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Comment by munificent | Hacker News Reader

This point is so good and so important:

"Getting lost in your knowledge management system is a fantastic way to avoid creating things. Or calling that friend you’re estranged from. Or doing anything else even mildly threatening. It’s also a fantastic way to convince yourself that unpreparedness is what’s between you and creative work. If you believe you’re unprepared, know that you will never transmute into the perfectly prepared person that you think exists in the future."

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I always framed this more as ‘the tools will not save me’. A better pen won’t make me a better illustrator, no system/framework/methodology will take in garbage and spit out gold. But, in retrospect, I think I should partly blame seeking a foolish level of preparedness. I’ll try to recognise/abstain from this ‘preparbation’ in the future.

I’m absolutely not gifted when it comes to manual crafts, but I’ve found having the right tool for the job brings me from shamefully incapable to acceptably competent.

For example I got into book binding a while back and while I started freehand I quickly built a jig and it vastly improved the quality of the work.

This is true, but still has limits. Moving from Reaper to Ableton Live made music easier to make. But then there's the tendency to wonder if I made the wrong choice between the handful of comparable DAWs like FL Studio or BitWig. The fact that I'm absurdly productive in the one I picked can only do so much to stop that thought process that starts any time one of the others goes on sale.

Yes, there is a deep meta-skill around distinguishing "Am I seeking a better tool because it will help me solve my problem?" or "Am I seeking a better tool to avoid the fear of making difficult design choices?"

Preparbation is a great term :-) I always try to conciously remind myself to avoid diminishing returns when doing this kind of stuff (i.e 80/20 rule), but that sums up nicely with just the right amount of sting.

It's such an easy trap to fall into because it doesn't feel like avoidance out of fear, but it almost certainly is.

One of my mantras lately has been, "If it doesn't make me at least a little uncomfortable, I'm probably avoiding something."

Successful people (judged by their own metrics of success) are generally willing to make short term sacrifices for long term gains.

My reluctance / fear / discomfort often isn’t even recognisable to myself for a while. If and when I do act on it, it quickly subsides and I can do stuff I that’s in some sense still uncomfortable, but that I seem to genuinely enjoy even in the moment - making things, experiencing novelty, being challenged etc. And yet my brain hasn’t put that together.

I sometimes set a repeating personal alarm* that just asks ‘are you doing what you’re meant to be doing?’. I’ll try framing some of how I answer that around discomfort / sacrifice from now on.

*I usually use it when talking with people who meander/derail conversations as much as I do, and we recognise it’s a problem.

But if you do it well, it's the opposite. Luhmann, who came up with Zettelkasten, is known to be one of the most prolific scholars in the last century.

Zettelkasten was essential for this. The thing is that his original system was incredibly simple. I think that's what people are missing. Plain Org or Markdown files on a Git repository are a great way to mimic Zettelkasten. You don't need more and restrictions are actually very liberating.

Org mode is so incredibly powerful but also so painfully beautiful in it's simplicity if you dont go overboard with it

The key is come up with something, then stick to it. Too many people spend months or years chasing perfection that doesn't exist.

Bingo. I’ve bounced around note systems and realized I was just wasting time bouncing around. Now I use Apple’s Notes.app. It syncs and can be used on any of my devices which was my only hard requirement.

And very little customization to constantly tinker with. I also love Apple Notes and have found myself much more productive since I stopped switching apps and settled on using Notes.

same!

blog post from my friend on this topic https://blog.montaigne.io/write-in-apple-notes

I followed the same path. I spent so much time trying to design some elaborate system that I could own from top to bottom but eventually I found that apple notes was “good enough”. And worst case scenario I can copy and paste my notes into a markdown file and deal with it there once syncthing move it to my Linux box.

Being able to pick up any device and seamlessly continue editing the same document without messing with a third party app is pretty nice.

Yeah, part of my search was a bit of 'nerd pride'. Org-mode, text files, markdown, I could have them be in git or used anywhere, etc... I realized all these shifts were just getting in the way of taking notes. When I really distilled it down, my only hard requirement was secure and easy to use and sync on any of my devices. Since I'm all Apple, Notes made the most sense.

same. I have 5000 notes now - without even making conscious decision to use Apple Notes in the first place.

I also make a tool that takes one folder in my apple notes and publishes it as a site. So my site https://podviaznikov.com is basically served from the content of Apple Notes.

Fascinating. Do you mind sharing that tool you made? I'd love to possibly use it myself.

That sounds really cool indeed!!

Ditto, the search really works for me.

I've found Logseq and Previously Roam work well in that they are low friction in recording information, but I'm still able to find information when I need it (most of the time). The nested block system means it's pretty easy to link concepts together without having to find the right place to put information. This ease of workflow helps me to be more creative, in that I can add a note quickly and move on, with out having to search, prune and deliberate on a 'PKM'.

It's not about doing it well versus poorly, it's about the motivation behind it.

If you're building a complex organizational system because it absorbs your time and enables you to avoid confronting the fear of making artistic choices and putting something out into the world, it's not helping.

If you're building a complex organization system because you need it to build the thing you want to put out there, by all means go for it.

It takes a lot of introspection to be able to distinguish these two cases.

This explains why project managers spend their days hiding in JIRA

As a project manager, that is the last place I want to be.

Jira-ish tools help immensely if the project manager changes mid-project… at least some knowledge will be in work items if the previous pm actually did any work.

I think this is only a way to avoid creating things because we don't focus on collaborative note taking systems. Once people start sharing notes, they will start making friends by discovering the people who care about the same topics and create things together. Tweets and blogging are a bit like that but they are curated for a public image.

Add some diffusion models that take over the creative part, and knowledge management systems become a tool to act. Of course, the risk of getting lost in knowledge not only remains but increases.

This is just need of balance and moderation.

Too close to home

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