
Ask HN: Why do you keep a personal knowledge base? - dynamic99
Why do you keep a personal knowledge base? What are you trying to accomplish by saving content? What insights do you want to discover? What tasks do you want to achieve?
======
hprotagonist
[http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/personality.html](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/personality.html)

 _Although high general intelligence is common among hackers, it is not the
sine qua non one might expect. Another trait is probably even more important:
the ability to mentally absorb, retain, and reference large amounts of
‘meaningless’ detail, trusting to later experience to give it context and
meaning. A person of merely average analytical intelligence who has this trait
can become an effective hacker, but a creative genius who lacks it will
swiftly find himself outdistanced by people who routinely upload the contents
of thick reference manuals into their brains._

I'm a researcher. Absorbing data in a "blue sky" kind of way ("no idea if i'll
need this, this doesn't serve any explicit purpose, but hey it seems
interesting") is a survival trait.

~~~
codeprimate
Spend half your time learning many things shallowly and half your time
learning a few things deeply -- your resourcefulness will know no bound.

~~~
pepicon
This. I take notes of concepts that I don’t clearly understand/agree but have
a gut feeling that is interesting, and as I read it repeteadly overtime I
often get surprised by how the concept evolves on my mind.

------
wenc
Uses of a personal knowledge base:

\- Recording and crystallizing ideas: most deep thoughts and informed opinions
about things often don't materialize on first try. They are the result of many
iterations, pivots and revisions. Writing them down helps one regain context
quickly after leaving them for a while, which allows one to make incremental
progress without being susceptible to the fallibility of memory searches.
Writing is also frequently the best way to teach oneself something and to push
oneself to identify gaps in knowledge and thinking.

\- Sleep aid: committing ideas to (virtual) paper helps unburden them from
one's active memory. This has inadvertent therapeutic effects as well. I'm one
of those people who has tons of ideas racing in my head all the time, so this
helps me sleep at night. On a related note, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy or
CBT (for managing emotions) can also be done through written therapy.

\- Business ideas/hobby ideas: list of stuff to do when the right combination
of opportunities arises. You can have ideas but not all ideas are ripe for
execution. Having them in a cache as one is constantly monitoring the
environment helps one time their deployment better.

\- Latent solutions to problems: Richard Feynman had a trick where he'd be
constantly thinking about 6 problems at any given time. When an attack
presented itself due to sheer chance, he was able to execute on it quickly,
and make himself look like a genius when in fact he had been thinking about
about the problem for a long time and was merely lying in wait for the right
piece of the puzzle to come along.

\- Jokes/good turns of phrases: not for the purpose of plagiarism, but
sometimes one needs a bon mot or an apt phrase for a presentation or piece of
writing. Having a store of such phrases to synthesize from is much more
reliable than drawing from memory alone. Many good writers/presenters aren't
Mozart-like geniuses who can produce polished work on-demand: many maintain
disciplines like this to aid in producing quality work even when their memory
fails them.

\- Travel destinations: sometimes we read about an interesting place and tell
ourselves "we'll visit some day" but then never do because when the next long
weekend comes up, we'd have forgotten all about it. Keeping a list helps one
to quickly converge on a destination when a vacation opportunity arises.

~~~
dynamic99
How do you retain/go back to those ideas? Or do you at all?

~~~
wenc
Yes I do. I keep everything in a single Google Docs document and re-read it
from time to time. Maybe it's just me, but I always find it a rewarding
experience. (ymmv)

------
josephjrobison
I’ve realized recently that I spend hours and hours a week reading and saving
stuff to Evernote. Like I’m always in research mode. I think focused research
is good for the career, but unfocused is just a distraction and waste of time.
I save sooo much stuff and rarely go back to read it.

My one idea for recovering the lost/wasted time reading and saving this
information is curating and publishing it online as blog posts for others to
learn from. I’ve spent so much time categorizing an filtering through
information out there, only to have it sitting in a private file, might as
well make it public for humanity’s benefit (and my own).

~~~
dominotw
This is exactly my experience too. I almost never go back to my notes. Only
value creating notes is actual act of creating notes, it doesn't really matter
what you use for it.

~~~
jhabdas
You suggest your not going back to your notes. Is that because it's not
convenient out because you don't have a good indexing system in place?

------
rcdwealth
For haven's sake!

Don't use the online services to store your personal information!

That is stupidest thing that can be.

First, sooner or later, your information may be stolen and distributed online
just like apples: [https://raidforums.com/Announcement-Database-Index-CLICK-
ME](https://raidforums.com/Announcement-Database-Index-CLICK-ME)

Second, find yourself a computer, device, where you can store your data
offline, and not online.

I recommend reading the online article on SASS or Service As Software
Substitute: [https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-
really-s...](https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-
serve.html)

and using free software, free as in freedom to do what you want with it to
keep your personal knowledge.

Recommended software:

Cherrytree:
[https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/](https://www.giuspen.com/cherrytree/) It
works just fine for taking notes.

GNU Emacs: [http://www.gnu.org/s/emacs](http://www.gnu.org/s/emacs) It has
notes, reminders, calenders, you name it. it has Org mode and note taking
features that blow your mind.

Vym mind mapping tool
[http://www.insilmaril.de/vym/](http://www.insilmaril.de/vym/)

and plethora of notes and ming mapping tools available that free software is
offering. Search for packages:
[https://www.hyperbola.info/](https://www.hyperbola.info/)

------
stockkid
My reason for keeping a knowledge base is to forget less of what I learn every
day.

I used to use Evernote for this but it wasn't quite working because of
constant context switching and lack of spaced repetition.

So I wrote open source program called Dnote [0] and have been use it every day
for the last year to store my learning. To minimize distraction, it works as
browser extensions, cli, and IDE plugin. And I automated the spaced repetition
by writing a cron job to send me digests every Friday.

[0] - [https://github.com/dnote-io/cli](https://github.com/dnote-io/cli)

------
carusooneliner
I'm really into taking notes -- both written and typed. The tactile part of
taking notes helps me register things better and the notes themselves greatly
help with recall. For written notes, I use Peter Pauper notebooks
([https://www.peterpauper.com/](https://www.peterpauper.com/)) and Staedtler
pens ([https://www.staedtler.com/intl/en/products/products-for-
colo...](https://www.staedtler.com/intl/en/products/products-for-
colouring/fineliners/triplus-fineliner-334-triangular-fineliner-334-sb10/)).
I'm a sucker for good stationery. For typed notes, I use Google Keep on my
phone and the Notes app on my Mac.

Lately I've been using screen recording to create video notes. I developed an
app called Outclip ([https://checkoutclip.com](https://checkoutclip.com)) with
my buddy. Although the app is meant for a different purpose (bug reporting) I
use it to screen record as I'm doing things (like configuring an AWS service
for instance) in case I have to repeat the steps later.

------
WhatIsDukkha
Refreshing the context when I resume some project.

I get my mind back in the groove from sometimes years ago by just opening my
orgmode section or file.

The brain finds the connections again and the thought train picks up and off I
go.

As a side note, I use orgmode and I wouldn't consider any other program (that
I know of) for a specific reason -

What other setup could I be GUARANTEED of being able to pickup in 5, 10 ,30
years and have it work just as it did?

A paper notebook for sure but orgmode gives me much more (and less in some
areas).

orgmode and emacs lets me INVEST my time and effort and know I won't lose the
data and time because some webservice thing went down/changed business
models/lost interest.

~~~
sumnole
You bring up a good point about longevity. I currently use OneNote which was
easy to be effective immediately taking notes with rich content, but I know
there's always the risk of it shutting down forcing me to deal with the
process of recovering my notes onto a different platform.

~~~
WhatIsDukkha
I've been impressed that microsoft has actually managed to keep pushing on
onenote without abandoning it.

It's taken a while but it seems to have built some community and happy users.

But, yeah, I don't think open standards or longevity probably factored too
much into the storage implementation or features.

I would think something built on top of annontated pdfs would get some of the
features and flavor of onenote but I haven't seen anything attempt it.

------
bryanph_
The key question when reading any article/book/whatever is the following: "if
anything, what is actually important enough to remember from this article?",
or in the case of PKBs: "What should be in my PKB and what should be
discarded?"

By asking yourself this question explicitly and then actually writing down the
key points you practice your own judgment on what is worth remembering and
what is not.

Now the added benefit of a PKB is that you can actually keep these key points
in a central location and reference them in other contexts or share them with
others. You are basically doing prework for later (research) questions you
might have. However I would say the biggest benefit is the process; explicitly
writing down what is important and discarding what is not.

For more on this subject I recommend following @fortelabs on Twitter. He does
a lot of interesting writing on the subject.

------
alexpetralia
If anyone is interested, the term for this field is "personal knowledge
management."

There are a few basic principles that can help keep the system organized and
useful.

Personally I use Google Keep and OneNote: every weekend I funnel the
unstructured thoughts, ideas and realizations into a structured format
organized in OneNote. It takes a bit of time, but I can look back on any of my
notes on programming or real estate or marketing or psychology and instantly
find them useful.

~~~
shawn
Please, for the love of all that is open source, someone create an open
alternative to OneNote. It’s easily one of the best Microsoft tools ever, and
there doesn’t seem to be a good equivalent. It also seems like the perfect
pinboard-style lifestyle business.

~~~
Tomte
The problem is that thiy type of tool needs mobile apps for both iOS and
Android before people will use it.

Doable, but much more effort than a first attempt on bookmarking.

~~~
kungtotte
For early adopters it would be enough to have a great import functionality.
There are lots of mobile note taking apps that support cloud saves or
exports/saves in open formats, so people could use one of them and save to a
folder on Dropbox or Gdrive and have the main app source content from there.

------
octosphere
I used to keep a tonne of stuff in Evernote, but have since moved to Standard
Notes[1]. I generally have everything super organized, but allow the overall
collection of knowledge to look messy. A bit like our brains, knowledge dumps
can appear messy, but are actually organized.

[1] [https://standardnotes.org/](https://standardnotes.org/)

------
jonnydubowsky
Emacs noob here. I came to Emacs through learning
[http://overtone.github.io/](http://overtone.github.io/) and see a lot of
personal knowledge management tools that use Emacs (Org mode). Can anyone
recommend some engaging Emacs tutorials to help me find my bearings?

------
DoreenMichele
I journal to keep a health record. I know someone who had cancer and was able
to prove with photos that their chemo wasn't working, the cancer was getting
worse, and get their chemo changed sooner rather than later. A personal health
database can be a powerful tool for health management. I also keep articles
pertinent to my health, plus links to interesting HN comments, etc.

When trying to decide where to move next, I kept a lot of information on
various places that were under consideration. This included not only US states
and cities, but at least one other country as well.

I did a lot of therapy in my youth. I find that having stuff I wrote that I
can refer back to is enormously helpful for my state of mind, for keeping my
goals on track, for tracking progress, etc.

I see the world differently from most people. If I don't keep track of links
to articles, comments and research, I get dismissed a lot as crazy, not
knowing what the hell I am talking about, etc. and other people typically do
not back me up, even if I am saying it in the same forum where I originally
read the information.

So I try to keep track of certain kinds of info so that the next time I make a
comment on that subject, I can back it up without having to put up with so
much disrespectful crap off of people. They don't have to agree with me or see
the world the way I do, but I don't care to wallow in their contempt either.
Supporting links goes a long way towards preventing the worst of such
behavior.

(There are probably other reasons. This answer not guaranteed to be
comprehensive.)

------
steveeq1
As a side note, there is an online course called "Building a Second Brain"
that shows how to create an effective personal knowledge base:
[https://www.buildingasecondbrain.com/](https://www.buildingasecondbrain.com/)

It's kinda pricey, and I'm taking the course right now. But I find it's pretty
effective overall. It uses evernote as the default platform for your PKM.

~~~
cocacola1
Wow, that is pricey. $399 is pretty steep, it seems. How has it helped you?
And do you think the price was worth it?

~~~
steveeq1
He's coming out with a book so you might want to wait on it. A proper
notetaking system is important to me, so it was worth it for me, but I'd wait
on the book because he tends to ramble on the podcast.

It's basically an organization system that serves as an adjunct to "getting
things done". GTD's system relies on "filing non-actionable items", but it
doesn't really explain how to do that. Traditionally, people would rely on
filing cabinets or whatever. BASB relies on evernote to keep basically
anything information in there that can quickly be retrieved (becuase you're
going to forget years later). And when you later need to the information, you
can criss-cross the data for more creative output.

If you are a fan of emacs org-mode (as I am), here's an article that shows how
to use it with BASB: [https://medium.com/@mwfogleman/implementing-a-second-
brain-i...](https://medium.com/@mwfogleman/implementing-a-second-brain-in-
emacs-and-org-mode-ef0e44fb7ca5)

it goes into the process a little bit, so it can help you decide if the course
is worth it for you or not.

~~~
mwfogleman
I wrote that post, the post you linked is the second part of a two-part
series. The first part is here: [https://praxis.fortelabs.co/building-a-
second-brain-in-emacs...](https://praxis.fortelabs.co/building-a-second-brain-
in-emacs-and-org-mode-faa20ae06fc)

------
hollander
About fifteen years ago I started to use a wiki as my personal knowledge base.
Since then I've added several thousands pages. Last year I started using
Evernote, primarily because it works on the phone syncs with my desktop, and
since then I don't use the wiki much. The good thing about Evernote is that
you can export the notes to xml, so if they ever stop, I still have access to
my notes.

I started to use the wiki as a notebook for problems that were too complicated
to solve in one day. Plus it was a good way to keep these notes together,
searchable, from home and work. I started to use it for installation and
configuration manuals for applications that I had to maintain. I did keep work
related stuff in it, but only general things like how to setup a webserver.

------
pepicon
My notes are the base of my day to day. I use simple txt files synced with my
phone, can't stand the lag of opening OneNote and Evernote and the bugs that
always deleted my items on Wunderlist. I curate everything weekly at least,
try to keep the content easy to read in 10 minutes or so for the main file
(tactics and strategies is the name of this file, but I put a lot information
on it, more about below). I have a lot of these txt, the main ones being
tasks, tactics and strategy, accounting and a lot others for personal
projects, hobbies and other subjects.

The task file is the one always opened, there are my pressing issues and there
I'll note anything that later I'll pass to the other files. The most important
though is the tactics/strategy one, where I write details, thoughts of my
life, business strategies and general stuff that I like to read at least every
week, the projects I want to do next, hobbies I want to try, advice that I
like to read, and even if I have some of this etched on my mind sometimes it's
a great north on a confusing day. It's great to read about this idea I had a
week ago and now completely forgot about because I was focused at the current
issue. Writing is also great to organize the thoughts, I had so many
breakthroughs just by reading and writing on these files. It's an extension of
my memory and my process.

~~~
dynamic99
How do you go back to your tactics/strategy notes? For me, I never stumble
across old ideas when they would actually be relevant, but systemic review of
these ideas seems like a big hassle.

~~~
kungtotte
This is where you would add in other techniques to aid you.

I don't know how well it works but the zettelkasten method is a way to
organise your notes contextually, with only a little manual overhead. You can
also add in what they call "structural notes" (i.e. tables of content) to let
you quickly find your way. This would aid you in building up a mental map if
you will of what notes you have, and to let you quickly find whatever you
can't remember.

Then you can do things like SRS flashcards to continually refresh your memory
about topics. They're originally meant for just learning things in the first
place but they could easily be adapted to keep throwing back your ideas at you
at irregular intervals. That keeps the ideas floating around in your mind
without you having to manually go and read them.

------
scarface74
I have three modes when it comes to my career and skill development.

\- learning what I need to know about my specific job (institutional
knowledge). Even if my title is “Senior Developer”, in reality I usually have
a fair amount of architectural level responsibilities and meetings with C
level of people working at small companies. For that, I ask a lot of questions
and take notes with Evernote or if I take notes on paper, I take a picture.
Evernote is surprisingly good translating my writing to text for searching.

I keep a personal knowledge base so I can prepare for a meeting and be ready
to answer questions.

\- If I am introducing a new to the company technology, process or framework,
I have a list of links that fellow developers or my manager (who is technical)
to review.

\- getting “interview ready”. About three months before I start seriously
looking for a job,I freshen up on architectural subjects and make sure I can
talk the talk. I keep a list of bookmarks and PDFs. Again, I am at a point in
my career where no one asks me to do a whiteboard coding session but they do
want to talk architecture. As an in the weeds developer, I know sound
architecture but I don’t talk about it every day.

\- I have a list of topic areas that I need to study to feel in the gaps to
really consider myself a “full stack developer/architect”. But I’m usually
only focused on one thing at the time. But if I find an interesting “getting
started” walk through about another topic that’s on my radar, I bookmark under
a folder “Things to Learn”. Right now, that’s getting deeper into AWS, Docker,
NodeJS, and React.

------
ne01
I keep a record of any info that I learn (organized by topic) in Workflowy. I
even keep a note of everything I do.

Basically my goal is to decrease the chance of going through the same process
of learning something, multiple times.

I also think of it as a cache for Google. I sometimes search my knowledge base
before searching Google.

For example: how to delete duplicate lines in emacs? I just found it in my
knowledge base in under 3 seconds but would have taken more time googling
(also more distracting)

~~~
smivan
You hit the nail on the head. I run a personal instance of Dokuwiki, and find
that this is my L1 cache for knowledge. Vim, Git, Linux... all the stuff I use
the most often is there and organized in the way I find optimal.

It's also very convenient to have a reference on various devices that you own.
Specs, links to manuals, common troubleshooting steps and an inbox of future
work and enhancements.

------
flashgordon
I don't know about others but I actually don't. I found that I am wired to
remember search terms exactly as is (not saying photographically) or at least
sequences of searches and I let Google do the rest. I have been able to go
back to topics I had researched years ago and almost retrace my search and
find what I found earlier after many years. Must be why I am a "breadth" kind
of person.

~~~
dynamic99
Very interesting... what about more tacit knowledge (ideas, advice, etc)?

~~~
flashgordon
Same. Especially with ideas I have a mental map. For instance I find myself
revisiting the topic of type systems every 3-4 years (don't me ask me why - I
just am a sucker that way) and each time I find it a lot easier to revisit my
last mental breadcrumbs rather falling back on books or notes I may have
taken. I think laziness has honed me this way.

------
wpasc
Interesting that the question is why and not how. I do it because the same
material (say calculus) can be presented in many different ways, but my brain
learned the material by following the steps in logic that I used the first
time.

I've found with several groups of material that reconnecting your brain's old
steps in logic is way easier. The same material in a different way can feel
interestingly very foreign.

------
hallman76
At work I maintain a running txt file that acts as a journal, a time tracker
to help with timesheets, and a scratchpad for real-time notes (meeting notes,
action items, email drafts, code/config). I start a new txt file each year.
Each week starts with a header with some goals for the week. Each day follows
a similar pattern of highlighting priorities for the day.

Since it's txt file it opens quickly, is easily scannable and searchable. I
will sometimes tag entries with phrases that I know I'm more likely to use
later when I'm looking for something. The txt file is stored in dropbox and is
typically open all day on whatever device I happen to be on.

I've found that tools that organize by things by folder or tag (Notational
Velocity, Evernote) don't work for me - I lose track of where something went.
Organizing by calendar/time allows me to remember "oh, the thing I'm looking
for occurred before this thing".

------
saluki
I don't really have a KB, I store information in gmail, google docs,
bookmarks, code repos, and txt files. I keep that information because it's
useful for work and personal info I keep needing to come back to or could be
useful in the future.

I have been saving most of mine as browser bookmarks, if I see something
interesting or a solution on stack overflow I bookmark it. Then I export those
bookmarks occasionally for safe keeping.

I usually just re-search google for a solution or item I'm looking for. But
sometimes I search my bookmarks just to find exactly what I used before.

I also have a few snippets text file where I add interesting code related
snippets. And some google docs files that are super easy to search too. Gmail
is also a great tool, with boomerang so I can have something fly back in my
inbox someday or a certain time of year.

All in all I rarely have a hard time finding anything I'm looking for by using
google, bookmarks, code repos and snippets.

------
Quequau
I have a long term personal project that was well outside my capabilities when
I first took it up. I've been using the same knowledge base app (Devon) that I
used for my thesis and book. I find that it's much easier to recover stuff
that I've "found out about" but didn't "learn".

------
nihon
Diabetis runs in my family. So i tend to keep a diary where i track the
Fasting and Post Prandial blood sugars of my parents. Over time (almost 8
years) it has given me an understanding to seasonal influences on diabetis and
also how they are responding to a particular medicine.

------
weeksie
I recently read _How To Take Smart Notes_ and have been giving that approach a
whirl. I'll re-evaluate after a month or so. The approach is pretty simple and
didn't require an entire book to explain.

* Take notes throughout the day. I do this in a notebook.

* At the end of the day, collate those notes into long term storage with a link to the source material.

* When an idea or theme begins to arise, create a document to begin building on that idea, linking to the notes you've taken.

There's a little more regarding organization of notes and linking and so
forth. I like the idea and in the short time that I've been practicing this
approach I feel like I am getting a much deeper understanding of the texts
that I read. Again, time will tell.

------
tranchms
I have been journaling since 13 years old. I starting my keeping a blog as a
more permanent record when I was 17 years old. I then started systematically
saving content to my computer that I’d come across, and finally moved it to
the cloud. Most recently I’ve used the app/extension Pocket to archive and
save content such as articles.

The best personal knowledge base is my blog.

The act of writing, of pasting work and thoughts and reflections and
associations and tagging and organizing, allow me to really embed it in my own
memory.

I really gotta process and write it in order for me to really get the most out
of the knowledge base I’m saving.

Simply archiving and tagging is not enough.

------
tarboreus
I keep a personal knowledge base with notes on people (SOs, colleges they're
from, etc.), a todo list with notes for improvements to my process and
workflows, passwords and logins, one liners and snippets (though the only one
I use frequently these days are SQL snippets), notes on specific projects,
ideas for blog posts in progress, various writing drafts, and old bios, CVs,
and copy for personal promotion. It's al orgmode, so not much of a distinction
between planning and creating, which I enjoy. You can as easily do literate
coding in orgmode as write a blog post or keep notes.

------
mark_l_watson
Most of the suggestions here involve organized, and perhaps structured, note
taking. This is good and makes sense for personal knowledge/research.

That said when I saw ‘personal knowledge base’ my first thought was ‘personal
knowledge graph.’ An advantage of knowledge graphs is the ability to start
with public data sources and combine in your own information. Like,
customizing DBPedia with your own scheme and data.

For organizations, ontology development, defined vocabularies, etc. make
sense, but not for most individuals.

------
jamietanna
To quote
[https://www.jvt.me/posts/2017/06/25/blogumentation/](https://www.jvt.me/posts/2017/06/25/blogumentation/)
I use blog posts as a way to write easily consumable howtos which I can refer
back to when I have issues. I've also found it hugely popular with people
finding my site via search engines as well as colleagues facing similar issues

------
realproto
My question, what program would one use to start his/her own personal
knowledge base? Or do I have to be a software developer and create my own?

~~~
Crontab
This is what I am struggling with right now. Many people recommend org-mode
but I don't like Emacs very much.

~~~
cocacola1
* A personal Wiki. * Evernote is a good choice and works across several devices. * Figure out a folder structure you like and just keep assorted .txt or .md files. * Google Sheets. * A commonplace book.

------
csnewb
I write my notes in a plain text file using Vim and just push them to my
github repo for backup. I like this method because I can grep for keywords and
find information quickly. The point of this personal knowledge is to record
important information from books I've read, but so that I don't have to read
through the whole book again to find information.

------
anotheryou
I find it valuable to stay in control of the information that shapes me.
Personal curation and modification of the used technology is part of this.
Furthermore a personal archive can remain private or even give control over
how private certain information remains.

Inside is mostly documentation, to-dos, recommendations of friends, notes,
poems etc...

------
budhajeewa
I put project related information in Google Drive, organized in per project
folders. I do this for both my personal and company projects; personal ones
using my Google account, and company's using its G Suite account.

For technical notes, I use the blog[1].

\---

1\. [https://blog.budhajeewa.com/](https://blog.budhajeewa.com/)

------
Asafp
I like knowledge and learning, so I just used to bookmark articles that were
interesting with the intention to read them in the future. I found that I have
too much to read and not enough time. now I am working on a chrome extension
bookmark that save a summarization of the article to a google drive and remind
me to read it.

------
BLanen
There's this weird/ intersting program that was recommended to in a thread
similar to this that maybe you should take a look at:

[https://github.com/synchrony/smsn](https://github.com/synchrony/smsn)

The explenation and thought process behind it seems a bit esoteric though.

------
amorphous
Writing is one of the best ways to learn. A knowledge base provides me with
the material that I can use to produce my own thoughts. Unless you write
fiction or you have already acquired some kind of deep knowledge about a
subject, the process of research and collecting is essential for good writing.

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krylon
When I started in my current job, I was effectively the single administrator
(servers, network(s), clients) at a small-ish company (~70 employees using
PCs), and there was a landscape that already was the result of 10+ years of
growth without any central planning.

TL;DR - I was thrown into a relatively complex environment with little help
other than asking the two guys who had done this before me, both of which were
rather busy (they had done the administration a side-business of sorts). (I
still wonder how they managed to keep the IT infrastructure running, but in my
first few months, many of our users told me how happy they were that I
responded to their calls for help right away rather than "sometime next
week".)

I used emacs' org-mode. I kept a file where I wrote down every little bit of
information I could gather. After 12, maybe 15, months, I had memorized
everything I needed to know and stopped taking notes. So my example might not
fit your question all that well. But for the time I was getting to know this
company's infrastructure, its servers, networks, and people, that .org file
was a lifesaver.

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dpeck
surprised that no one has mentioned TiddlyWiki
([https://tiddlywiki.com](https://tiddlywiki.com)) yet, its fairly popular for
this sort of thing and very easy to get started.

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codeprimate
I keep notes of tasks, problems, solutions, caveats, and references. This
makes for a highly searchable and understandable knowledge base. Anything
beyond that proves to have little utility in the long-term.

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garysieling
A mix of Google Docs for larger research projects and notes on my blog - I use
Google search to recover them.

The blog entries let me save time if I return to a problem and tell me at what
point I stopped.

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orcs
Quite simply so I can remember the stuff I need to. Or to be more clear, I
know I'm going to forget so want to be able to find out what I've forgotten in
a convenient way.

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p0d
I use a local wordpress to document and shape my business plans. I am prone to
circular thinking so doing this helps me stay on course.

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werfen2018712
For me it's just time. If I ever need to search how to do something more than
three times, I put it in my notes.

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arthev
80% of stuff is junk. I save content so I'll be able to re-find the good stuff
I've found.

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ef2k
The main reason is to save time and having an anchoring point to further
develop ideas.

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mabynogy
Just keep something my brain can't store because it's not useful everyday.

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tyrex2017
another benefit: writing something down burns it more into your brain, so u
more likely will remember it without even looking it up

~~~
yodon
> writing something down burns it more into your brain

Yes, and the recall effect is much stronger if you use handwriting vs
typing[0]

[0] see for example [https://redbooth.com/blog/handwriting-and-
memory/amp](https://redbooth.com/blog/handwriting-and-memory/amp)

~~~
xemoka
I'm really not a fan of these studies, even this article points out why:
copying verbatim doesn't work.

Hand writing forces you to rephrase in your own words because you can't write
fast enough to keep up—but there's no reason you can't apply this same method
to typing, AND get all the benefits of legible, searchable, organisable,
easily expandable text documents.

~~~
kzrdude
That's a good hypothesis, but it can be tested

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mychael
> Ask HN: Why do you keep a personal knowledge base?

Why assume everyone here keeps a knowledge base? I personally don't.

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omarchowdhury
Another form of hoarding.

