
An Iterative Approach to Notes - mooreds
https://medium.com/@bytebase/an-iterative-approach-to-notes-f1c2a28c4d29
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wenc
I've long advocated a simple learning approach to note-taking: don't engineer
your organization system from the outset (wiki/labels/etc), just dump your
thoughts to disk/paper first.

Then learn from _how_ you actually use that information (rather than how you
imagine you would use it). Your use patterns will provide hints as to the
correct organizational method. Then you can start specializing.

For instance if your notes are most once-off, there’s no need to organize
them. If they’re for writing, you may elect to coalesce and rewrite them into
coherent topics. If they’re for to do lists, you can reorganize them using
bullet journal methods. If the network is important, then consider a wiki.

This same principle applies in data engineering. If the data's use-patterns
are not yet established, don't create a complex anticipatory architecture that
may be underused or ill-fitted. Learn from how the users use the data, _then_
create the appropriate architecture.

Otherwise you'd end up with an over-engineered system that soon gets abandoned
due to friction.

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Jemaclus
I have a notebook and I essentially dump everything into it. Each meeting I
put a simple header: "Payments Weekly" or "Bob 1:1" or "API Review" and then
jot my notes underneath. The only organization that exists is that it's
written in chronological order.

I'd like an app with dead simple "just start typing" with a basic header to
name the section...

but what I don't want to have to do is go back and clean up and edit and
organize. I'm just not that kind of person. I'm not very organized in general,
and I don't have the personality traits needed to say "Hmm, I think I'll
organize my notes."

But it'd be great if something would detect that I've had five "Bob 1:1"
meetings and would group those together, for example. Maybe something
lightweight like this exists, but I haven't seen it...

~~~
ColinWright
Do you ever re-visit your notes?

* If so, how?

* If not, what is their value?

 _Edit: I 've returned and re-read that comment. It may come off as a little
snarky, but it's not intended as such, it's a genuine question. I ask, because
I'm interested in how other people's processes work, and wonder whether my
system would be of use or value to anyone else._

~~~
benrbray
Not who you were replying to, but:

* Most of my notes relate to a single blog post / article / paper that I read.

* In my notes, I jot down any new concepts I learned, and summarize them in a way I know I will be able to understand later.

* I'm very forgetful, so it helps to have this type of "condensed" representation so I can go back and review in six months when I inevitably forget what I learned.

* It's even better if my note-taking software can help me find old notes that I may have forgotten about. This is where tags and bidirectional links come in handy.

* My notes contain a lot of math, which is why I can't just use a plain text editor. The side-by-side style some editors use (like the VS Code Markdown Preview) is also suboptimal, because it wastes screen space -- normally I want half my screen to be notes, the other half to be a pdf). So far, Typora is the only software I've used that gets math editing right. But I'm slowly working to fix that! [1,2]

[1] [https://github.com/benrbray/prosemirror-
math](https://github.com/benrbray/prosemirror-math) [2]
[https://benrbray.com/static/prosemirror-
math/index.html](https://benrbray.com/static/prosemirror-math/index.html)
(only tested in chrome)

~~~
baylessj
Took a look at link 2 in Firefox, both the inline and block equations render
excellently. Great looking project!

~~~
benrbray
The rendering is all thanks to KaTeX, which is indeed great! Maybe it's not
clear enough from the page, but the page is actually editable -- click
anywhere and start writing. You can add new math by typing an expression like
$x+y=z$. The untested bit has to do with math editing on -- there are some
issues with moving your cursor around using the arrow keys on FF.

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roland35
So far my most effective method has been to stop trying to categorize and
organize my notes.

I just use org mode and:

\- have a to-do list up top. I try and keep notes as I progress through these

\- below is a "waiting" group of todos which I check every few days so they
don't clutter the top list

\- below that is a simple daily log. I just write notes and tag meetings
inside each day. I also write down a checklist of daily goals.

I used to organize everything by category and I found I still had to search
for keywords anyways! I have been using a simple linear method for a few
months now and have been sticking with it every day. Trying to organize it
upfront gets too hard over time.

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AJRF
I watched a few people (Nat Eliason, Tiago Forte, Abi Abdaal) use Roam,
EverNote & Notion and they spend so much time in a categorising phase, and the
idea of a note having one "parent" topic really restricts cross linking of
ideas, Especially in folder based setups like Evernote.

Something like this is very cool and looks like it helps solve that problem.
Does it have a roam style graph? Can't see one from screenshots.

~~~
ColinWright
The graphs are cool, and when I saw them I was seriously tempted. Then I
thought:

(a) What does this tell me?

(b) How will I act on this?

I still have no answers to those questions, and while I _still_ think the
graphs are cool, and _still_ create similar graphs from my bespoke system, I
_still_ don't think they actually give me anything.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

~~~
lojack
I use Obsidian (which is inspired by Roam). I know some people may use the
graphs, but I personally have that functionality disabled. The real important
bit for me is the fact that I can have bi-directional linking. For me, graphs
are a cool toy, something I can go "ohhh, neat" and then never use again.

~~~
ColinWright
I still don't understand what these systems give that isn't provided by a
simple wiki with auto- and bi-directional linking. People are getting
extremely excited by Zettelkasten, and Roam, and Org-Roam, and Obsidian, etc,
etc, etc, and no one seems to be able to explain to me why it's not basically
just a wiki.

You use Obsidian ... how is it different from a wiki with auto-linking?

~~~
mstngl
What makes me using Obsidian / Zettlr rather then a wiki is that they use just
text files (in markdown syntax) you point the app to. You are not locked in
with any of the apps, more specific wiki syntax or wiki infrastructure and are
very free to sync or back-up all the contents.

Do you have any plain-file (i.e. non-database) wiki in mind which provides
auto-linking and simple tagging?

~~~
ColinWright
I'm using the wiki I wrote in about 1998 when I first encountered the C2 wiki.
It uses plain text files, and in addition to using mark-down style link
syntax, the latest version auto-links from free-text without requiring any
special markup. That reduces the friction further.

But what you are saying here is "Yes, it's basically just a wiki, but using
plain text files underneath, and without using a specific app or database".

This isn't a criticism, it's just me hunting for understanding from the huge
heap of hype. Every description I read seems to lead me to:

(a) It's just a wiki, and

(b) It's not doing what Luhmann says his Zettelkasten did.

So I'm finding the excitement very mysterious, and keen to find out what I'm
missing.

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monkeydust
What is it with HN and note taking software, feels like there is a mini boom
going on, is that matched to actual need?

~~~
nso95
HN loves productivity porn, to feel like you're productive without actually
accomplishing anything

~~~
xmprt
I don't know if that's how I'd characterize it but it is easy to fall into the
trap of trying to be productive but spending more time on your productivity
system than actually getting work done.

~~~
Apocryphon
It's a form of gamifying procrastination, which at least makes you feel more
accomplished and less guilty afterwards.

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zaargy
I have a script I call brain dump. It is just vim running in a while loop in a
terminal. I can switch to at any time with Ctrl+Shift+J. I type some stuff and
when I'm done I save as normal and the note is emailed to be behind the
scenes. Encrypted with PGP. I can view it from any device and I have great
search. And because I happen to run my own email I also completely own this. I
don't want to share my musing with another random third-party that will use it
somehow to spam me. The next generation of internet products ought to finally
be privacy first. Let's make the internet what it is supposed to be.

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fcatus
it requires you to sign up to a website.... it would be better to create an
electron app for it that DOES NOT require an account

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demadog
Bi-directional linking please

~~~
cborenstein
Yes, founder here. Bi-directional linking will be coming soon! While we don't
support bi-directional linking yet, we do have the ability for bytes to live
in multiple locations. Here's a short video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1afP_gsvR30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1afP_gsvR30)

~~~
benrbray
Please add math support, too! KaTeX is a great drop-in option! If you do,
please consider "first-class" math support, like the screencaps here [1]. Both
block and inline math are important, and it's important to be able to quickly
add/edit math nodes. Another good option is to show the math source $\int_a^b
f(x) dx$ while editing, and render it after the user commits a cell, much like
Jupyter notebooks.

[1] [https://github.com/benrbray/prosemirror-
math](https://github.com/benrbray/prosemirror-math)

------
threatofrain
Latex pls.

