9 ms·

My Personal Note Taking Journey

145 points by scottrblock 5y ago

gennarro 5y ago
Would highly recommend reconsidering paper notes. Get a small notebook [0] and write down what you need. You’ll lose it and spill coffee on it but you’ll be fine. For the vast majority of things the note writing experience is what makes the difference, not the actual paper. For the rest a subscription is not for me, but to each their own. 0 - https://unsharpen.com/pocket-notebooks/ https://unsharpen.com/pocket-notebooks/
- bachmeier 5y ago
  > For the rest a subscription is not for me, but to each their own. Apps like Logseq, Obsidian and Dendron don't have subscriptions.
  - FemmeAndroid 5y ago
    I’m only familiar with Obsidian, but it’s business model does have an $8/mo sync tier, and a $16/mo publishing tier as well as a $50/user/year commercial plan.
    - scriptdevil 5y ago
      You can easily set up sync using SyncThing or Dropbox or any other tool that syncs directories between devices. I did pay $25 because I enjoy using Obsidian - but I don't think there is anything missing in the free version. The best part is that everything including themes, plugins and themes are synced perfectly between desktop and mobile.
      - Tomte 5y ago
        > You can easily set up sync using SyncThing Unless you're on iOS/iPadOS, as far as I know.
        rg111 5y ago
        For android, there is box, sync, MEGA, etc. There are more.
        darkteflon 5y ago
        You can use iCloud to sync everything - your actual notes and the workspace files. Easy, free, works great.
        hannofcart 5y ago
        Assuming all the devices you work on are Apple devices. Some people use iPhones but work on Windows/Linux.
        vertis 5y ago
        If you choose to straddle ecosystems there really isn't that much that the likes of Obsidian can do to help though (especially when it comes to iPhone). I use Obsidian with Mac + Android (Synced via Dropbox, and backed up using git) and it works. Little bit of manual setup, but I can handle that. At the end of the day Obsidian is just a directory structure of Markdown files. If needed, you can edit them with Obsidian (say using the Dropbox app).
        hanklazard 5y ago
        I’m iPhone & Pop_os! . There are some obsidian forum threads that can help, I think this is the one that I used for my setup (1). It is not completely obvious in the UI, but the basic idea is that you use a iOS git app (I use the excellent Working Copy) to just push and pull everything to GitHub, working around some inherent iOS limitations. As a bonus, you can setup the Shortcuts app to auto push and pull with closing and opening obsidian. There’s a git sync extension for obsidian, makes it all pretty seamless once it’s set-up. 1. https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-setting-up-ios-git-based-syncing-with-mobile-app-using-working-copy/16499 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-setting-up-ios-git-based-...
        rg111 5y ago
        My method is platform agnostic. You set up all your vaults under the same folder. You 2-way sync that folder to a cloud folder- Dropbox, MEGA, sync, box- whatever. You then create a folder with the same name on another device, and then use the client for your cloud service for that platform, and then set up two way sync with that folder on the cloud. Works great with my Android-PopOS system. Also tried it with Android-macOS, and iOS-Windows.
    - rg111 5y ago
      > does have an $8/mo sync tier As Obsidian keeps all your notes as plain markdown files, you can easily get it for free with two-way sync set up with Sync, box, MEGA, etc.
- rhtgrg 5y ago
  +1. I wanted to build a daily journaling habit but digital just wasn’t cutting it for me. I managed to do it once I bought one of these [0]. I punched a hole in it and tied a pen to it. The forgiving format (entries are not pre-dated so you’re allowed to miss a day, the bar on entry length is set low by design) coupled with absence of friction when traveling (no poor connectivity, low battery, etc.) really went a long way. I knew that even the need to find a pen to write the day’s journal would be enough friction for me to skip it, which is why I tied one to it. I’ve filled up a couple of these little notebooks, but I haven’t been able to replicate this consistency with any digital solutions. [0] #HashtagADay: A Hashtag Journal https://www.amazon.com/dp/145213927X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_G6XC6K67GDWZ3GNMAAAH https://www.amazon.com/dp/145213927X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_...
rnmp 5y ago
I’m curious as to what made you choose Kinopio over Are.na. I use the latter a lot and find it really useful for unstructured thoughts. I mainly use it privately though. Kinopio looks great I will take it for a spin soon.
- scottrblock 5y ago
  I tried using are.na and it just didn't stick for whatever reason. Kinopio on the other hand, I wanted to use it more and more once I started. Just suited my brain better I suppose.
synergy20 5y ago
As a software devloper, I only write post-it notes or to-dos on my phone, 99.9% I use computer to type notes, I use vim-markdown+nerdtree+git all these years and they work well for me.
GordonFreemanX 5y ago
Look up Bullet Journal
morninglight 5y ago
Just what I need. Another subscription service. Happy New Year
- iamstupidsimple 5y ago
  People seem to prefer subscriptions to expensive one-time purchases... What's a developer to do?
  - dceddia 5y ago
    I wonder if this is actually true. Or maybe if it was, I wonder if the tide is changing. It seems there's more and more "subscription fatigue" these days (parent's reply is a good example). I sell a one-time-purchase Mac app and I've had multiple customers tell me "I wouldn't have bought if it was a subscription" - and this is for an app that saves people hours a week on video editing, what would seem like the prototypical example of a "recurring need". I think people are just tired.
  - brnt 5y ago
    > People seem to prefer subscriptions to expensive one-time purchases Said no-one ever...
  - bavent 5y ago
    Do they? Or do MBAs prefer it? I definitely prefer buying something and actually owning it rather than essentially rent things for forever.
    - iamstupidsimple 5y ago
      Logseq is indie, not a corporation. The author has a profile on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tiensonqin https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tiensonqin. I don't blame them for their business model.
      - bavent 5y ago
        I think the way they do the model is the ideal. You want to use their servers? You pay your rent. You want to not use their servers? Then you just use the local app.
cjlm 5y ago
As someone who built a small tool [0] to send notes to Workflowy [1] from my phone this is an interesting read. Pretty savvy to move over to Logseq. Kinopio is also such a delightful tool. I wrote about it a while ago [2] in my network thinking newsletter, source/target [0] https://github.com/cjlm/send-to-workflowy https://github.com/cjlm/send-to-workflowy [1] https://workflowy.com/ https://workflowy.com/ [2] https://sourcetarget.email/editions/15/ https://sourcetarget.email/editions/15/
dbieber 5y ago
Hey Scott, I like how you're generalizing PhoneToNote to support multiple note-taking services. I have a project Go Note Go where I also aim to support whatever note-taking service the user uses as the backend. We currently support Roam, RemNote, Mem, Notion, and IdeaFlow. https://davidbieber.com/projects/go-note-go/ https://davidbieber.com/projects/go-note-go/ It'd be great to standardize the interop with note-taking services so people like us can write applications once and easily have them work with all the note-taking platforms out there. E.g. I'd love for someone to be able to write a spaced repetition app once, and immediately have it support any of the dozens of note-taking apps without needing special handling for each one.
crossroadsguy 5y ago
Here’s one FOSS and native note app for iOS and Mac https://fsnot.es/ https://fsnot.es/ Especially if someone is looking for a non-subscription Bear alternative.
Jaepa 5y ago
Well where 2 hours into this and no-one mentioned org / org-roam, so I feel a begrudging responsibility to do so. Org-mode is a combination of note taking, todolist, jupyter notebook, & calendar major-mode for Emacs. It is wonderful and terrible in a lot of the ways emacs itself is. It is incredibly configurable and extendable, and feature rich to the degree that discovering spreadsheet support after using it for 6 months seems to be a rite of passage. Org-roam is an extension ontop of org-mode that creates an roam like layer. The largest drawback stems from it being so flexible making it hard to develop a good phone client for it. Through Álvaro Ramírez's PlainOrg(iOS) & Orgzly (Android) do help somewhat.
- 58x14 5y ago
  Hey, thanks for the rabbit hole :)
  - Jaepa 5y ago
    Always glad to help. If you are looking for a direction I personally suggest looking at tecosaur config¹/blog² & rougier's assorted emacs repo³. 1: https://tecosaur.github.io/emacs-config/config.html https://tecosaur.github.io/emacs-config/config.html 2: https://blog.tecosaur.com/tmio/ https://blog.tecosaur.com/tmio/ 3: https://github.com/rougier#emacs-hacking https://github.com/rougier#emacs-hacking
- nanomonkey 5y ago
  Org-mode is brilliant. The key is to pick stuff up as you find a need for it, otherwise it gets overwhelming. But you know this. Mobile-wise, lately I've been using emacs through termux on my Android (LineageOS) phone. With a keyboard attached through usb-c there isn't much difference. Even using the touch keyboard it's better than the alternatives.
- skhm 5y ago
  IMO the best org phone client is a VPS + CLI emacs + good mobile SSH client + syncthing. Requires connectivity but then I have e.g. org-agenda feature parity. I basically live in this setup. Surprisingly ergonomic to use with a touchscreen and phone keyboard. If I have no connectivity, the last thing I want is to be editing my org files on yet another device and introducing conflicts. I use something like beorg (ios) for background-sync offline read-only access but don't use it to write offline.
kirso 5y ago
I am a Logseq user. One thing I realised is that PKM people tend to spend 99% of intellectualising and fetishising different systems like Zettlekasten and P.A.R.A. when in the end your output is what matters. I wasted months, just to realise the tools or systems do not matter at all. Interlinking notes doesn't scientifically make you a better writer, writing does.
- uniqueuid 5y ago
  100% this. Niklas Luhmann (who invented the Zettelkasten) invented his system because he was an insanely productive scholar, not the other way around.
- vidarh 5y ago
  I think apart from just writing, the one thing that feels like it matters to me is rewriting and consolidation. Having years of notes you never revisit does very little. What is good about some of the systems is that they provide a framework for consolidation and forcing you to keep reviewing things. But I find the specifics of how you end up reviewing and consolidating changes very little, as long as you do. If anything, I think re-writing works better than interlinking notes, because it forces you to consider the whole. But at some point some things becomes static enough that putting it aside and linking to it may be worthwhile.
  - bluGill 5y ago
    80% (random number that seems reasonable) of the value of notes is the act of writing them the first time. For the other 20% they deserve more effort, rewriting and origination are both useful for them.
    - vidarh 5y ago
      Agree with that, in that rewriting should include deciding which notes are worth just leaving as is, so that what you rewrite reflects what is still relevant and that will usually as you say be a very small percentage of the whole. Rewriting to me also seems to reduce the need to refer back to the notes even further, because it effectively acts as a revision also for the notes I decide are not worth summarising, and the few bits that might still be beneficial gets carried along in the rewritten summaries.
dopu 5y ago
I'm a pretty happy logseq user. I've found that I still need some degree of hierarchy in my notes, as opposed to just having organic, non-hierarchical linking between everything. So I end up making subnotes: [[Topic A/subtopic x]] is a pretty common occurrence in my knowledge database. As an example, all projects I'm currently working on get [[ProjectA/log]] and [[ProjectA/todo]] subnotes. Keeps my TODOs segregated by topic. You could of course do most of these things with typical note-taking apps that rely on the hierarchical file system motif. But the fact that it's up to me to explictly construct my organizational structure in logseq forces me to be more intentional about how I organize my notes. Perhaps the greatest benefit I've found in using logseq is in organizing the scientific literature I'm reading. At any point while writing, linking a paper I've read (the PDF itself, as well as my notes on it) is a few keystrokes away. This linking allows me to externalize the context with which I know a paper. I just need to browse the backlinks to see all the ways in which I've made reference to it over the entire history of my notes.
mixcocam 5y ago
Just start using #OneBigTextFile already. All roads lead there.
- darkteflon 5y ago
  I do this, but the great thing about Obsidian is easy access to that single file from all your devices.
- Tomte 5y ago
  Is there an iOS app for plain text files (Markdown apps are okay, of course) that implements its own searching and doesn't just use Apple's search controls? So that I can search for strings (bonus points for wildcards or regexp) in all the files in several folders and then lets you open the file at that point.
  - dr_hooo 5y ago
    I'm using FS Notes[0] which does this. [0] https://fsnot.es/ https://fsnot.es/
rvieira 5y ago
My journey was somewhat similar (Evernote, Any.do, Bear, Noteplan, Obsidian, LoqSeq) but now I've settled with org-{mode, roam}. There was always _something_ missing from those apps. If you have time and inclination, Emacs can be customised to behave almost exactly like you want it.
- rg111 5y ago
  Have you tried RemNote?
  - rvieira 5y ago
    I haven't actually. I took a quick look at it and (could be wrong) it seems they keep the data on their servers? Data freedom is a biggie for me. I like to have a folder of text files that I can move around, backup as I want and do fun stuff with[0]. [0] e.g. I've been having fun with making a Mastodon toot-queue org file. I just dump ideas on the org file and a cron job toots one every hour until the queue is empty.
    - IanCal 5y ago
      The site says private, local only knowledge bases as a feature if that helps.
  - IanCal 5y ago
    (different person) I've been interested in coming back to remnote, the mobile app seems a lot better. The key thing I wanted in it is the spaced repetition flashcards. I feel like linking that to my notes would be really useful, although I've not got back into it and stuck with it. The best thing being the one you use I guess.
bronlund 5y ago
francis-io 5y ago
Is it just me, but using local files just gives me an uneasy feeling when it comes to robust backups. How do I make sure my local files are backed up somewhere? What happens when I want to revert? How do I really know I didn't accidentally just wipe out all my notes locally with a bad command. How do I 100% know that changes I made on my desktop are reflected on other devices? The obvious solution is to keep files in dropbox or google drive. This handles sync but not backup. I'm not sure about dropbox, but I know google drive is a nightmare to backup. You can use a few paid services to backup google drive, but you then need some kind of alerting to know when it's not running. Having to rely on a cloud storage service and a cloud backup storage does not give me long term confidence. I want something that works on most devices, is as future proof as possible and keep me in control of my data as much as possible. Another option would be to use git to store notes, but I ran into problems when I tried to set up an auto commit and auto push. I couldn't get it working reliably. Some kind of auto pull would also be needed. Git just isn't designed to work like this so it seems like any setup would be janky at best. Some options I've considered: - Evernote: cloud based. rigid structure. Bad performance. I'm not in control of my data. - emacs: I don't use emacs any more, so it's not already part of my workflow. Bad mobile experience. Same local syncing issues. - Trilium: Really complex for someone who does not want to work with javascript. It might be too flexible for me. - Roam: no web app last time i looked. No self hosted version. - Logseq: Same issues as roam. Not server based / self hosted. The FAQ did mention a future option to maybe self host the optional server sync config, but it looks like it's not even on the roadmap. My ultimate solution would be this: - Web based. This will give the ultimate flexibility for me. Day to day I either live in a browser or VSCode. An optional app would be great, but not required. - Ideally it would save files in simple, directory based, markdown files. This would be optimal for longevity. A second best would be storing it in a Postgres database. - Easy to backup. Flat files or a database can be easily dumped and pushed off site with a cron. I use an easy dead mans switch / healthchecks.io alert if a job has not been fired off recently. The cron does some simple checks to make sure the data is a reasonable size (above 1MB). In an ideal world, if I used a DB I would dump the contents, restore it in docker somewhere and query a test entry before pushing it off site (encrypted s3, backblaze, or both). - The right mix of simple, but feature rich. This will be different for everyone, but for me, the key things I want are: tags, search, task lists/todo lists, directory based structure and an auto daily notes template. I'd love a button that I could click to auto generate todays notes, with some pre-set todo tasks at the top, all in a specific format. Trilium could do this, but I'm not a javascript developer, so it was a non-starter for me. - Docker based would be ideal. I run everything I personally self host in docker. It's not a deal breaker, but I would try to implement it my self in docker if I needed to. I know my needs are different to most. My ideal setup is based on my deep understanding of tech, containerization, cloud and the cloud. The reason my ideal setup does not exist is likely because throwing a few docker containers up on a server is a non-trivial task for most people, and a desirable thing to maintain for even less people. I'm still looking for my golden tool. Right now, I've actually gone back to evernote. It's "good enough" at its core task of note taking, but for someone with an eye to build a personal knowledge base over the rest of my career (20 years left), I'm still looking for the ideal tool.
d82nsjk9 5y ago
This year I'm just trying a paper agenda. Pretty standard small agenda I think. Each page view is a week: on the left page a detailed view of the week with space for each day, on the right a freeform text area to jot down unstructured ideas/goals for the week. I find this approach quite similar to TeuxDeux in the OP.
vgchh 5y ago
After having tried a number of approaches, including various VIM plugins, I decided to go with the Apple Notes. If you are bought into Apples ecosystem, it works incredibly well. Syncs to cloud. Available on both my desktop and phone. I recently went through a prep phase, which required tons of note taking with screenshots, pictures etc. it scaled beautifully.
sylens 5y ago
Author's journey is pretty similar to mine, where I used OneNote extensively in college for lecture notes but fell off when I started working and needed something that would better capture technical documentation including code blocks. I also initially went to Bear before trying out Notion and am now happily using Obsidian, which just got a Live Preview mode.
blippage 5y ago
This topic has been touched on before, but what I do is use a paper-bound notebook. I number the pages. The topics come in fairly random order. I keep a table of contents at front, and compile an index at the back as I go. After trying this system for a few months, I can attest that an index is, indeed, a useful thing. The great things about an index is that it allows you to find information based on multiple viewpoints. The acid test of all these systems is "how useful have they been in practise?" As a lady in QA once sagely said: add value, not process. Or, as another poster noted, we have a tendency to fetishise different systems. As programmers, we're likely to be more guilty of this than most. But remember the whole point of the exercise. We're here to find information, not obsessively adhere to a system.

145 points by scottrblock 5y ago

Would highly recommend reconsidering paper notes. Get a small notebook [0] and write down what you need. You’ll lose it and spill coffee on it but you’ll be fine. For the vast majority of things the note writing experience is what makes the difference, not the actual paper. For the rest a subscription is not for me, but to each their own. 0 - https://unsharpen.com/pocket-notebooks/ https://unsharpen.com/pocket-notebooks/

bachmeier 5y ago
> For the rest a subscription is not for me, but to each their own. Apps like Logseq, Obsidian and Dendron don't have subscriptions.
- FemmeAndroid 5y ago
  I’m only familiar with Obsidian, but it’s business model does have an $8/mo sync tier, and a $16/mo publishing tier as well as a $50/user/year commercial plan.
  - scriptdevil 5y ago
    You can easily set up sync using SyncThing or Dropbox or any other tool that syncs directories between devices. I did pay $25 because I enjoy using Obsidian - but I don't think there is anything missing in the free version. The best part is that everything including themes, plugins and themes are synced perfectly between desktop and mobile.
    - Tomte 5y ago
      > You can easily set up sync using SyncThing Unless you're on iOS/iPadOS, as far as I know.
      - rg111 5y ago
        For android, there is box, sync, MEGA, etc. There are more.
      - darkteflon 5y ago
        You can use iCloud to sync everything - your actual notes and the workspace files. Easy, free, works great.
        hannofcart 5y ago
        Assuming all the devices you work on are Apple devices. Some people use iPhones but work on Windows/Linux.
        vertis 5y ago
        If you choose to straddle ecosystems there really isn't that much that the likes of Obsidian can do to help though (especially when it comes to iPhone). I use Obsidian with Mac + Android (Synced via Dropbox, and backed up using git) and it works. Little bit of manual setup, but I can handle that. At the end of the day Obsidian is just a directory structure of Markdown files. If needed, you can edit them with Obsidian (say using the Dropbox app).
        hanklazard 5y ago
        I’m iPhone & Pop_os! . There are some obsidian forum threads that can help, I think this is the one that I used for my setup (1). It is not completely obvious in the UI, but the basic idea is that you use a iOS git app (I use the excellent Working Copy) to just push and pull everything to GitHub, working around some inherent iOS limitations. As a bonus, you can setup the Shortcuts app to auto push and pull with closing and opening obsidian. There’s a git sync extension for obsidian, makes it all pretty seamless once it’s set-up. 1. https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-setting-up-ios-git-based-syncing-with-mobile-app-using-working-copy/16499 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-setting-up-ios-git-based-...
        rg111 5y ago
        My method is platform agnostic. You set up all your vaults under the same folder. You 2-way sync that folder to a cloud folder- Dropbox, MEGA, sync, box- whatever. You then create a folder with the same name on another device, and then use the client for your cloud service for that platform, and then set up two way sync with that folder on the cloud. Works great with my Android-PopOS system. Also tried it with Android-macOS, and iOS-Windows.
  - rg111 5y ago
    > does have an $8/mo sync tier As Obsidian keeps all your notes as plain markdown files, you can easily get it for free with two-way sync set up with Sync, box, MEGA, etc.
rhtgrg 5y ago
+1. I wanted to build a daily journaling habit but digital just wasn’t cutting it for me. I managed to do it once I bought one of these [0]. I punched a hole in it and tied a pen to it. The forgiving format (entries are not pre-dated so you’re allowed to miss a day, the bar on entry length is set low by design) coupled with absence of friction when traveling (no poor connectivity, low battery, etc.) really went a long way. I knew that even the need to find a pen to write the day’s journal would be enough friction for me to skip it, which is why I tied one to it. I’ve filled up a couple of these little notebooks, but I haven’t been able to replicate this consistency with any digital solutions. [0] #HashtagADay: A Hashtag Journal https://www.amazon.com/dp/145213927X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_G6XC6K67GDWZ3GNMAAAH https://www.amazon.com/dp/145213927X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_...

rnmp 5y ago

I’m curious as to what made you choose Kinopio over Are.na. I use the latter a lot and find it really useful for unstructured thoughts. I mainly use it privately though. Kinopio looks great I will take it for a spin soon.

scottrblock 5y ago
I tried using are.na and it just didn't stick for whatever reason. Kinopio on the other hand, I wanted to use it more and more once I started. Just suited my brain better I suppose.

synergy20 5y ago

As a software devloper, I only write post-it notes or to-dos on my phone, 99.9% I use computer to type notes, I use vim-markdown+nerdtree+git all these years and they work well for me.

GordonFreemanX 5y ago

Look up Bullet Journal

morninglight 5y ago

Just what I need. Another subscription service. Happy New Year

iamstupidsimple 5y ago
People seem to prefer subscriptions to expensive one-time purchases... What's a developer to do?
- dceddia 5y ago
  I wonder if this is actually true. Or maybe if it was, I wonder if the tide is changing. It seems there's more and more "subscription fatigue" these days (parent's reply is a good example). I sell a one-time-purchase Mac app and I've had multiple customers tell me "I wouldn't have bought if it was a subscription" - and this is for an app that saves people hours a week on video editing, what would seem like the prototypical example of a "recurring need". I think people are just tired.
- brnt 5y ago
  > People seem to prefer subscriptions to expensive one-time purchases Said no-one ever...
- bavent 5y ago
  Do they? Or do MBAs prefer it? I definitely prefer buying something and actually owning it rather than essentially rent things for forever.
  - iamstupidsimple 5y ago
    Logseq is indie, not a corporation. The author has a profile on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tiensonqin https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tiensonqin. I don't blame them for their business model.
    - bavent 5y ago
      I think the way they do the model is the ideal. You want to use their servers? You pay your rent. You want to not use their servers? Then you just use the local app.

cjlm 5y ago

As someone who built a small tool [0] to send notes to Workflowy [1] from my phone this is an interesting read. Pretty savvy to move over to Logseq. Kinopio is also such a delightful tool. I wrote about it a while ago [2] in my network thinking newsletter, source/target [0] https://github.com/cjlm/send-to-workflowy https://github.com/cjlm/send-to-workflowy [1] https://workflowy.com/ https://workflowy.com/ [2] https://sourcetarget.email/editions/15/ https://sourcetarget.email/editions/15/

dbieber 5y ago

Hey Scott, I like how you're generalizing PhoneToNote to support multiple note-taking services. I have a project Go Note Go where I also aim to support whatever note-taking service the user uses as the backend. We currently support Roam, RemNote, Mem, Notion, and IdeaFlow. https://davidbieber.com/projects/go-note-go/ https://davidbieber.com/projects/go-note-go/ It'd be great to standardize the interop with note-taking services so people like us can write applications once and easily have them work with all the note-taking platforms out there. E.g. I'd love for someone to be able to write a spaced repetition app once, and immediately have it support any of the dozens of note-taking apps without needing special handling for each one.

crossroadsguy 5y ago

Here’s one FOSS and native note app for iOS and Mac https://fsnot.es/ https://fsnot.es/ Especially if someone is looking for a non-subscription Bear alternative.

Jaepa 5y ago

Well where 2 hours into this and no-one mentioned org / org-roam, so I feel a begrudging responsibility to do so. Org-mode is a combination of note taking, todolist, jupyter notebook, & calendar major-mode for Emacs. It is wonderful and terrible in a lot of the ways emacs itself is. It is incredibly configurable and extendable, and feature rich to the degree that discovering spreadsheet support after using it for 6 months seems to be a rite of passage. Org-roam is an extension ontop of org-mode that creates an roam like layer. The largest drawback stems from it being so flexible making it hard to develop a good phone client for it. Through Álvaro Ramírez's PlainOrg(iOS) & Orgzly (Android) do help somewhat.

58x14 5y ago
Hey, thanks for the rabbit hole :)
- Jaepa 5y ago
  Always glad to help. If you are looking for a direction I personally suggest looking at tecosaur config¹/blog² & rougier's assorted emacs repo³. 1: https://tecosaur.github.io/emacs-config/config.html https://tecosaur.github.io/emacs-config/config.html 2: https://blog.tecosaur.com/tmio/ https://blog.tecosaur.com/tmio/ 3: https://github.com/rougier#emacs-hacking https://github.com/rougier#emacs-hacking
nanomonkey 5y ago
Org-mode is brilliant. The key is to pick stuff up as you find a need for it, otherwise it gets overwhelming. But you know this. Mobile-wise, lately I've been using emacs through termux on my Android (LineageOS) phone. With a keyboard attached through usb-c there isn't much difference. Even using the touch keyboard it's better than the alternatives.
skhm 5y ago
IMO the best org phone client is a VPS + CLI emacs + good mobile SSH client + syncthing. Requires connectivity but then I have e.g. org-agenda feature parity. I basically live in this setup. Surprisingly ergonomic to use with a touchscreen and phone keyboard. If I have no connectivity, the last thing I want is to be editing my org files on yet another device and introducing conflicts. I use something like beorg (ios) for background-sync offline read-only access but don't use it to write offline.

kirso 5y ago

I am a Logseq user. One thing I realised is that PKM people tend to spend 99% of intellectualising and fetishising different systems like Zettlekasten and P.A.R.A. when in the end your output is what matters. I wasted months, just to realise the tools or systems do not matter at all. Interlinking notes doesn't scientifically make you a better writer, writing does.

uniqueuid 5y ago
100% this. Niklas Luhmann (who invented the Zettelkasten) invented his system because he was an insanely productive scholar, not the other way around.
vidarh 5y ago
I think apart from just writing, the one thing that feels like it matters to me is rewriting and consolidation. Having years of notes you never revisit does very little. What is good about some of the systems is that they provide a framework for consolidation and forcing you to keep reviewing things. But I find the specifics of how you end up reviewing and consolidating changes very little, as long as you do. If anything, I think re-writing works better than interlinking notes, because it forces you to consider the whole. But at some point some things becomes static enough that putting it aside and linking to it may be worthwhile.
- bluGill 5y ago
  80% (random number that seems reasonable) of the value of notes is the act of writing them the first time. For the other 20% they deserve more effort, rewriting and origination are both useful for them.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    Agree with that, in that rewriting should include deciding which notes are worth just leaving as is, so that what you rewrite reflects what is still relevant and that will usually as you say be a very small percentage of the whole. Rewriting to me also seems to reduce the need to refer back to the notes even further, because it effectively acts as a revision also for the notes I decide are not worth summarising, and the few bits that might still be beneficial gets carried along in the rewritten summaries.

dopu 5y ago

I'm a pretty happy logseq user. I've found that I still need some degree of hierarchy in my notes, as opposed to just having organic, non-hierarchical linking between everything. So I end up making subnotes: [[Topic A/subtopic x]] is a pretty common occurrence in my knowledge database. As an example, all projects I'm currently working on get [[ProjectA/log]] and [[ProjectA/todo]] subnotes. Keeps my TODOs segregated by topic. You could of course do most of these things with typical note-taking apps that rely on the hierarchical file system motif. But the fact that it's up to me to explictly construct my organizational structure in logseq forces me to be more intentional about how I organize my notes. Perhaps the greatest benefit I've found in using logseq is in organizing the scientific literature I'm reading. At any point while writing, linking a paper I've read (the PDF itself, as well as my notes on it) is a few keystrokes away. This linking allows me to externalize the context with which I know a paper. I just need to browse the backlinks to see all the ways in which I've made reference to it over the entire history of my notes.

mixcocam 5y ago

Just start using #OneBigTextFile already. All roads lead there.

darkteflon 5y ago
I do this, but the great thing about Obsidian is easy access to that single file from all your devices.
Tomte 5y ago
Is there an iOS app for plain text files (Markdown apps are okay, of course) that implements its own searching and doesn't just use Apple's search controls? So that I can search for strings (bonus points for wildcards or regexp) in all the files in several folders and then lets you open the file at that point.
- dr_hooo 5y ago
  I'm using FS Notes[0] which does this. [0] https://fsnot.es/ https://fsnot.es/

rvieira 5y ago

My journey was somewhat similar (Evernote, Any.do, Bear, Noteplan, Obsidian, LoqSeq) but now I've settled with org-{mode, roam}. There was always _something_ missing from those apps. If you have time and inclination, Emacs can be customised to behave almost exactly like you want it.

rg111 5y ago
Have you tried RemNote?
- rvieira 5y ago
  I haven't actually. I took a quick look at it and (could be wrong) it seems they keep the data on their servers? Data freedom is a biggie for me. I like to have a folder of text files that I can move around, backup as I want and do fun stuff with[0]. [0] e.g. I've been having fun with making a Mastodon toot-queue org file. I just dump ideas on the org file and a cron job toots one every hour until the queue is empty.
  - IanCal 5y ago
    The site says private, local only knowledge bases as a feature if that helps.
- IanCal 5y ago
  (different person) I've been interested in coming back to remnote, the mobile app seems a lot better. The key thing I wanted in it is the spaced repetition flashcards. I feel like linking that to my notes would be really useful, although I've not got back into it and stuck with it. The best thing being the one you use I guess.

bronlund 5y ago

francis-io 5y ago

Is it just me, but using local files just gives me an uneasy feeling when it comes to robust backups. How do I make sure my local files are backed up somewhere? What happens when I want to revert? How do I really know I didn't accidentally just wipe out all my notes locally with a bad command. How do I 100% know that changes I made on my desktop are reflected on other devices? The obvious solution is to keep files in dropbox or google drive. This handles sync but not backup. I'm not sure about dropbox, but I know google drive is a nightmare to backup. You can use a few paid services to backup google drive, but you then need some kind of alerting to know when it's not running. Having to rely on a cloud storage service and a cloud backup storage does not give me long term confidence. I want something that works on most devices, is as future proof as possible and keep me in control of my data as much as possible. Another option would be to use git to store notes, but I ran into problems when I tried to set up an auto commit and auto push. I couldn't get it working reliably. Some kind of auto pull would also be needed. Git just isn't designed to work like this so it seems like any setup would be janky at best. Some options I've considered: - Evernote: cloud based. rigid structure. Bad performance. I'm not in control of my data. - emacs: I don't use emacs any more, so it's not already part of my workflow. Bad mobile experience. Same local syncing issues. - Trilium: Really complex for someone who does not want to work with javascript. It might be too flexible for me. - Roam: no web app last time i looked. No self hosted version. - Logseq: Same issues as roam. Not server based / self hosted. The FAQ did mention a future option to maybe self host the optional server sync config, but it looks like it's not even on the roadmap. My ultimate solution would be this: - Web based. This will give the ultimate flexibility for me. Day to day I either live in a browser or VSCode. An optional app would be great, but not required. - Ideally it would save files in simple, directory based, markdown files. This would be optimal for longevity. A second best would be storing it in a Postgres database. - Easy to backup. Flat files or a database can be easily dumped and pushed off site with a cron. I use an easy dead mans switch / healthchecks.io alert if a job has not been fired off recently. The cron does some simple checks to make sure the data is a reasonable size (above 1MB). In an ideal world, if I used a DB I would dump the contents, restore it in docker somewhere and query a test entry before pushing it off site (encrypted s3, backblaze, or both). - The right mix of simple, but feature rich. This will be different for everyone, but for me, the key things I want are: tags, search, task lists/todo lists, directory based structure and an auto daily notes template. I'd love a button that I could click to auto generate todays notes, with some pre-set todo tasks at the top, all in a specific format. Trilium could do this, but I'm not a javascript developer, so it was a non-starter for me. - Docker based would be ideal. I run everything I personally self host in docker. It's not a deal breaker, but I would try to implement it my self in docker if I needed to. I know my needs are different to most. My ideal setup is based on my deep understanding of tech, containerization, cloud and the cloud. The reason my ideal setup does not exist is likely because throwing a few docker containers up on a server is a non-trivial task for most people, and a desirable thing to maintain for even less people. I'm still looking for my golden tool. Right now, I've actually gone back to evernote. It's "good enough" at its core task of note taking, but for someone with an eye to build a personal knowledge base over the rest of my career (20 years left), I'm still looking for the ideal tool.

d82nsjk9 5y ago

This year I'm just trying a paper agenda. Pretty standard small agenda I think. Each page view is a week: on the left page a detailed view of the week with space for each day, on the right a freeform text area to jot down unstructured ideas/goals for the week. I find this approach quite similar to TeuxDeux in the OP.

vgchh 5y ago

After having tried a number of approaches, including various VIM plugins, I decided to go with the Apple Notes. If you are bought into Apples ecosystem, it works incredibly well. Syncs to cloud. Available on both my desktop and phone. I recently went through a prep phase, which required tons of note taking with screenshots, pictures etc. it scaled beautifully.

sylens 5y ago

Author's journey is pretty similar to mine, where I used OneNote extensively in college for lecture notes but fell off when I started working and needed something that would better capture technical documentation including code blocks. I also initially went to Bear before trying out Notion and am now happily using Obsidian, which just got a Live Preview mode.

blippage 5y ago

This topic has been touched on before, but what I do is use a paper-bound notebook. I number the pages. The topics come in fairly random order. I keep a table of contents at front, and compile an index at the back as I go. After trying this system for a few months, I can attest that an index is, indeed, a useful thing. The great things about an index is that it allows you to find information based on multiple viewpoints. The acid test of all these systems is "how useful have they been in practise?" As a lady in QA once sagely said: add value, not process. Or, as another poster noted, we have a tendency to fetishise different systems. As programmers, we're likely to be more guilty of this than most. But remember the whole point of the exercise. We're here to find information, not obsessively adhere to a system.