Comment by bliff | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bliff | Hacker News Reader

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My system lately has been to write every note as a raw text file that I save to a git repository on the fly. Later I process these notes and give them Zettlekasten style IDs. This step forces me to organize the knowledge: either everything gets a fresh ID (e.g. "25"), or it gets a derived ID that relates it to whatever subject or task it's related to (e.g. "44a3b9"). But it also means I can stream thoughts into a lightweight inbox without having to do the organizing upfront.

I then have derived categories from the main stream of thoughts. If the thought is a task, I further process these into categories. I have recurring tasks and events that I handle on a "Time" page that is effectively a calendar, and I have one-off tasks that go into a Kanban style backlog.

What I really got from Zettlekasten is that trying to establish your system upfront is a mistake. Things inevitably leak through your categories and then you lose faith in your system. By just having a running stream of thoughts and then relating them after the fact and deriving categories afterward, you get the benefits of organization without a lot of its failure modes.

Awesome. Glad to see that separating the "getting stuff down" from organizing has worked for you too.

Do you create a new raw text file for each note? How long does it typically take you to do the organizing process?

> trying to establish your system upfront is a mistake. Things inevitably leak through your categories and then you lose faith in your system.

I don't know if it's a mistake. I think you need to embrace the fact that your current system won't be perfect, and you'll need to adjust as you go. It doesn't mean you shouldn't start with something.

I do create a new text file each time, although it's sort of arbitrary what I group. Sometimes I will put my entire day's notes for a given book in one file. Other times I'll have atomic notes for each thought.

The organization process is wholly dependent on how much I come up with in a day/week. I mostly read for fun now, so I don't have to rigorously organize lecture notes or anything like that for later use. On the other hand I'm pretty rigorous with how I process tasks. As a ballpark figure I'd say 30-60 minutes per week, or 5-10 minutes per night.

To your latter point, I think that's fair. The main idea is to be flexible and recognize when you need new categories or whatever (and when you can dump unhelpful ones).

Thanks for explaining! It sounds like you have a strong process going.

> I do create a new text file each time, although it's sort of arbitrary what I group. It's great that you do what works for you without obsessing. Too often people chase after a rigid/"perfect" system and that's just not realistic.

In my experience, the more modular you can go (without it stopping your flow), the better. Because it'll be easier in that organize step.

I've found that by thinking about my raw notes as a chat with myself, I'm able to increase the modularity without hurting my flow.

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