I was wondering if perhaps people would be willing to share their notes from a typical work day which may help to provide some insight into what effective note taking actually looks like.
Your notes should either be updates on tickets, documentation, or comments in code/git readme. You shouldn't be isolating information on separate platform and outside of the tools that you share with your team to manage a codebase/software stack/etc. You're doing a disservice to your team if you're withholding access to knowledge!
If you're not a natural notetaker don't worry about becoming one. Update tickets/tasks, docs, etc.
* notes from literature I read (articles, books, forums).
* code templates for easy starting of new projects.
* docker with tools I constantly use (including the window manager) - that way I can always have my setup anywhere on any OS.
* passwords (encrypted with YubiKey HW tokens + PIN via rage).
* interviews for candidates for our team.
* vacation destinations.
* ideeas for presents.
https://blog.isquaredsoftware.com/2020/09/coding-career-advi...
(re-reading that: at the time I was using Boostnote to keep my notes. I've since switched to VS Code and the Foam extension, although the only feature I actually use is its "Open Daily Note" command that creates a new note file - I have it configured to automatically name the file based on the date, and insert the date in the file title.)
* note down date-time stamp with everything.
* write explicitly, without any assumptions.
* write in a way, which will make sense to yourself, even after 5 years.
* almost everything is a draft, work-in-progress. Embrace the mess.
Key thing is to ask yourself what you want:
- plan your day or ahead of time?
- remember what you did yesterday, or over the past week?
- record details about a particular experience?
- journal thoughts and ideas?
This is not a complete list. Once you have a list, look at your note taking practice and ask yourself: What is one thing I could change in order to be able to better accomplish what I want with my note taking? And then do it. Rinse, repeat.
What I do is likely not going to serve others. What I have draws a lot of inspiration from GTD and from wikis. Some things are 'process" oriented, such as my TOOD list. Some things are "hub" oriented, with things like "Books", "Finance", "Project: Fix the sprinkler system". Hubs an have TODO lists, TODO archives, information, journals, pictures and anything else that relates to a given area. TODO lists hyperlink to relevant hubs. Hubs link to other hubs. Hyperlinks are key for keeping related things discoverable. It's likely that your notes will not form a neat hierarchy. Think of them more like a web. Notion is my favorite tool for this, but that's a personal preference.
Based on how you describe your note taking practice, it seems that the biggest problem is that it is "most frequently non-existent". Start by doing, and then see how you can do it better, improving things bit by bit.
These personal notes are like diary entries, nothing fancy, all in regular MD, kept on my laptop/desktop/work system, synced with syncthing and pushed to a remote repo.
--------------- ## 12 May 22
TODO: - [x] progress with work in the first 2 hours of the work day - [ ] spend 60 minutes in the morning on the exercises (01:21) - [ ] spend another 60 minutes after lunch on exercises
Time Spent: 01:21
I managed to get to the Q&A section yesterday, which means I got through another 5 pages, not great, but good enough I think. The day was busy as it lined up with my monthly backup checks and I got sucked into a hole doing some maintenance on the logins and adding 2FA [...] ---------------
At work it depends a lot. I generally create a new folder for each new sprint and then dump in there things related to the sprint. If there are things that I feel are relevant to other sprints as well, then I add those to my main notes.
Most of the notes are simple, describing maybe some data flow or some abstractions I need to keep in mind. Any new API that I might want to be aware of or anything of the sort.
If it's a new technology or if it's something new that I need to learn from scratch, then I take time and setup a blank markdown and a new folder for that particular thing. Last time I spent time digging into this sort of stuff was when I had to put together a small console app that did a backup from one Azure Storage account to another (transferring tables and blobs). I wasn't familiar with the interfaces or the best way to achieve this, so I spent a couple of days putting something together.
Also, because I'm very much still a junior, I started breaking down my tasks and writing checklists using Joplin. Especially for larger tasks, it helps me keep track of what needs to be done, resulting in (hopefully) less mistakes.
Each project has a separate markdown file in the same relative location per folder.
Project file notes follow the same structure: TOC, People (phone, email, etc), Procedures (for example special invoicing procedures), Projects (structure-first), Current Position (What I'm focused on in recent context), Work Journal (Chronology), and meta-log.
I change the above about once a year in big ways, on average, as I find new tools or ways to organize for better results. The last year's big change was adding the Current Position section which I developed and transferred from position trading.
Note taking from a typical work day follows the Task BATL system, link in profile. It's very structured in terms of indented lists with special symbols for example, and usually list item steps are noted in 2-15m increments and 45-60m work periods.
On average days there is a need to moderate the structure, though, and this is also part of the same task system at that link. I consciously attempt to limit that structure to less time than it takes to complete a normal business day. Otherwise there is no time to be unstructured, which I view as an energy- and perspective-building period.
I use a set of common tags that also help me jump through files in any editor, for example +timesheet IN 3P OUT 330P (30m) Upgrade minor version and review all maintenance services.
At a higher level I have built other tools and shortcuts that help me find and navigate the various text files. The most common example would be a keyboard shortcut that opens a search input with very specific parameters. But I've also built gui tools to easily click and browse sets of files, and panel buttons to quickly open specific files. (In addition to the thousands of journal files and project files, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of files for various topics like Wi-Fi gear in my office, phones, my cats, favorite foods, movies, music, specific hobbies like swl, etc. So there's a lot to search.)
I bounce between my project files and daily journal all day, which also helps me keep my work in context, and avoid getting stuck in an overwork cycle. I have journal shortcuts that place a timestamp and a new heading for me so I can get in periodic resets during the day. A new blank space can be really important for a mental reset.
Hope you end up with a setup that works for you.
I really love the [[]] feature of LogSeq and how the datastore is .md files which I can just keep in a folder in gDrive/Dropbox.
1. temporary short term memory aids ... ip address, doodles to help concentrate and picture in your head what someone is talking about, or to stay awake
2. facts, concepts and relations, piecing together knowledge
3. tasks, todo's
4. ... dunno, sure there are more
Its a great tool to dump info as you would on a white board (screenshots, code snippets, bullets, check lists etc etc). Its absolutely not good for writing proper documents.
a bunch of unsaved tabs in Notepad++
folder structure to store the assorted bits of anything useful I did in the day:
~/projects/:
docker/docker-recipes/
$project-name/
$company-name/$project
Everything worth bothering to save to consult later (shell/PS scripts, compose files, text files, transcripts of shell history, ocassional Hugo site...) goes there.