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This seems to be a new trend now. I'm skeptical. Many of the most successful people I know don't have complicated systems like this - instead of spending time on optimizing note taking, they actually get stuff done. In fact, many don't have systems at all. On the other side, most people raving about the systems are "productivity gurus" writing articles and books, not people who actually get stuff done or would be considered "successful" in the economic sense.

I see a similar trend with org-mode users. It's great and all on a technical level (I've used it myself in the past) but it's easy to fall into the elisp and customization rabbit hole. Over time, the few hours spent here and there to optimize the system add up to thousands of hours that could've been used to get stuff done.

These complex systems are the perfect excuse for procrastination because they make you feel like you are doing something productive while you actually aren't. Just get stuff done.

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> Many of the most successful people I know don't have complicated systems like this

How do you know? Maybe their set of habits are a complicated system which they are just not aware of being a system, thus not they are not talking about as they consider it as natural or just obvious.

It seems to be some kind of effect of the internet that people talking about everything leads also to people making big science and systems out of every little detail and habit, seeking some big secret and stuff. While on the other side you have people making up cheap solutions on the spot and throw them away when they don't need them anymore, not calling it sytem or such.

> I see a similar trend with org-mode users. It's great and all on a technical level (I've used it myself in the past) but it's easy to fall into the elisp and customization rabbit hole. Over time, the few hours spent here and there to optimize the system add up to thousands of hours that could've been used to get stuff done.

Yes, customization is a curse. Given enough power, people ultimatly end in corruption until they learn to wield it wisely. But wisdom does not comes easily or fast.

> Just get stuff done.

There are always a multitude of ways to getting stuff done, but some are faster than others, or less exhausting. Thus people aim to be smart and find the best way, which can end in wasting more time on finding the best ways, but also can end in saving time on the grand scale. You need enough experience to smell which road is better and when you should leave it.

> How do you know? Maybe their set of habits are a complicated system which they are just not aware of being a system, thus not they are not talking about as they consider it as natural or just obvious.

You're absolutely right. But with that you are also just arguing about the definition of "system" - everything is a system in one way or another depending on where you draw the line. If I scribble stuff into my notebook and throw it away once it's full, you can call that a system.

By system here I meant a system or product that has a well-known name they can point to, like Zettelkasten or GTD or BASB, etc.

> If I scribble stuff into my notebook and throw it away once it's full, you can call that a system.

If you do it regulary, then yes, it is. A system in that space is mostly definied by habits and rules. Regulary doing the same stuff again and again, even if it's braindead simple, is basically what people consider as a system. Though, whether it's good, is a different topic.

> By system here I meant a system or product that has a well-known name they can point to, like Zettelkasten or GTD or BASB, etc.

Yes, that's what I'm curious about. Zettelkasten is not very complex. Actually it's even very simple. The whole secret is to use reference in your notes and connect them by using a simple naming/numbering-schema. Not much work, not much system. People do that with their notebooks all the time.

The whole cargo-cult growing from it is a different problem and indeed something really bothersome at some point. But GTD and BASB are also not much more complicated if you take the gist of them.

Maybe people are stimulated to build big trades of them because they are just so quite simple and obvious? Many undefinied are, many space for people to paint their thoughts and habit on the canvas.

Right, iterating on your workflow is a normal part of work.

> I see a similar trend with org-mode users. It's great and all on a technical level (I've used it myself in the past) but it's easy to fall into the elisp and customization rabbit hole.

I think part of the issue is that people try to jump into the middle of something which has evolved without going through that evolution themselves. In other words, they need to go to the starting line and iterate from there rather than pushing through to the finish line. I have seen some complex workflows in Org mode, but those flows were built up over years.

The software analogy would be premature optimization. Developers attempting to use tools which are meant for scaling without knowing the how or why of these tools. If you don't know why you should use something, then you might not be to the point where you need it.

I learn the most about how to tackle a problem once I stumble across the need to fix the problem. The best tools are those I find when I then go in search for the fix.

I went through multiple stages with org-mode myself: 1) Just use it naively, instead of the ad-hoc note-taking I did before. 2) Customize it heavily, including a system for citation management. I definitely wasted a lot of hours reading documentation and blog post. But I also ended up using that system for 5+ years consistently. 3) Switch to paper notebooks for calendar, tasks and note-taking.

During 2), I often felt overwhelmed by the ever-growing list of TODOs, in particular those that scheduled at regular intervals.

With paper notebooks, and manual migration of tasks from one month to the next, it's easier to say "no" to things.

But, now that I've filled up three 200-page notebooks, I do struggle to find some old notes, or even remember that they exist.

So, maybe I will revert to an org-mode based "archive" for long-term ideas.

> I often felt overwhelmed by the ever-growing list of TODOs

This is an issue with a global set of todo lists. I follow a butchered BASB type of system. I just keep all ideas in resources folders. Todo items go in those folders, but those are just ideas rather than actual todo items. Then do an occasional review to determine what I want to work on. Whatever I decide gets a folder in projects and todo items get actual deadlines. If I can't work on it, then it gets archived and maybe I'll go back to it later. The only todo items I'll look at are in those project folders and they make progress based on deadlines or they get ditched.

> I think part of the issue is that people try to jump into the middle of something which has evolved without going through that evolution themselves

This is so true. I use a small subset of Org's features, and I have grown my workflow really slowly.

I also have very minimal dotfiles, yet I consider myself an advanced Emacs and Unix user.

It doesn't need to be a timesink. Also, as you say, complicated workflows are the consequence of iterating through many years and are likely paying off the efforts multiplied by a big factor.

I know elisp and I never use it for org-mode. Actually all of my use of org-mode can be summarized in this short comment.

I use org-mode as 'outline mode.' I only do this with it:

* asterisk denotes a level

* asterisk next to an asterisk denotes a sub-level of a level

* sublevels can have sublevels, effectively making them a level, by the above rules

Then you press tab to expand a level or sub-level, press tab again to contract a level or sub-level.

That's it! I tried some of the org-mode add-ons but never found them useful; this is the only one I use regularly.

org-mode is outline-mode plus some extra markup like timestamps or links. Those are the basics.

Then, you can create views of one or several combined files. For example all items with a timestamp in the near future (deadlines). The standard view for organization is called org-agenda.

Aside from that, you have many other features which you won't need to use initially. For example, the ability to embed code and do literate programming.

Also, better keybindings and a table editor to die for.

I've been using Dynalist very similarly. I agree that it's a very simple approach but works well.

I’ve worked with a few very successful business people. What was common among them was they wrote things down (frequently, but a little, not a lot) and had excellent recall. They wrote on anything handy, and discarded when done. Their systems were mostly disposable. They didn’t create libraries of notes.

I’m technical, self-employed, with an academic background. I’m very tempted by systems (I often think of the book “Lila” and his 12K index cards... it’s like thought/note porn). But my need to “ship” keeps my tendencies lightweight. My partner has crates of notes, spends time culling lists and to-dos and plans project work times on her calendar. She struggles to ship and is often frustrated by her own sense of progress.

It’s just a couple of anecdotal data points. I do like to deep dive into research jags and makes lists and record notes, but those usually happen at the beginning of projects or brainstorming sessions... I find old (digital) notes and have a very ephemeral relationship to them.

I care more about digressive and convergent mental habits. When I govern those effectively, I feel creative and productive. My systems tend to stay light.

Two random thoughts:

First, one of my high schools had a workshop on how to study. One of the things they encouraged us to do is to take notes, but only a moderate amount of them. Some amount of note-taking can have a huge positive impact on memory and retention. But overdoing it is actually harmful. It's overwhelming.

The other is that, if there's one thing I really like from name-brand Scrum, it's the idea that you should strive to make each decision no more than once. Lots of deep deep planning ahead tends to maximize the amount of effort you burn on re-making decisions. And the decisions that are most vulnerable to this effect are the ones that you made the furthest ahead of time.

Ha.

That reminds me.. in college, I was employed by a "Class Notes" service to write the notes that other people in class bought so they didn't have to take notes.

I got great market for my notes, and when the class was over, students were encouraged to report back to the Class Notes company what score they got in the class. Again, by correlation, my notes were well regarded.

I scored very poorly in the class. I spent a lot of time taking notes in class, and then refining the notes to be turned in. Surely, I did less additional homework/studying than I should have. But I also had very little recall of the material.

I definitely wasn't optimizing my own effort along with my class notes effort -- but I stopped doing that as I was already pretty busy and the money was mostly a lift. I did better attending and being the kind of student I already know how to be.

Pretty much the same realization I came across too. I used to love taking down notes for the sake of notes... now I don't. Likewise pictures too, my idea was to capture everything

Notes for me now is just a temporarily placeholder to help process a lot of information in one go.

I don't ever store notes long terms until I find myself reaching for it the 2nd time

I never looked into it, but I always wondered what police write down in their note books and how they balance writing enough and listening enough, making sure they don't forget but don't get distracted by the writing process. Maybe it takes practice.

This kind of links to Alan Kay's insights on remembering content: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11809285

Same thread, on not taking notes, but capturing ideas: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11852959

I'm a long time Luhmannian Zettelkasten fan, but thus far all my efforts on keeping one myself have failed. I still admire this method, though; maybe it's just optimized for a different brain than mine. I have had better success with Lion Kimbro's latest (2004-ish, I think) method for indexing paper notebooks. Thanks to a short correspondence with him (really nice guy!), I even dug up his blog posts on that:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130304042318/http://lion.poste...

https://web.archive.org/web/20130304042836/http://lion.poste...

He outlines his "new" method more thoroughly and with images in the book "Mindhacker" by Ron & Marty Hale-Evans (Hack no 17 - Write Magnificient Notes).

Kimbro's eralier book "How to Make a Complete Map of Every Thought You Think" has been on HN earlier, eg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8078819

All in all, I suppose it is just a matter of whether someone is a "free-form guy" or tends to prefer more complex, e.g. hierarchical notes. I would like to be more systematic, but I guess in reality I am not.

I want to think that for me the perfect note taking technique is a well built-up "memory palace" + guilt-free forgetting. In other words, taking as little written notes as possible and retaining important things in my head as visual (often metaphorical) images. There is a world where that would keep all relevant ideas and connections always floating on top. And everything irrelevant would magically sink to the bottom of my brain. How easy. Unfortunately I have yet to visit that world.

Full disclosure: I am CEO of a productivity/note taking app (Amplenote) that arguably competes with Roam.

Roam & Zettelkasten share a user base thick with academics. Productivity doesn't tend to be their stated end goal. Their goal is more often to arrange thoughts into webs of knowledge. They allow connected ideas, like wikis, except with zero forethought put into how the ideas should be organized. People really like being able to start writing without figuring out how to organize the thing they're about to write.

The goals that the R&Z community will benefit everyone as they seep into the broader ecosystem. It's (purported to be [1]) a powerful experience if you have the time to build a visualized network of your thoughts and see how they connect together. But it's not very similar to getting things done.

Incidentally, our app, Amplenote, allows bidirectional linking like Roam, and is focused specifically on helping users get things done (e.g., https://www.amplenote.com/classic_todo_lists_always_fail). In the real world, our product has allowed us to build three businesses that profitability sustain our team of 20. We have zero hype in part because we spend most of our time working. When a relevant comment like this one comes up, I don't see it until 12 hours later. C'est la vie when trying to actually get stuff done.

[1] Haven't had time to actually try out networked notes, but we're planning to add it to Amplenote later this month. Will develop an original opinion on them then.

I'm sympathetic to this argument, though I suspect it isn't as simple as "just get stuff done". If we could have, we would have.

My suspicion is that the natural productivity for individuals in the population follows a bell curve: some people are crazy productive, regardless of their tools, and at the other end are people who are beyond help. Most people fall somewhere in the middle, and these tools will likely help some, but not all of them. It's unlikely any one methodology can help everybody.

As someone who's just beginning to try out orgmode, I can see its value, though it would likely do little to overcome my own personal productivity weaknesses: poor planning and foresight at the beginning. No amount of otherwise excellent tools can overcome a poorly thought out plan. They do, however, highlight how ill-conceived my initial plans were. It's up to me to do something about it. I have found a GTD-like review approach to be the most helpful.

First I'm very skeptical of the claim that there is any "natural" productivity scale out there. Nobody is born productive or "beyond help", unless they have some sort of mental handicap. It all comes down to what you learn and the good habits you form over the years.

I also don't think you can totally separate a "personal productivity weakness" from "tools". Tools and systems, when learned and used correctly, can go a long way in correcting bad habits and mindless counter-productive actions. An example that has already helped me a lot is the very simple act of writing out only 2 to 3 most important tasks for the day and make them easily visible with some form of stickies. This helps me focus my energy throughout the day instead of letting me wander around mindlessly with whatever free time that comes up, since those 2 to 3 tasks always stay on top of my mind and direct my actions, and are very easy to keep track of. This way I actually get things done constantly every day instead of obliviously letting time slip by while feeling lost amid the dozens of TODOs that I have in org-mode/todo software.

Anecdotal disagree here. I have a system that would probably be deemed complicated by anyone that would look at it (even more so than the OP article).

While I wouldn't consider myself the most successful person, I've got a lot done, and I attribute a lot of it to my system, notes, and organization. The system wasn't immediately complicated either, it has been developed and refined over 10 years to suit my needs. And for me in particular, it alleviates a lot of mental overhead and allows me to just focus on whatever it is I'm working on.

But that's just me, I think you do have a point to some extent. It depends on the person, YMMV.

Here's an article that goes into more about these concepts, the author calls it a "Second Brain": https://fortelabs.co/blog/basboverview/

See: “Better note-taking” misses the point; what matters is “better thinking”

And: People who write extensively about note-writing rarely have a serious context of use

Once loaded, scroll all the way to the right:

https://notes.andymatuschak.org/About_these_notes?stackedNot...

I think your skepticism and concern is well placed -- the output is what matters. But I'm a little confused about one aspect: what is it that you perceive as "complicated" and "complex" in this? Genuinely curious and not meant to be snarky.

By using tools for this you will inevitably spend additional time organizing, tagging, and summarizing notes, most of which is probably a waste of time. The article has a pretty good example of this

> I find watching how this knowledge graph grows satisfying

Yep, it's satisfying. Because it's procrastination and gives you the illusion of "being in control" - just like engaging in social media is satisfying. Or cleaning your room while you should be doing homework. I don't think it's useful.

Taking notes is great. Research has shown that active note taking, e.g. while watching a lecture, is a crucial part of learning. Organizing them into some (in case of roam, PAID!) system that you will probably not even come back to? Procrastination.

For me, I am a hand-written note taker. Action items, insights, situation summaries, interesting thoughts or quotes. They are rough and often hastily written. Some numbers of days later, I review all of them and transcribe important notes to a nicer notebook. This allows for some spaced repetition and ensures I don’t miss action items. Way less frequently, I review my nicer notes. Anything still relevant gets rewritten and pulled forward in the notebook. I spend less than fifteen minutes a week on this. This isn’t procrastination, it is organization that ensures I don’t forget important and not yet completed things. I later learned of bullet journaling. Mine is similar in spirit but waaaaay less formal or structured.

It surely is easy to procrastinate by inventing more and more complicated systems, but I don’t think the (base) Zettelkasten is an example of such procrastination.

> active note taking, e.g. while watching a lecture, is a crucial part of learning

I agree! The word “active” is crucial here — categorising, structuring and interlinking knowledge fosters understanding. The Zettelkasten builds on this principle, because — when it works in classroom, maybe it would be good to interlink and structure your ideas outside of it as well.

> Organizing them into some (in case of roam, PAID!) system that you will probably not even come back to?

I sense a straw man here. Of course, if you don’t plan to look at your notes ever again, why bother writing them down in any kind of system?

The whole point of Zettelkasten is to write down notes that you intend to use in the future. You can still have some ephemeral notes, but you don’t rewrite those to the Zettelkasten.

I see your point but this viewpoint might be veering to another extreme. The truth is probably somewhere in between, as is the case with many other matters.

I certainly spent a lot of time taking notes in org-mode but I don't regret it. Whenever I want to look something up and revise, I can find it in an instant by simply grepping my repo or by targeting a header. Goes without saying, this is particularly useful for notes related to programming. However, even for other notes (e.g. vacation plan) I still find tremendous value in org-mode's flexible and powerful approach. In addition, org-mode is also a medium for me to freely write things down and clarify my thoughts whenever I feel the urge to do so. I can even "write and forget", but the reward is already reaped when I wrote out my thoughts in the first place.

However, I have indeed moved time tracking and task management out of org-mode, after struggling with it for a couple of years and trying out various customizations. Ultimately it feels like that org-mode is not built as a suitable system for this purpose, for various reasons. Being "able" to do everything doesn't mean it does everything well, and I fell into the trap of idolizing it too much to the detriment of other viable alternatives. IMO it's a perfect note-taking system for programmers/STEM people, but task management and time tracking should not have been mixed with note taking in the first place. It feels like a bloating of product scope (were it a for-profit product, of course). Now I've switched to a dedicated software for task management + time tracking that has cross-platform support, and I feel much happier and can actually properly track my tasks, review my productivity and get things done.

I do a lot of planning before 'getting stuff done' which involves jotting down a ton of ideas and linking them to formalize the thought process before performing the actual work. It's not exactly Zettelkasten but the essence is the same. I don't consider it procrastination because a lot of planning ahead of time means less adhoc lower quality planning during implementation.

I have a similar observation around the idea of "working in public" by, e.g. blogging or tweeting a lot about your work. Proponents of this approach say that it will help your career immensely, and while I believe that it can I've also observed that the most successful people don't spend a huge amount of time blogging or tweeting about their work.

> Many of the most successful people I know don't have complicated systems like this - instead of spending time on optimizing note taking, they actually get stuff done.

I admit not reading the article fully - I scanned it and it's not that great. But I'd like to ask - why relate ZK with "getting stuff done"? That's not a selling point of Zettelkasten and seems like misplaced criticism.

ZK is for academics. And while I don't know any personally who used it, I do know plenty who have some sort of extended note system, and the correlation to their success is not low.

And since ZK is becoming more popular, like so many other comments, I would caution people in not expecting too much from it. It is a lot of work. I used to (and still try to) keep notes on my computer for everything I study - done in the "inefficient" manner, and it is very time consuming. ZK requires more effort than that. You can't just dump notes in the system and have it work out. For every note you add, you need to ponder over what other related notes you already have, and explicitly link them. This is not fun and it is "expensive".

I read an account from one academic who started using ZK in his grad school years. He said something similar: It is a lot of effort, and he said most of the real gains happened after he'd collected notes for eight years - then things took off for him.

> I see a similar trend with org-mode users. It's great and all on a technical level (I've used it myself in the past) but it's easy to fall into the elisp and customization rabbit hole.

OK - now the gloves come off :-)

Most org mode users don't know elisp. I didn't for almost my first decade of using it. And people only stick to org mode because it is fairly successful for them. I use it extensively to author documents (be it for Word, HTML, LaTeX, Reveal, Beamer, etc). Except for a few PPTs, I haven't authored in any other system for over a decade.

I use it for taking notes, and nothing has replaced it since I started. I often refer to notes I took years ago.

I'll admit I haven't used it well enough as a TODO system and this is likely where people may get stuck tinkering.

I use it as a logging tool (weights, people I've met and when, etc) and it's great.

I use it for literate programming. Awesome - especially when learning a new language. I have code snippets, with evaluated results all in the same document.

All my blog's content is authored in one org document and exported to individual pages. I tried many blogging systems in the past and this is the only one I stick to.

Org mode is just amazing.

So instead of training hard to master martial arts you suggest to not waste time, go out and just fight people.

You are going to learn either way.

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