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Comment by genghisjahn | Hacker News Reader

My second brain keeps moving. For example, I have a great setup with Notability on an iPad. Except after a few months, I start typing stuff into Workflowy. No reason, I just reach for a different tool. A few months later I'm in a random text file and then back to Notability. I don't know why I do this. One thing that sorta helps is implementing the Jonny Decimal System so that all the different pieces can be indexed. But, I make it harder than it needs to be.

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Gonna be cheeky and drop a link to JD here, given that it’s my site. :-)

https://johnnydecimal.com

Nice site. Somehow, I hadn't seen this before.

Same thing happened to me with grocery list apps. I must have tried all the grocery list apps in the app store and have finally settled with the old-fashioned but the best app --- Paper & Pencil. For me the simplicity of paper and pencil and quick access of it during the actual shopping just beats all the cool features you get in a smartphone app.

Hoenstly for me the issue is I want someone to create the "killer" note-taking app.

I don't want to be restricted in how I am taking down information. Sometimes, I want to draw on a tablet, sometimes I want to write markdown, sometimes I want to do workflowy style outlining.

I shouldn't be restricted in that way!

So far, the only one I've been able to settle on for about 1.5 years now is Obsidian.

I have this problem as well. The more I try to settle on a single system, the more my brain wants to run wild.

If there are other parts of your life that are negatively affected by this, you (and the person you're replying to) might want to look into ADHD.

But I can also relate to never wanting to stick to one system for second-brain work indefinitely.

I've made the mistake of trying to build my own second-brains more than I probably should.

Any particular reason why you use an iPad for note taking over a Wacom or remarkable?

I bought an iPad for other reasons (I like the apple ecosystem in general). And I really liked the notability app. Being able to take hand written notes and have them be indexable is fantastic. I'm sure there are other ways to do it but that's the one I've settled on.

I've gone back and forth on the ideal platform over time. I loved the feel of iPad/pencil but it was too closed a system. I'm currently using a Galaxy Note with the pen for mobile and emacs/org on laptop. I type faster and more legibly than I write but you need that paper and pencil type feel for capturing thoughts IMO.

BTW @genghisjahn given your tool usage I'd love to get your thoughts on BrainTool (which I've been pimping throughout this thread!) Since most of my inflow and things I need to keep track of come via browser and most of my notes are in orgmode text, BrainTool is the thing I built to bridge the two. I'm hoping its a more generally useful lightweight organizational tool which doesn't require the maintenance of other solutions and have been gathering informed feedback wherever I can.

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