[cygnion]

Using a multi colored pen has helped me mark important information and add my personal context. For example, during meetings or brainstorming I'll mark up information using different colors (red- to do, green- new idea, pencil- plain, sequential notes). I found a good one that has all the colors I need and a mechanical pencil [1]. There is overhead of thinking which color to use, but the value of having the context later is much more.

1. https://www.amazon.com/Zebra-Clip-Multi-Functional-Barrel-B4...

[rgoulter]

I also like coloured notes.

I have some pictures of some here: https://medium.com/@richard.goulter/how-i-write-my-notes-94f...

My schema: red: problems/WTF!/etc., green: questions, blue: facts/reference, black: thoughts/everything else.

[cygnion]

Neat! interesting to see your context management system. Thanks for sharing your notes. I like to sketch ideas, so use pencil so that I can erase and refine. Curious, how do you manage information from digital content, e.g., notes from reading technical/research articles or blog posts?

[rgoulter]

> how do you manage information from digital content, e.g., notes from reading technical/research articles or blog posts?

If I could always remember the right keywords to search for the articles I had in mind, I'd just do that.

For online content, most of the time I'll wait for a later 'cache miss' before any bookmarks/notes. (I'd either come across content when procrastinating on HN/etc., or from looking for it while doing a task. For the former, it's low-effort consumption. For the latter, it's hard to know if it's going to something I have difficulty finding later. IMO, it's not worth putting easy-to-Google things in; lots of stuff is easy to Google for).

For storing stuff, I prefer bookmarks to end up in pinboard, and notes to end up somewhere in org-mode. I've found the zetteldeft package to be useful for me. https://www.eliasstorms.net/zetteldeft/ (builds upon deft. https://jblevins.org/projects/deft/ ). - If in rare cases I find I want to remember some key idea or jargon without having to look it up, then I'll go to the effort of adding it to Anki.

[cygnion]

Thanks for sharing! I was also curious if you apply your paper-pen markup style to digital content. Btw, is there a way to send private/direct messages here on HN? thanks.