that they need to have "one master system" to rule them all. But what is my idea - that if you have some daily note that you want to include in your book, you copy that piece to your "book notes" from your "daily notes" and have 2 copies in different contexts. Sometimes I have that grand idea that I would like to wrap my mind around entirety of my life ... it is just not possible and CONTEXT is the king.
cranium 5y ago
I'm in the same place. I optimized the note taking experience and now I have loads of notes/links/snippets in Org files but the organizing part (move, link, update) is still painful. I would love to have a pseudo-smart tool that suggests meaningful actions based on the note content. Like "Move note to project 'learning-kubernetes'", "Tag with 'home-improvement'" or "See similar notes: [...]". That and the ability to do it on my phone would be a killer feature for me.

snarf21 5y ago

I think the missing things for most people revisiting notes is they record the what but rarely the why. The why makes the what easy to back into but we tend to focus on the destination what too much. ymmv

ar_lan 5y ago

I would recommend looking into the Zettelkasten ("slip box") system, then ("How to take smart notes" by Sonke Ahrens is a great read). Particularly to your point (2), the problem I've seen with most systems is they are not simple to maintain. Contrast this with "Getting Things Done", which is practically the simplest productivity system I've ever used that accurately works, where you have only two chores: 1. Write down tasks as they come up 2. Flesh them out later with as little metadata as possible (typically, at most, a project + due date if necessary) The Zettelkasten mirrors this in a lot of ways. It has the advantage of re-writing your notes in your own words (your point (1)), but it is very simple to maintain. You re-write, make links to other notes in your existing setup, and you're done. Your notes should be as context-less as possible (which causes you to think further), and you should generally be able to relate it to GTD's daily "review" process. A big point of clarity is the Zettelkasten is against "organization" - everything falls into the box. Ahrens talks in depth about how folders, categories, and even tags can be very limiting - you think about the metadata more than the actual content, which gives us a headache to maintain. A system should be as friction-less as possible if we want to actually use it. Additionally, he does address your (3) to some extent, but it seems like you've figured out what these thoughts are, and resolved that they probably aren't worth fleshing out further (beyond maybe your proof-of-concept, fail-fast demo). I imagine if they are worthy ideas you probably would elaborate on them further. -- I've been using it for a while now, and I can personally attest that it's been very helpful, especially as I've progressed into more architectural/design work, and less direct day-to-day coding.

throwvirtever 5y ago

What I've found myself doing is taking a lot of notes, then when the moment arrives to organize them, I just delete them. I end up having to rebuild my (admittedly tiny) "second brain" from scratch from time to time, but at least I end up with stuff that's relevant now-ish, without having to bear the cost of a lot of long-term knowledge inventory. NOTE: This is not advice, and this approach would probably not work even for me if I was inclined to regret throwing things away.

bcrosby95 5y ago

Yes, my notes are just a massive log file. I use it as a scratchpad whenever I do something.

chris_st 5y ago

> I ended up spending a lot of time thinking about the structure instead of actually thinking about the content. This is why wikis, which I originally thought were just the best things ever, seem to become useless over time. The Mac application Quiver [1] introduced me to the idea of categories, which can contain one layer of sub-category, and either categories or sub-categories can contain articles, which contain text. A really simple tree. This extremely simple structure is just enough to (A) contain everything I've thrown at it and (B) know where to look for something. And, you can make links from one article to another for when a cross-reference is good to have (but I do it very rarely). I now use Obsidian [2] which is more modern, not Mac only, as well as being much simpler to use than Quiver, using simple markdown. [1] https://happenapps.com https://happenapps.com [2] https://obsidian.md https://obsidian.md

jiggunjer 5y ago
Wdym useless over time? You don't need to think about structuring a wiki.
- nomel 5y ago
  I've found that if you don't have structure, then you're reliant on plain search terms. As you have more and more leafs, without a tree, your searches will match more and more leafs, to the point where you'll have difficultly finding conceptually related but not textually related concepts. If you're using tags or links, I would claim those are structure. I've often found I have to go back and add tags/links to pages so I can find them in the search results. I think structureless is not possible, since some form of structure will grow, with lumps. I think there's some happy in between, with some light structure in place.
- chris_st 5y ago
  Perhaps "useless" is the wrong term -- perhaps just "wildly inconsistent" would be better (which winds up being pretty much useless, if you can't find anything). nomel wrote: > I think structureless is not possible, since some form of structure will grow, with lumps. This really nails it. There will be some kinds of structures (note the plurals), particularly if more than one person is involved, since you just think... differently at different times. A minimal structure like Quiver/Obsidian just takes all those silly decisions away that wind up lumping your data into a difficult-to-access wad.

peterburkimsher 5y ago

Yes! and suggest "write things down" -> type thoughts in. Organising: suggest event in {iCal, Outlook}, can search by date. Other categories: suggest adding names of people to notes. Search (grep) for those extra names. Suggest scheduling future event {date/time, person} to delegate task. Suggest fractal recursion of self-sacrifice in Sierpinski Triangle, delegate out half the work, then half again. Say "thank you" to those who accept delegation; thank back to those who suggested ideas to you. Can parallelise {reading, writing, listening, speaking, typing, singing, doing going} e.g. reading code and singing music. Can double available brainpower. Thank you judofyr for your bug report; hope this workaround will help!

agumonkey 5y ago

point 2 is a bit saying the brain2 is its own information system with tech debt and accidental complexity

varispeed 5y ago

I am not going anywhere without my reMarkable 2. This is just crazy convenient tool for dumping thoughts and trying ideas. E.g. when I design something. I'd draw abstract boxes and other shapes, then add a new layer, make connections, another layer some notes. You can freely move things around or erase with a pen. I think my productivity gone up like 10x. I especially like the fact that I can just leave my laptop, sit somewhere quiet and just write and draw without distractions.

ungamedplayer 5y ago
Do you use the handwriting to text service?

ssully 5y ago

I started using OneNote this year. I create a weekly "Note" where I throw all my notes in during a week. This includes a weekly ToDo checklist, a note section per meeting, and then random thoughts, code/log snippits, or whatever else I need. It's not perfect, but it's the best solution I've found so far. I've tried every note taking method out there and I always fall off after a few months. I think this is working for me because it has the quality of a general wiki, but I start fresh every week, so I don't have to worry about carrying over or linking "knowledge" for the most part.

onefuncman 5y ago
I go back and forth between doing this on a daily or weekly cadence, but it's also the only thing I've found to keep being useful over time. I always get a wild hair to try and write Markdown or something but really I just end up writing text and it's fine. The most meta I ever get is adding additional keywords for me to search later.
smusamashah 5y ago
Most of note taking happens at work. I tried local plain text notes, then stuck with confluence for some time. Confluence is slow and resists a lot. OneNote is what I have end up with for now. Every page in one note is like a whiteboard where you can put anything anywhere. I sometimes store screenshots of code snippets. Sometimes even full files. Use it for small temporary todo lists. OneNote is a great place for putting down random info as quickly as possible. Not worrying about how and where to put your thoughts down is very very important. Thoughts get lost in the process otherwise.
- O_H_E 5y ago
  > Not worrying about how and where to put your thoughts down is very very important. Thoughts get lost in the process otherwise. Yes, strong agree

ozim 5y ago

I think one of the problems is that people want to "de duplicate" knowledge and have such solutions with "DRY - don't repeat yourself". What is my idea - I have VS Code and just write down things with tags using # - then even if I have something in two places on the same topic I don't mind. When I see it in search I will recall which one I need. Disk space for text files is nowadays basically infinite :)

pqs 5y ago
The problem is that "taking notes" means different things in different contexts. For an academic sociologist, building a zettelkasten is a step in the process of writing academic publications; for me an academic in Earth Science, taking notes is documenting the software my team writes, documenting the scientific methods we use; keeping track of tasks and writing meeting notes; for a programmer, taking notes is storing examples of code, ideas, etc. That's why there is no one way to taking notes. There will almost be as many note-taking tools as people using them!
- ozim 5y ago
  Let's go one step further ... One person can have multiple systems of note taking. Just daily notes that you need to write down to keep some thoughts around. Other system might be for writing a book that needs to be really structured. I think problem is that a lot of people think that they need to have "one master system" to rule them all. But what is my idea - that if you have some daily note that you want to include in your book, you copy that piece to your "book notes" from your "daily notes" and have 2 copies in different contexts. Sometimes I have that grand idea that I would like to wrap my mind around entirety of my life ... it is just not possible and CONTEXT is the king.

cranium 5y ago

I'm in the same place. I optimized the note taking experience and now I have loads of notes/links/snippets in Org files but the organizing part (move, link, update) is still painful. I would love to have a pseudo-smart tool that suggests meaningful actions based on the note content. Like "Move note to project 'learning-kubernetes'", "Tag with 'home-improvement'" or "See similar notes: [...]". That and the ability to do it on my phone would be a killer feature for me.