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I'm not convinced that note taking in this much detail is worth it. I have coworkers that do it and they can't recall information any better than the people who

I'm not convinced that note taking in this much detail is worth it. I have coworkers that do it and they can't recall information any better than the people who take no notes I think some notes are better than others, especially in a job with many context switches. If you need it to get into context: worth writing down. If you are writing just to get "completeness" it's basically pointless. Your brain is pretty good at remembering stuff

selfmodruntime 2y ago
I agree. There are two topics for note taking where I found the process really worth it. They are research and important personal topics. The latter mostly consists of health information, bills, a budget and a list of books I read and want to read.
BadHumans 2y ago
You don't write notes for memory recall, if you wanted recall you use something like Anki. You don't want your brain remembering everything so you write it down so you know where you can get it later if needed. I don't remember all there is to know about React because documentation is there when I need it. And your brain is really good at misremembering and fabricating information so taking notes at work makes sure your timeline of events is correct.
Noumenon72 2y ago
Your brain is good at remembering stuff the same way your legs are good at lifting stuff -- a well designed system that can't in any way compare to a purpose-built machine. My brain can barely remember that I have even taken notes about many topics, much less the topics themselves. People learn to take notes in school as a way to summarize things so they can reread to memorize them. This is largely useless over time periods greater than a semester, because of the limits of memory and the time burden of rereading. Notes that give you an accumulating knowledge advantage over a lifetime have to be taken with a mindset of "when I need this information, how am I going to find out I knew it?" Keywords taking you to an outline view that reminds you of related topics, or Obsidian's linking system.
rchaud 2y ago
> Your brain is pretty good at remembering stuff Provided you are under 35 years old, have no cognitive issues, and have a maximum of 1 or 2 domains of knowledge to manage. Not everyone's brain works the same way.
aldanor 2y ago
The way I see it, one of the reasons is to "keep your cache empty", so to speak. You find something potentially interesting and you don't leave a tab open for later, you don't try to remember it in case you'll need to recall it a week later, you have a reliable procedure dumping this information into cold storage, removing the mental burden from yourself. Retrieval of information from that storage and the efficiency of doing that is a separate question.

selfmodruntime 2y ago

I agree. There are two topics for note taking where I found the process really worth it. They are research and important personal topics. The latter mostly consists of health information, bills, a budget and a list of books I read and want to read.

BadHumans 2y ago

You don't write notes for memory recall, if you wanted recall you use something like Anki. You don't want your brain remembering everything so you write it down so you know where you can get it later if needed. I don't remember all there is to know about React because documentation is there when I need it. And your brain is really good at misremembering and fabricating information so taking notes at work makes sure your timeline of events is correct.

Noumenon72 2y ago

Your brain is good at remembering stuff the same way your legs are good at lifting stuff -- a well designed system that can't in any way compare to a purpose-built machine. My brain can barely remember that I have even taken notes about many topics, much less the topics themselves. People learn to take notes in school as a way to summarize things so they can reread to memorize them. This is largely useless over time periods greater than a semester, because of the limits of memory and the time burden of rereading. Notes that give you an accumulating knowledge advantage over a lifetime have to be taken with a mindset of "when I need this information, how am I going to find out I knew it?" Keywords taking you to an outline view that reminds you of related topics, or Obsidian's linking system.

rchaud 2y ago

> Your brain is pretty good at remembering stuff Provided you are under 35 years old, have no cognitive issues, and have a maximum of 1 or 2 domains of knowledge to manage. Not everyone's brain works the same way.

aldanor 2y ago

The way I see it, one of the reasons is to "keep your cache empty", so to speak. You find something potentially interesting and you don't leave a tab open for later, you don't try to remember it in case you'll need to recall it a week later, you have a reliable procedure dumping this information into cold storage, removing the mental burden from yourself. Retrieval of information from that storage and the efficiency of doing that is a separate question.