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I'm chronically interested in nearly everything, but usually obsessively interested in only one thing at a time for 6 weeks to 6 months...but the topics resurface.

I've started keeping all my notes in Logseq because being able to pull up a map of all my research about, say, small-plot intensive farming, the three times I've really gotten into that topic over the last 15 years and quickly review what I had already learned saves me so much time. I can expand on previous research rather than forgetting I'd already reviewed some particular source and duplicating the research.

I can't do that yet because I've only been using Logseq for about a year, but I don't expect my personality is going to change enough in the future that this will stop being amazingly useful!

I do Dev and manage servers and databases -- I need one place where I can find all my stuff. Googling and going through 15 links for the same issue every 7 months all over again is a chore -- as a knowledge worker. I need to have a base of stuff I can refer to, my own curated knowledge base.

I need the info to be available to me on multiple pcs and even better from my phone so I can refer to common things immediately.

I write down stuff that I know works correctly, but have to use very infrequently -- my tmux config or the correct network config so hyperv will work.

I use Notion for tons of stuff like that.

I use Miro (diagraming app) when I am trying to understand complex stuff for the first time -- where there are tons dependencies and I have no clue what is going on like an existing large codebase.

Text files tend to become very limiting in how you can express and present the information back to yourself in a meaningful way.

Take a look at https://heptabase.com/. It may help you consolidate... (it's in an beta state, but getting updated weekly.)

thanks! this looks really good, will give it a try. love that they have maps! :)

Oh not to forget the beautiful syntax highlighting for the correct language with the ability to paste images .. text files just cannot compete. Of course they have a place but notion as a tool is quite useful.

Personally, I tend to think that is OK not to use the tool the way they say it should be used on their websites. I use Obsidian but never cared about neither the mapping/backlinks, logging, etc.

However, when needed, it is there. Here is a tiny tip I found a few days back -- try Obsidian with the Plugin Omnisearch[1]. I'm surprised why this is not built-in like Sublime Text. These tools are a beautiful sanctuary -- a happy place -- if you will, for you to write and be at home.

1. https://github.com/scambier/obsidian-omnisearch

Omnisearch plugin developer here.

> I use Obsidian but never cared about neither the mapping/backlinks, logging, etc.

This is exactly why I built the plugin :) It's not that I don't care about tags/links/etc., but every time I tried to use those tools, it was a write-only process. I'll never remember how a note is tagged, or in what folder I "smartly" put it in.

People consider search as a clutch for a lack of organization, but more often than not, these same people spend all their time refining their workflow, try new methods with fancy names, and treat organization as a goal in itself. _That_ I don't care about, I just want to write notes like post-its on a desk, and quickly find them when I need them.

They are not, at least not necessarily. It depends on what you want to do and whether the tool helps in any way to achieve this.

Back when I was doing my PhD, I had lots of PDFs and I had a workflow to mark interesting parts and export them to org-mode with backlinks to the PDF and the citation information. That was already enough for me, although I could imagine I could have used orgmode or another tool for improving the organizing, expanding and reusing of the information.

Nowadays, I mostly care about noting down decisions and action items, primarily in the context of meetings. None of these tools give me an advantage. OneNote on the other hand, despite its shortcomings, integrates with other tools we are using at work and allows sharing with colleagues, which at least is marginally better than a plain text file. Most of the stuff I note down are not relevant within a year, so I don't care about the format, the linking and so on, as long as I can find what I need.

I've tried some techniques or tools after reading HN posts like this one in the past, but I've now accepted that this is not for me. I've decided less note-taking is better and that the medium is not important.

I suppose if you never revisit your own notes then yes, there’s no value in these systems.

Personally I find myself revisiting old notes rather often for a variety of reasons: - writing annual feedback reports on my peers: by taking brief notes in LogSeq journals tagged with their names I can quickly accumulate feedback on how they did over the year or things they could improve - the above applies to self-assessments which are often required when asking for a raise or promotion in a “ok why? What did you achieve this year?” - solving issues specific to my workplace and workflows: while Google and StackOverflow will likely cover 90% of issues you have an arguably there’s no much value in writing about those solutions I often encounter problems specific to my workplace’s infrastructure or services. Taking notes and writing snippets on those is something I often revisit

Top of my head the above reasons make the process worth it for me

I saw some kind of apeal around this time last year and moved to Obsidian.

I’ve been trying to move back to Notes recently.

Obsidian become messy quickly: the temptation to try new ways of working just ended up doing my head in.

Some people can make it work, but the whole thing is fragile. The usual response on the subreddit is ‘you’re doing it wrong’, or ‘you need to be more committed’. Both answers are wrong: people capture, categorise and retrieve information differently and in differ contexts each time.

I learnt to be comfortable with losing information.

I have a very bad brain, logseq helps me answer things i would not be able like when was the last time I've seen someone, what are my most frequented places so I can easily recommend when someone asks, know if I already watched a move before renting it or get nearby concerts so I can plan the weekend before it's too late, quickly find tickets i bought half year ago, how much money did I spent the past trip, and all kind of personal information. all in a single place, just one Ctrl-k away. I only store personal info, no blog posts, technical notes or work stuff.

A few hundred years ago it was common for folks (with the means) to keep commonplace books[0] to track information. What they did, what they read, etc. Outside of school & University, it's very uncommon for people to keep with this tradition. In fact, my son recently graduated HS and it was 10x more common for a teacher to hand out notes than it was for him to take notes, so even that's dying. I'm pretty sure you could deduce my kids' days based on Instagram more than anything.

I think if you assume a world where everyone keeps notes, then these just seem like systems for people that do not have one. But for those that have kept notes, these apps do offer some innovation over the plainest of plain text systems.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonplace_book

This is me as well, i feel like the time i spent on productivity tools > being productive

I’m using simple note taking apps now.

I would consider Obsidian to be simple. It's a markdown editor. You don't have to use all the plugins if you don't want to. I barely use any of the plugins, but it's still a great markdown editor.

File handling and structure is simple from a software design perspective, but Markdown is still infinitely more complicated than Word for most people.

“Just type a hash in front of anything you want to be a heading”… wouldn’t fare well in the average ‘parent test’.

Markdown is less complicated than Word in terms of features.

Don't confuse complexity with familiarity.

I confess having been corrupted from text files to org mode, mostly because of the relative ease of sticking timestamps into notes, having links in the files that don't spew the urls all over, having convenient html export, and being an outliner that can collapse chunks of text. I sometimes use the built-in table/spreadsheet feature. There's a bunch more stuff I don't use.

I do refer to and maintain my org files to some extent. Typically I'll get interested in some topic start an org file where I mostly save links haphazardly, with brief comments. I don't put serious effort into cross-linking related entries which a bunch of notes apps seem to expect you to do. That seems like a waste of time. The org files are just info dumps where I throw whatever info I find into a bin of related items. Once or twice I've written something up for publication based on the notes in one of those files, but that meant writing actual words and sentences in an organized sequence, not cross-linking a bunch of notes to each other.

Because they are so low friction when taking notes, while making easy to find information again. Plain text files are fine if you have specific search terms you can search on. Some times you just know that you might have noted something around a certain date or under a broad tag. Other PKM systems require pruning and sorting. I find my self doing some sorting for notes I frequently used, but others I'm happy to leave un sorted and look up by tag if and when I need them. Logseq is great for code snippets too: https://blog.g9n.com/2022/07/01/managing-code-snippets-in-lo...

I disagree that they’re low friction. When I open up Obsidian, I’m presented with a relatively cluttered interface, and need to select a location to place the note.

In Notes, I just need to start a new note and type.

Obsidian and Logseq are very different methods of note taking. Obsidian is basically a markdown editor with wikilinks. Logseq is an outliner.

You can use Obsidian in that manner. Cmd+N and start typing. There is a setting to have it create the note in your current folder or at the root. If you're used to Notes.app, then root is probably what you want.

Note that https://www.orgroam.com/ gives you both plaintext and knowledge graph features.

I do everything in text files but I do realize that a network view between topics is something potentially very valuable

Literally use whatever system helps you understand subjects. It's that simple.

Anti-Google pessimism probably drives some of the document collecting.