9 ms·

The benefit of journaling is not just reentry, but that you begin to solidify the mental model into a concrete branching of possibilities that is tightly couple

The benefit of journaling is not just reentry, but that you begin to solidify the mental model into a concrete branching of possibilities that is tightly coupled to the specific problem. Your work becomes traversal and mutation of this tree. Several benefits accrue: you begin to see gaps in the tree, and can fill them in. You begin to have confidence in your mental model, recovering the time you used to spend going over the same nodes again and again in a haphazard way. In distributed systems in particular, the work is often detailed, manual, error prone and high latency - with a solid mental model you can get through a checklist of steps with minimum difficulty and high confidence that you didn't miss anything. This ability to take something abstract and make it more concrete on the fly is a critical skill. Perhaps the greatest barrier to using it is akin to envy. We see others who apparently do this without written materials, in their head. I think we see this as evidence of intellectual superiority and harbor the doubt that using an aid like a journal means we are somehow lacking in skill or ability. This is wrong. Using an aid to map out complex problems isn't a failure, it's essential, especially for problems in systems you've never used before. Over time you may yourself build up your expertise such that you no longer need the aid, but that doesn't signal anything about your intelligence or ability either, only your experience.

makz 2y ago
This advice is pure gold. Thank you.
quest88 2y ago
> Perhaps the greatest barrier to using it is akin to envy. We see others who apparently do this without written materials, in their head. I think we see this as evidence of intellectual superiority and harbor the doubt that using an aid like a journal means we are somehow lacking in skill or ability. To add to your "this is wrong": These others may have themselves solved the problems we are now trying to solve, likely even using a journal. They no longer need a journal since they know how to navigate it, and it appears as superior to us.
- ahartmetz 2y ago
  I mitigate this "problem" somewhat by taking pride in specialized yet (hopefully) readable notations and sometimes even creative tool usage. Like using a project planning tool with a Gantt chart feature to speed up a boot process with many dependencies. Of course, sometimes an existing tool or notation used for its original purpose is what you need. Maybe manually remove the stuff that doesn't matter.
- bee_rider 2y ago
  This was the biggest revelation in grad school for me, I think. The professors were in fact not gods of problem solving, they just had the answers. Not just of the problems they brought along (obviously). But also of the handful of problems we’d tend to invent. Of course, if you really catch them flat-footed, they can provide circumspect and sagely advice, and then quickly check Wikipedia to see if anyone has solved your problem.
- veunes 2y ago
  The notion that using a journal is a common misconception
brightball 2y ago
I’ve been seriously considering using Logseq for this reason. When I first started with Obsidian I used it that way, but the more I put in it the more I started organizing everything. It became less of a journal and more of a repository for long form stuff. I’m thinking about using both just so I have a dedicated tool just for the journaling side of things.
- dr_kiszonka 2y ago
  I use different editors for different purposes, e.g., Obsidian for long form and planning, OneNote for meetings. I wouldn't overthink it, though, and just use the simplest tools available. I use Sublime Text 3 with a few shortcuts to add the current timestamp, etc. and log everything in a long file. I was too ambitious in the past and wanted to learn how to use Emacs for everything, but it just held me back, and I ended up without any notes. Also, my unfortunately named thread from 2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33359329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33359329
  - phoh 2y ago
    do you have a decent system to get entries between(both in and out) Obsidian and OneNote? I have a similar system to you, but getting things in and out of OneNote is such a massive pain. Everything I have tried requires significant reformatting (even Word).
    - dr_kiszonka 2y ago
      I usually don't move notes to and from OneNote. I tried this Obsydian importer, and it is OK for my meeting notes in terms of formatting. However, it has a bug that strips slashes from page titles, which is a bit of an issue for me because I always add dates to titles (e.g., 7/13/2024). With a few good examples, maybe some LLM could help you with reformatting? Good luck!
- kaiwen1 2y ago
  I use Emacs Org Mode with Org Roam for journaling. I’ve customized it extensively to fit my workflow, but there is a risk. Unlike paper, in Emacs there’s a potential distraction lurking around every thought, every entry, even every keystone. I’ve tried going to paper many times to mitigate the risk, but it never sticks. I’m too far down the hole and habituated to change. But if I were starting over, I would choose paper and stay with it. When journaling, you want no distractions. Nothing beats paper.
galaxyLogic 2y ago
I write a lot of notes in fact I write more than I read. It helps. However I have some issues: 1. How much commentary should I write? I try to write not too many notes because I write code, and some say code should be self-documenting. So it's the same old question of how many comments should there be along the code. 2. How do I retrieve a note I've written earlier? I can use tags and search for them but it is not easy to come up with a perfect tag which I would remember later. 3. I have so many notes and by now many of them are out-of-date. I don't want to spend time updating my notes. But if I don't they can become misleading. There needs to be a balance between "Just do it" and "Write about it". I'm not sure I have the correct balance between those two. I can see an alternate approach which would be a FORUM where co-workers discuss what they are doing or plan to, or have done . But there too the retrieval might be a problem. However the FORUM-tool would automatically keep track of when something was written and by whom. NOTE: You might benefit from other people's notes just as you can from your own.
- dghlsakjg 2y ago
  Check out obsidian. It is just folders and markdown so it is ultra portable, but the obsidian editor has tons of useful features like a graph view, autolinking, and a plugin in for anything you can think of. There are tons of YouTube videos and articles describing different organizing systems and ways to use it.
  - simpaticoder 2y ago
    I like Obsidian, but plain text continues to reign supreme. I prefer nvAlt or my programmers editor, or if on a team, whatever the company provides (e.g. Jira). The embarrassment of options is actually a key problem in itself, since if you do not commit to one, you find your notes spread across various files, tools, and services, totally disjoint in a way that is impossible to work with and difficult to undo. The ideal tool, which I don't think exists, would combine the immediacy and locality of nvAlt and bidirectionally map to something like Jira for sharing, distributed as a browser plugin and/or a simple server component with local write access.
    - 2y ago
m3kw9 2y ago
Is the process of writing not for reading it but to solidfy memory? Of course the bonus is you could read it, but you really won’t
- chrisweekly 2y ago
  I sometimes write to document my thoughts - but just as often I write in order to discover what I think. Sometimes it's like the writing is the thinking. Also, I love Obsidian. It became more useful when learned to stop overdoing it with exploring the endless plugin options, settled on a favorite few, and now mostly write in the daily note, occasionally extracting things to dedicated devnotes which in turn have chronological timestamped entries (and bidirectional links to the corresponding DNs). Highest possible recommendation to find a tool / workflow that suits you, and leverage it.
clara_heredia 2y ago
[flagged]
lelanthran 2y ago
> solidify the mental model into a concrete branching of possibilities that is tightly coupled to the specific problem. Your work becomes traversal and mutation of this tree. I wrote a program (used from a CLI, but I mostly use the GUI I developed for it) to do something similar for my own use: https://github.com/lelanthran/frame/blob/master/docs/FrameIntroduction.odp https://github.com/lelanthran/frame/blob/master/docs/FrameIn... I use it daily.
- dhc02 2y ago
  This is really interesting. Thanks for sharing.
- ravetcofx 2y ago
  That is one of those novel once in a generation kind of tools and concepts I feel. Outstanding
- tarruda 2y ago
  Interesting tool. I currently use a TODO text file in the root of each project I'm working on, which I update right before I stop working. The lists are hierarchical, so each task I'm focused on has a parent item, which helps me remind of the bigger picture.
  - slyfox125 2y ago
    Usually, ths simplest solution is best and your approach exemplifies it: no need for a special application, simply open the text file and then go to work.
    - leetrout 2y ago
      I have found, and advise teams I lead or work with, that the tool absolutely does not matter because it is the discipline to use the tool consistently that makes a difference. Now, having said that, shoving jira down peoples throats with all kinds of rules around tagging and whatever wears people out. So, yes, a text file, a google doc, linear or a few post-its on the wall.
mettamage 2y ago
I had a whole CLI full with bash scripts and a Sublime Text app with self-written plugins that functioned like this at my previous job.
- greggsy 2y ago
  You mean, for journaling, or to automate the process?
  - mettamage 2y ago
    Journaling
safety1st 2y ago
If I'm working on something particularly complex I basically just do the journaling in a code comment adjacent to what I'm working on. So the first commit may be three lines of code and a huge long winded rambling comment of what I've already tried or thought about. By the time the task is done I've pared away the more speculative/rambling elements of what I wrote, and what's left is typically some extremely well commented code. I think this method results in higher quality code produced faster than if you just try to keep everything in your head. No one's complained yet...!
- glynnormington 2y ago
  I like that. There are other ways of capturing work in progress adjacent to the code, instead of writing a journal. One of my favourites is to write a failing test - pretty much impossible to overlook or misunderstand on "re-entry" to the task. Another is to write a temporary commit log, with "WIP" in the first line and a TODO list in the rest of the log. This is good for ephemeral information that would just clutter up the code. If I do need something like a journal, I have occasionally just written a private gist and put that in a tab on my browser.
  - safety1st 2y ago
    These are really good!
- simpaticoder 2y ago
  A good technique I've used as well. Call it "iterative literate programming".
- veunes 2y ago
  An effective strategy for managing complex tasks
darkerside 2y ago
I believe it cuts both ways. Writing things down allows you to dump state so that you can make other complex calculations with your working memory. Then, learning to hold more complexity in your head increases your mental bandwidth using the same amount of external state available. Rinse and repeat.
bee_rider 2y ago
Experience looks like intelligence to us because we didn’t see the hours our favorite instructors and mentors spent banging their heads against their own notebooks, haha.
- simpaticoder 2y ago
  It is the rare instructor or mentor that takes pains to NOT show off their expertise, and model the expected behavior, tools, and techniques of the learner where they are at. It is the classic problem of telling someone the goal, but not how to get there. A common error-mode is repeating "the magic" over and over again, expecting it to sink in; it takes extra effort to decompose the magic into teachable, practicable parts. This teaching effort requires meta-cognition and empathy orthogonal to the effort required to become an expert, which is why expert teachers are a rare and precious gift.
- veunes 2y ago
  Absolutely! What often appears to be effortless intelligence or innate talent is usually the result of extensive experience and hard work.
veunes 2y ago
By clearly visualizing your mental model, you can more easily identify and address any gaps or missing elements, leading to a more complete understanding.
j45 2y ago
The auto-tagging plugin for Logseq has helped me a lot get over the hump. Everything that I want to be connected just is. Creating and maintaining the taxonomy is another thing but not too bad.

makz 2y ago

This advice is pure gold. Thank you.

quest88 2y ago

> Perhaps the greatest barrier to using it is akin to envy. We see others who apparently do this without written materials, in their head. I think we see this as evidence of intellectual superiority and harbor the doubt that using an aid like a journal means we are somehow lacking in skill or ability. To add to your "this is wrong": These others may have themselves solved the problems we are now trying to solve, likely even using a journal. They no longer need a journal since they know how to navigate it, and it appears as superior to us.

ahartmetz 2y ago
I mitigate this "problem" somewhat by taking pride in specialized yet (hopefully) readable notations and sometimes even creative tool usage. Like using a project planning tool with a Gantt chart feature to speed up a boot process with many dependencies. Of course, sometimes an existing tool or notation used for its original purpose is what you need. Maybe manually remove the stuff that doesn't matter.
bee_rider 2y ago
This was the biggest revelation in grad school for me, I think. The professors were in fact not gods of problem solving, they just had the answers. Not just of the problems they brought along (obviously). But also of the handful of problems we’d tend to invent. Of course, if you really catch them flat-footed, they can provide circumspect and sagely advice, and then quickly check Wikipedia to see if anyone has solved your problem.
veunes 2y ago
The notion that using a journal is a common misconception

brightball 2y ago

I’ve been seriously considering using Logseq for this reason. When I first started with Obsidian I used it that way, but the more I put in it the more I started organizing everything. It became less of a journal and more of a repository for long form stuff. I’m thinking about using both just so I have a dedicated tool just for the journaling side of things.

dr_kiszonka 2y ago
I use different editors for different purposes, e.g., Obsidian for long form and planning, OneNote for meetings. I wouldn't overthink it, though, and just use the simplest tools available. I use Sublime Text 3 with a few shortcuts to add the current timestamp, etc. and log everything in a long file. I was too ambitious in the past and wanted to learn how to use Emacs for everything, but it just held me back, and I ended up without any notes. Also, my unfortunately named thread from 2022: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33359329 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33359329
- phoh 2y ago
  do you have a decent system to get entries between(both in and out) Obsidian and OneNote? I have a similar system to you, but getting things in and out of OneNote is such a massive pain. Everything I have tried requires significant reformatting (even Word).
  - dr_kiszonka 2y ago
    I usually don't move notes to and from OneNote. I tried this Obsydian importer, and it is OK for my meeting notes in terms of formatting. However, it has a bug that strips slashes from page titles, which is a bit of an issue for me because I always add dates to titles (e.g., 7/13/2024). With a few good examples, maybe some LLM could help you with reformatting? Good luck!
kaiwen1 2y ago
I use Emacs Org Mode with Org Roam for journaling. I’ve customized it extensively to fit my workflow, but there is a risk. Unlike paper, in Emacs there’s a potential distraction lurking around every thought, every entry, even every keystone. I’ve tried going to paper many times to mitigate the risk, but it never sticks. I’m too far down the hole and habituated to change. But if I were starting over, I would choose paper and stay with it. When journaling, you want no distractions. Nothing beats paper.

galaxyLogic 2y ago

I write a lot of notes in fact I write more than I read. It helps. However I have some issues: 1. How much commentary should I write? I try to write not too many notes because I write code, and some say code should be self-documenting. So it's the same old question of how many comments should there be along the code. 2. How do I retrieve a note I've written earlier? I can use tags and search for them but it is not easy to come up with a perfect tag which I would remember later. 3. I have so many notes and by now many of them are out-of-date. I don't want to spend time updating my notes. But if I don't they can become misleading. There needs to be a balance between "Just do it" and "Write about it". I'm not sure I have the correct balance between those two. I can see an alternate approach which would be a FORUM where co-workers discuss what they are doing or plan to, or have done . But there too the retrieval might be a problem. However the FORUM-tool would automatically keep track of when something was written and by whom. NOTE: You might benefit from other people's notes just as you can from your own.

dghlsakjg 2y ago
Check out obsidian. It is just folders and markdown so it is ultra portable, but the obsidian editor has tons of useful features like a graph view, autolinking, and a plugin in for anything you can think of. There are tons of YouTube videos and articles describing different organizing systems and ways to use it.
- simpaticoder 2y ago
  I like Obsidian, but plain text continues to reign supreme. I prefer nvAlt or my programmers editor, or if on a team, whatever the company provides (e.g. Jira). The embarrassment of options is actually a key problem in itself, since if you do not commit to one, you find your notes spread across various files, tools, and services, totally disjoint in a way that is impossible to work with and difficult to undo. The ideal tool, which I don't think exists, would combine the immediacy and locality of nvAlt and bidirectionally map to something like Jira for sharing, distributed as a browser plugin and/or a simple server component with local write access.
  - 2y ago

m3kw9 2y ago

Is the process of writing not for reading it but to solidfy memory? Of course the bonus is you could read it, but you really won’t

chrisweekly 2y ago
I sometimes write to document my thoughts - but just as often I write in order to discover what I think. Sometimes it's like the writing is the thinking. Also, I love Obsidian. It became more useful when learned to stop overdoing it with exploring the endless plugin options, settled on a favorite few, and now mostly write in the daily note, occasionally extracting things to dedicated devnotes which in turn have chronological timestamped entries (and bidirectional links to the corresponding DNs). Highest possible recommendation to find a tool / workflow that suits you, and leverage it.

clara_heredia 2y ago

[flagged]

lelanthran 2y ago

> solidify the mental model into a concrete branching of possibilities that is tightly coupled to the specific problem. Your work becomes traversal and mutation of this tree. I wrote a program (used from a CLI, but I mostly use the GUI I developed for it) to do something similar for my own use: https://github.com/lelanthran/frame/blob/master/docs/FrameIntroduction.odp https://github.com/lelanthran/frame/blob/master/docs/FrameIn... I use it daily.

dhc02 2y ago
This is really interesting. Thanks for sharing.
ravetcofx 2y ago
That is one of those novel once in a generation kind of tools and concepts I feel. Outstanding
tarruda 2y ago
Interesting tool. I currently use a TODO text file in the root of each project I'm working on, which I update right before I stop working. The lists are hierarchical, so each task I'm focused on has a parent item, which helps me remind of the bigger picture.
- slyfox125 2y ago
  Usually, ths simplest solution is best and your approach exemplifies it: no need for a special application, simply open the text file and then go to work.
  - leetrout 2y ago
    I have found, and advise teams I lead or work with, that the tool absolutely does not matter because it is the discipline to use the tool consistently that makes a difference. Now, having said that, shoving jira down peoples throats with all kinds of rules around tagging and whatever wears people out. So, yes, a text file, a google doc, linear or a few post-its on the wall.

mettamage 2y ago

I had a whole CLI full with bash scripts and a Sublime Text app with self-written plugins that functioned like this at my previous job.

greggsy 2y ago
You mean, for journaling, or to automate the process?
- mettamage 2y ago
  Journaling

safety1st 2y ago

If I'm working on something particularly complex I basically just do the journaling in a code comment adjacent to what I'm working on. So the first commit may be three lines of code and a huge long winded rambling comment of what I've already tried or thought about. By the time the task is done I've pared away the more speculative/rambling elements of what I wrote, and what's left is typically some extremely well commented code. I think this method results in higher quality code produced faster than if you just try to keep everything in your head. No one's complained yet...!

glynnormington 2y ago
I like that. There are other ways of capturing work in progress adjacent to the code, instead of writing a journal. One of my favourites is to write a failing test - pretty much impossible to overlook or misunderstand on "re-entry" to the task. Another is to write a temporary commit log, with "WIP" in the first line and a TODO list in the rest of the log. This is good for ephemeral information that would just clutter up the code. If I do need something like a journal, I have occasionally just written a private gist and put that in a tab on my browser.
- safety1st 2y ago
  These are really good!
simpaticoder 2y ago
A good technique I've used as well. Call it "iterative literate programming".
veunes 2y ago
An effective strategy for managing complex tasks

darkerside 2y ago

I believe it cuts both ways. Writing things down allows you to dump state so that you can make other complex calculations with your working memory. Then, learning to hold more complexity in your head increases your mental bandwidth using the same amount of external state available. Rinse and repeat.

bee_rider 2y ago

Experience looks like intelligence to us because we didn’t see the hours our favorite instructors and mentors spent banging their heads against their own notebooks, haha.

simpaticoder 2y ago
It is the rare instructor or mentor that takes pains to NOT show off their expertise, and model the expected behavior, tools, and techniques of the learner where they are at. It is the classic problem of telling someone the goal, but not how to get there. A common error-mode is repeating "the magic" over and over again, expecting it to sink in; it takes extra effort to decompose the magic into teachable, practicable parts. This teaching effort requires meta-cognition and empathy orthogonal to the effort required to become an expert, which is why expert teachers are a rare and precious gift.
veunes 2y ago
Absolutely! What often appears to be effortless intelligence or innate talent is usually the result of extensive experience and hard work.

veunes 2y ago

By clearly visualizing your mental model, you can more easily identify and address any gaps or missing elements, leading to a more complete understanding.

j45 2y ago

The auto-tagging plugin for Logseq has helped me a lot get over the hump. Everything that I want to be connected just is. Creating and maintaining the taxonomy is another thing but not too bad.